Daniel C. Edson, President of American Proficiency Institute in Traverse City, MI has been named the Outstanding Alumnus for 2002 by Michigan State University, College of Natural Science Alumni Association.

Dan is a regular guest lecturer at Michigan State, serves as host for undergraduate student projects, and also co-chaired the 75th anniversary celebration of the Medical Technology program at MSU last October.

He received his Master's Degree from Michigan State in 1979 where he developed the first screening test for Legionnaire's Disease and, through a seroepidemiological survey, pointed investigators toward a "summer" link (the 1976 outbreak was traced to contaminated cooling reservoirs for the air conditioning units at the Legionnaires' hotel). Since then he has co-authored nearly 20 scientific publications relating to laboratory quality assurance including landmark papers during his 10 years as Surveys Manager for the College of American Pathologists that: 1) reduced quality control requirements for susceptibility testing from daily to weekly saving U.S. hospitals an estimated $50 million annually, 2) reduced quality control requirements for commercially-prepared microbiology media from daily to 'each lot', and 3) pointed out laboratory errors in detecting drug resistant strains of Streptococcus pneumoniae and Staph aureus.

In 1991, Dan co-founded American Proficiency Institute (with Leith Butler, API Vice President) with novel ideas for new proficiency samples and new computer programs to assess the accuracy of laboratory tests performed in point-of-care sites and physician offices. Although API began in Dan's living room with less than 100 customers, by 1994 that enrollment had grown to nearly 5000. Today API is the second largest proficiency testing provider in the world with nearly 11,000 subscribers. API revolutionized proficiency testing by providing unique samples, unparalled customer service, and online reporting & access of PT results. API is the largest Federal Express customer north of Lansing with their own packaging & shipping facility as well as a state-of-the-art computer system.

Recently, API has also developed two proficiency testing programs that meet the special needs of the food industry - Food Microbiology and Food Chemistry. The Food Microbiology program uses stable, lyophilized samples (traceable to reference cultures) to assess both the qualitative and quantitative accuracy of industry labs. The Food Chemistry program allows labs to test infant cereal, meat, or dairy products for nutritional labeling analytes such as total fat, protein, sugars, cholesterol, vitamins, and minerals. About 500 labs are enrolled in the food proficiency programs including those from Pillsbury, Ocean Spray, Hersheys, General Mills, and Nabisco.

Dan is on the State of Michigan Bioterrorism Task Force and is also active in national and regional microbiology groups.

In the Traverse City community, Dan is president of the Community Health Clinic Board of Directors (a free medical clinic for those with no health insurance staffed by volunteer physicians, nurses, and dentists), has funded development of a science module for sixth grade students used in Traverse City elementary schools, and served on the Montessori Childrens Center Board of Directors. He is married with 3 children, one of whom is an undergraduate at Michigan State University.