Photos, Heroes and Reunions That Keep Us Going

Recently, I attended the memorial service for an 86-year-old man — a former high school teacher of mine who, more than four decades ago, taught me lessons that never showed up on a transcript. He taught drama, theatre and student government. Long before that, he served in the U.S. Army — part of a generation whose sense of duty didn’t end with military service, but carried into classrooms, communities and lives like mine.

The service brought together students from across the decades. At least 10 of us from my graduating class were there, joined by many others from different years, different decades — but all connected by a shared identity. We were Musketeers, after all. Our lives are stitched together by our alma mater, by the same hallways, many of the same teachers, the same early experiences of finding purpose and voice.

What struck me wasn’t just the memory of the man we were honoring — it was the way time seemed to collapse in on itself. Some of us hadn’t seen each other in over 30 or 40 years. A literal lifetime had passed: marriages, children, careers, setbacks, growth. And yet, once together, the conversation flowed as if we had just walked out of a classroom. The familiarity was instant.

Our group photo that day displayed more than just who showed up. It showed our bond. And, yes, it showed our wrinkles.

That moment of reconnection — decades collapsing into a single afternoon — echoed something I’ve long felt at the core of our profession: food safety has its own kind of reunions.

Whether it’s IAFP, Food Safety Summit, NEHA, the Food Safety Consortium, the National Restaurant Association Show or some other event, these gatherings are not just about knowledge sharing. They are about culture.

We come from government, industry and academia, but when we gather, it’s as if we graduated from the same school of hard-earned experience. We speak the same language. We’ve shared the same challenges. And we all understand, in our own ways, what it means to care deeply about protecting public health — often without recognition, often under pressure and always with the understanding that the stakes are life or death.

There is a kind of emotional infrastructure that supports our technical work, and these gatherings reveal it. We show up for the science or the regulatory updates, but we stay for the people. The hallway conversations, the shared memories of past recalls and regulatory battles, the excitement over a new tool or a young professional’s first big idea — these are not distractions. They are affirmations. They remind us why this work matters, and more importantly, why we matter to each other.

We come from government, industry and academia, but when we gather, it’s as if we graduated from the same school of hard-earned experience.

Food safety is a field that demands Herculean effort — not just in the lab or the boardroom, but in the resilience required to carry the weight of responsibility, day after day, often without thanks.

What sustains us is not just data. It’s culture. A culture that’s built in those quiet conversations between sessions, those nods of recognition across a room, those shared laughs over long-forgotten outbreak cases.

A food safety culture is not something you write into policy or submit in a grant proposal. It’s something you live. It’s something you pass on to others. And it’s something that shapes the next generation of leaders in ways we may never fully see.

At the memorial, one story after another revealed what it truly means to live a life of service. Again and again, former students spoke of how our teacher carried that responsibility — with humility, purpose and impact.

Today, I see that same spirit in the people who work every day to make our food safe. Their work rarely makes headlines. But it saves lives. It protects families. It strengthens entire communities.

At these professional gatherings, I find hope — in the people I meet, in the stories I hear, in the quiet courage of food safety heroes past, present and future. People driven not just by policy or process, but by compassion, commitment and connection.

That hope? It’s immeasurable. And it’s what keeps me showing up.

So if you see me at a conference, come say hello. Let’s snap a selfie — another thread in the fabric of the work we share. Because in food safety, as in life, the greatest legacy is this:

All for one. And one for all.