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October, 2003, Charleston South Carolina
Since November 1986, when she was hired from Lehigh University by MSC to run the CMH-17 Secretariat (I always personally thought of her as the queen of Mil-17), Crystal Newton has served this group with great dedication and enthusiasm. Her grasp of the contents of the handbook, chapter and verse, is legendary. No meeting would be complete without some well-meaning novice suggesting one or another improvement or addition, evoking Crystal's exhortation that "It's in the book!". Her encyclopedic knowledge of the contents of the handbook is accompanied by a real understanding of the underlying science and technology. She combines a scientist's heart with an editor's eye.
Crystal has served the handbook within the Secretariat at MSC, as an active contributor to many of the working groups and in the last several years as chair of the Guidelines Building Block Task Group. In addition, she has worked on a number of shorter term, but nonetheless critical jobs, such as the effort to develop standing operating procedures for the handbook, or even serving on the awards committee. For almost 20 years she has labored valiantly to keep us all on the same page, editorially, technically, and in what the greater goal of the handbook has been and remains - to take a technology that has kept us all fascinated and fed (some of us for many years) and make it more accessible and safer for everyone.
Thank you Crystal. You have been corporate memory and conscience of the handbook, and now, as we honor you with this token of our esteem, I think it's safe to declare you - Queen Mother of CMH-17.