2024 Board of Directors Election Nominees

President-Elect:
Gary W. Procop, MD, MS

Chief Executive Officer, American Board of Pathology, American Board of Pathology

Gary W. Procop, MD, MS is the Chief Executive Officer of the American Board of Pathology. He spent most of his career at the Cleveland Clinic where he held several leadership positions, and remains a Consulting Staff at Cleveland Clinic and a Professor of Pathology at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine.

Dr. Procop completed a Bachelor of Science at Eastern Michigan University, followed by an MD and MS at Marshall University School of Medicine. Residency training in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology was completed at Duke University Medical Center, followed by a Clinical Microbiology Fellowship at the Mayo Clinic. He is a diplomat of the American Board of Pathology in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology and Medical Microbiology. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, the College of American Pathologists, the American Society for Clinical Pathology, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

He has given more than 690 scientific presentations, and has 234 published manuscripts, 51 chapters, and has three books to his credit. He is a Member of the Board of Directors and the past Chair and current Vice Chair of the Antifungal Subcommittee of the Clinical & Laboratory Standards Institute. He is also a Member of the Board of Directors of the American Board of Medical Specialties, and has held leadership positions in several other national Pathology and Microbiology organizations.

Major recognitions include the ASM BD Award for Research in Clinical Microbiology, the CAP Distinguished Patient Care Award, the Cleveland Clinic John Beach Hazard Teaching Award, the ASCP Mastership Designation, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine Scholarship in Teaching Award, and the Belinda Yen-Lieberman, PhD, and James M. Lieberman, MD, Endowed Chair in Clinical Microbiology. His primary interests are using assessment to drive learning, developing and promoting best practices in laboratory testing, infectious disease pathology, mycology, and parasitology. He is currently working on a Masters of Education in Health Professions through Johns Hopkins University.

Secretary:
Paula Snippes Vagnone, MT(ASCP)

Supervisor, Microbiology Laboratory, Infectious Disease Section, State Public Health Laboratory, Minnesota Department of Health St. Paul, Minnesota, Laboratory Coordinator, Antibiotic Resistance Laboratory Network - Central Region, Laboratory Coordinator, Antibiotic Resistance Laboratory Network - Central Region

Paula Vagnone, MT (ASCP) is the Microbiology Unit Supervisor in the Infectious Disease Laboratory (IDL) of the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH), overseeing the general microbiology, mycobacterial, fungal, and antibiotic/antifungal testing areas of the laboratory. She serves as the Laboratory Coordinator of the Antibiotic Resistance Laboratory Network Central Region, a liaison-type role between the MDH Central Region Lab, the eight state public health laboratories and the epidemiology health care–associated infection coordinators in the region. Paula has been with the MDH IDL since 2000, initially working for 12 years as a bioterrorism response microbiologist and serving as the Minnesota Laboratory System Program Advisor, liaising with all clinical laboratories in Minnesota. She then moved to her current supervisory position.

Paula obtained her BS in Medical Technology at the University of North Dakota and then spent 12 years as a clinical microbiologist in a large St. Paul hospital. She has always been interested in quality laboratory practices and has served as the Chair of the Association of Public Health Laboratories’ (APHL) Laboratory Systems & Standards Committee for seven years. Ms. Vagnone was a member of the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Advisory Committee (CLIAC) from July 2012 through June 2016. She participates in the CLSI Subcommittee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing, is a member of the Outreach and M52 revision Working Groups, and currently serves on the CLSI Board of Directors (December 2019-present).

Director – Professions Constituency:
Loralie Langman, PhD, DABCC, FACB F-ABFT

Professor, Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, Mayo Clinic

Dr. Langman completed her PhD in Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the University of Alberta, Canada. She completed her Clinical Chemistry training at the University of Toronto, specializing in Forensic Toxicology and Molecular Genetics.

She is a Fellow with the Canadian Academy of Clinical Biochemistry and is the first individual to have achieved Diplomat status with the American Board of Clinical Chemistry in all three disciplines (Clinical Chemistry, Molecular Diagnostics, and Toxicological Chemistry). She is also a Fellow with the American Board of Forensic Toxicology. She is currently one of the Directors of the Clinical and Forensic Toxicology Laboratory, Clinical Mass Spectroscopy Laboratory, and a Consultant for the Personalized Genomics Laboratory, Mayo Clinic Rochester, MN and Professor of Laboratory Medicine in Pathology, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.

Her involvement with CLSI began when she chaired her first document development committee (DDC) in 2007. Since then she has been on three DDCs, served as a member of the Area Committee for Clinical Chemistry and Toxicology (now known as the Expert Panel on Clinical Chemistry and Toxicology) for four years, and then served as its Vice-Chairholder for four years. She is also a charter member of Consensus Council, which was formed in 2016.

Director - Industry Constituency:
Michael Loeffelholz, PhD, D(ABMM)

Vice President, Scientific Affairs at Cepheid
Adjunct Professor of Pathology at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), Galveston

Michael J. Loeffelholz, PhD, D(ABMM) is Vice President, Scientific Affairs at Cepheid, and Adjunct Professor of Pathology at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), Galveston. He received a PhD in microbiology from Ohio University in Athens, OH in 1987. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship in medical and public health microbiology at the University of Rochester in 1990, he was a Senior Scientist at Roche Molecular Systems from 1990-1995. From 1995-2008 Dr. Loeffelholz held leadership positions in public health laboratories and private reference laboratories. From 2008-2018 he held the rank of Associate Professor, then Full Professor, with tenure, in the Department of Pathology at University of Texas Medical Branch, and Medical Director of the Clinical Microbiology Laboratory. Dr. Loeffelholz joined Cepheid in 2018. He served as a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Deputy Director of Infectious Diseases from 2015 to 2022. Dr. Loeffelholz previously served as editor of the Journal of Clinical Microbiology. He is currently a member of the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) Expert Panel on Point-of-Care-Testing. He has authored over 100 research and review papers and book chapters.   

Director - Government Constituency:
Debra Kuehl, MS, MT(ASCP)

Deputy Associate Director for Laboratory Science
National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases

Debbie Kuehl has over 25 years of experience working in or in support of laboratory sciences with a focus on policy and quality. She currently works for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Disease (NCIRD) as the acting Associate Director for Laboratory Science (ADLS). As ADLS, Debbie provides advocacy and oversight to the Center’s laboratory activities. 

Prior to working at CDC, she was a medical technologist for Quest Diagnostics in the Microbiology Department. Debbie began her career at CDC in 2001 when she joined the HIV laboratory, where she worked in the clinical lab and then moved to the non-HIV retrovirus lab where she managed the daily operations for the team. In 2006, the International Laboratory Branch recruited Debbie to lead them to accreditation by the College of American Pathologists (CAP), the first CDC laboratory to achieve this recognition of quality. Additionally, her international work in support of Global Aids Program countries included assisting the CDC Uganda laboratory in Entebbe with achieving their goal of CAP accreditation and the National Laboratory in Guyana with achieving their accreditation goals. 

In 2008, Debbie moved to the Division of Laboratory Science and Standards where she led several collaborative efforts to create educational materials on good laboratory practices for patients, health professionals, and laboratories. In 2011, she accepted a detail as the Associate Director for Policy within the Division of Laboratory Policy and Practice (DLPP) which had oversight over the CDC long-term specimen storage facility (CASPIR), the technology transfer office, FDA compliance, select agent compliance, and laboratory training. While working for DLPP, Debbie collaborated with the Office of Sustainability to co-lead the 2012 CDC Freezer Challenge which resulted in a savings of over $127,000/year in operating costs and a reduction of energy use by more than 3220,000 kWh, equivalent to the yearly energy consumption of 36 single family homes. In 2017, she worked with collaborators outside of CDC to hold the North American Freezer Challenge which was highlighted in Nature. The group expanded to the International Challenge for 2018.

Debbie became the ADLS for the Division of Bacterial Diseases from 2014 to 2017, when she moved to the Center to serve as the deputy ADLS for NCIRD.

Debbie is an active member of the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute, where she vice-chairs the Expert Panel on Quality Management Systems that oversees several Quality Management document development committees. She was the CDC Employee of the Month in January 2013, CDC Sustainability Star in August 2013, winner of the 2012, 2017, 2019, 2020 HHS Green Champions awards, 2021 Government Innovation award, and 2013 Presidential GreenGov award.