IEEE-USA Event Blog

2011 IEEE-USA Annual Meeting Videos Are Now LIVE!

2011-03-09T13:50:00.000-06:00

If you missed the 2011 IEEE-USA Annual Meeting or want to re-watch something you saw again -- all the keynotes, luncheon speakers and candidates forums are available for viewing now online!

http://www.ieeeusa.org/calendar/conferences/annualmeeting/2011/video/default.asp

Closing Remarks

2011-03-07T17:42:00.002-06:00

Speaker: Ron Jensen, President, IEEE-USA

Ron thanked the organizers, staff and attendees. He looked forward to seeing everyone next year in Cincinnati, Ohio and wished everyone safe travels home.

We'll see everyone next year. Let us know if you want to be a blogger.

Lessons in Life and Leadership

2011-03-07T17:23:00.002-06:00

…As Inspired by True Stories of Space Exploration

Speaker: James W. Kennedy, Former Director, John F. Kennedy Space Center

Jim told us story after story about things he learned during his time at NASA. These stories ultimately inspired his creation of some of the 52 tips that he lives by. In the time he was given, he touch on the following 16:

Tip #3: Act With Integrity (story about Bob Cabana, former director of the Kennedy Space Center)
Tip #5: Go the Extra Mile (story about Suni Williams, Astronaut & former deputy director of KSC)
Tip #7: Don't Be Afraid of Failure
Tip #10: Be Proud of Who You Are (story about Sgt. Marek)
Tip #12: Pause to Celebrate Your Accomplishments (story about Roy D. Bridges)
Tip #13: Change is NOT a Bad Thing (story about accepting diversity in the control center)
Tip #15: Keep a Sense of Humor (story about Pete Conrad)
Tip #16: Things Are Not Always What They Appear (story about the Pillars of Creation)
Tip #19: Ships In Harbor Are Safe, But That's Not What Ships Are For (story about Apollo I)
Tip #30: Teamwork Makes the Team Work (must have trust and all voices need to be heard)
Tip #32: LOL...Even At Yourself (story about Brewster Shaw)
Tip #33: Take Time to Mentor...It's Not a Trivial Pursuit (story about Bob Crippen)
Tip #36: It's a Grand Old Flag...Honor It (story about John Young)
Tip #39: Make Beautiful Music...In Your Own Special Way (story about Mannheim Steamroller)

All of it was very touching make you really want to be a better person and leader.

Government Fellowships & Washington Internships for Students of Engineering (WISE)

2011-03-07T17:16:00.000-06:00

Marc Apter, a Committee Member for the IEEE-USA Government Fellowships program, introduced the audience to the available fellowships on “The Hill” (Congress) and at the U.S. Department of State. Highlighted in his presentation, the key objectives of the program, which has had over 90 fellows since 1973, are:

Give IEEE Members first-hand experience with the legislative and foreign policymaking processes
Improve their understanding of how public policy impacts the science and technical professions
Provide much needed technical advice and information to Congress and State Department
Most importantly, to encourage interest and participation in public policymaking among the IEEE-USA membership

The main qualifications for the program are: IEEE membership, U.S. Citizenship, and a degree in an IEEE designated filed with professional experience varying by the degree level. PhD and Post-Docs applicants do not require professional work experience. For a State Department fellowship, candidates must additionally possess or be able to obtain a security clearance prior to the beginning of the fellowship. Along with a stipend and relocation allowance, Marc Apter encouraged everyone to get the word out among IEEE members about this great opportunity to impact science and technology policy. Applications are available at the IEEE-USA Government Fellowships website.

The current Chair for the Government Fellowships Committee, Sherry Gillespie, shared her experience as 2008 Congressional Fellow in the Office of Sen. Joe Lieberman. She emphasized that Fellows will learn about politics, policy, and procedure. Sherry also shared some advice about the placement process for Fellows. As Fellows search for a Congressional Office, a key issue is to remember that while they are interviewing you, you are also interviewing them. Fellows should determine if they will enjoy working in that Office and to what science and technology issues they could contribute. Fellows can have a real impact on science and technology policy as Sherry’s work became a part of the National Defense Authorization Act 2009 (Sec. 254 Trusted Defense Systems).

Next, Nastassja Lewinski, a PhD candidate at Rice University, spoke about her experience in the Washington Internships for Students of Engineering (WISE) program. As an intern, she enjoyed meeting with several governmental agencies and worked on nanotechnology policy analyzing the toxic scale determinations that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) makes for nanomaterials. The WISE program inspired her to be involved more in government and policy. Her paper was published in the WISE Journal of Engineering & Public Policy.

Finally, I spoke about my experience in the WISE program where I studied patent reform from the small business perspective. I gave an overview of my paper as I talked about United States Patent and Trademark Office’s fees, the issues of patent examiners turnover rate, and damages for infringement cases. One of the highlights of my experience with WISE was meeting judicial clerks at the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that hears all patent related cases . After finishing my graduate work at Stanford University, I plan on attending law school as I aspire to a similar career path where I can affect patent law in a direct way.

Resume Writing

2011-03-06T09:10:00.000-06:00

Tarek Lahdhiri gave a riveting presentation about resumes -- he even shared his own resume with the audience as an example!

Tarek keeps a “catalog” of his work experiences (many pages long) and pulls from all of his past work experiences and projects he has worked on to create the best, most appropriate, resume each time he needs one. He suggests updating this “catalog” every six months so that you don’t have time to forget what you’ve done.

He described the two major types of resumes -- chronological and functional.

Chronological resume:

Objective
Qualifications
Work experience (main part)

Different jobs at the same company count as separate items
List each item in reverse chronological order

Education

Functional resume (useful when changing career):

Objective
Qualifications (main part)
Work Experience
Education

He said cover letters should be no more than one page in length and the first paragraph should tell why you are the best candidate.

Job references can be collected on the job or collected from your network. But if you’re going to include them, always notify your reference before you use them.

Volunteer Engagement

2011-03-06T08:48:00.004-06:00

Peggy Hutcheson, CEO of The Odyssey Group and co-chair IEEE-USA Innovation Institute gave a dynamic presentation on how a great leader engages the volunteers, what the challenges may be and how to overcome them.

She began with engaging the attendees in an exercise by splitting them into groups and having them address the four basic questions that beg the response to "volunteer engagement".

What is leadership challenge for you?
Why should anyone be lead by you?
What is one thing you know about engaging volunteers?
What makes a leader great (not just good)?

Of course there were various responses but the items that were common among all groups responses was motivation. Besides sharing a vision, inspiring others to believe in your vision and getting them excited to contribute was the key to engaging the volunteers.

She also shared the "Ten things I’ve learned"
1. Volunteer for what you are passionate about
- Where you want to make a difference
- Whom you want to serve
- How do you want to work
2. Build a collaborative environment in which others can give and receive based on their interests and goals.
3. Listen, listen, listen.
- Hear from all your groups
- Pay attention to what is said and what isn’t
- Know your listening skills and liabilities
- Are you listening when…you’ve heard it all before, information is coming from chronic whiner, you know the answer before the person is finished speaking, the person doesn’t know how things work, it’s difficult to concentrate because the person speaks slowly, rambles, or has other distracting mannerisms and one “horse” rider – single focused and can’t see beyond that one issue.

Peggy Challenged attendees to consider – true listening skills…

4. You can’t do it all…so focus on a few key things that will make a difference.
a. What brings the group together
b. What is the main vision?
Know the difference between success and fulfillment!

Success- the achievement of something desired, planned or attempted – accomplishment
Fulfillment- to develop the full potentional of something. A sense of satisfaction.

It’s good to have success but if not fulfillment, it’s difficult to keep people engaged…they burn out.
5. Make it easy for others to succeed and reward them when they do. WIIFM (What's in it for me)?
6. Over-communicate—both about the big stuff and little stuff…remind people!!! People need to hear the message again and again.
7. This is volunteer work – make it more fun than the same old work. – each person is different; food helps; laughter is welcome.
8. Success requires structure and organization.
- Manage meetings and events
- Think through the details
- Plan and follow-up
9. Be clear – about your vision, expectations, results you desire – and what you think it will take to get there.
Allow people to network and give them structure. Help them get to the vision.
10. Look for talent and develop it.
- Coaching and mentoring are part of your job.
- Find your successor and prepare him or her.
What would you add? – Effective volunteer leadership
Keeping young engineers involved is a challenge – get them connected to network via conferences etc.

Peggy ended the presentation with few thoughts to challenge us in understanding why we are here.

Where is my sandbox in “IEEE” and how do I move around to others when it’s time. Each volunteer should know and understand their reasons for being involved and what makes it fulfulling for them.

Thank You Peggy for a wonderful informative and engaging presentation.

Sections Congress

2011-03-06T08:47:00.002-06:00

Speaker: Ed Perkins

Every three years, the IEEE MGA holds an all regions conference named Sections Congress. The Sections Congress invites delegates from sections all over the world to come together and this year will be held from August 19-22 2011 in San Francisco. The conference typically encompasses a lot of training for sections and their volunteers, a chance for sections to provide recommendations and feedback and of course, plenty of opportunities for network. Unlike conferences in the past, they are encouraging you to bring your family this year so they have put together a partners program. There is special program this year that is not included in the registration. For an additional nominal fee, there is a dinner at the new Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. Please consider sending a delegate from your section. The first one is paid for by the MGA.

IEEE-USA Legislative Update

2011-03-06T08:29:00.000-06:00

IEEE-USA’s public policy priorities this year will be innovation and competitiveness, energy, broadband networks, high skills immigration, patent reform, e-health, and engineering workforce security.

Career & Workforce Policy Committee issues are education and lifelong learning, health care and retirement income security, high skills immigration, and STEM workforce development.

Education and lifelong learning initiatives include:

Focus - K-12 math and science, post-secondary engineering and continuing education programs
K-12 Bills - ESEA/NCLB re-authorization and Federal agency appropriations (Dept of Ed, DoE, NASA, NSF)
New - Engineering Education for Innovation (E2) Act
Partners - STEM Education Coalition, E2 Coalition

Health & Retirement Security

Focus - Health care - affordability for small businesses and the self-employed
Focus - Retirement - tax-favored retirement savings plans and social security
Bills - TBD
Partners - National Association for the Self-Employed, Retirement Savings Coalition

High Skills Immigration

Focus - Permanent, employment-based admissions; foreign students with advanced degrees in STEM fields from U.S. schools; the temporary H-1B and L-1 work visa programs; and visa processing inefficiencies
Bills - House bills sponsored by Representatives Issa and Flake and draft legislation being prepared for introduction by Lofgren
Partners - employer, educational, immigrant, and other professional organizations

STEM Workforce Development

Focus - engineering education and training programs in high demand industries, including aerospace and defense, computer and information technology and electric power
Bills - TBD
Partners - IEEE technical societies, engineering organizations and industry trade associations

Intellectual Property

Vote in the Senate next week on patent reform bill S.23
Bill eliminates first-to-file grace period
Intellectual Property Committee opposes S.23

How IEEE Members Can Help

Get to know your U.S. Senators and Representatives
Communicate with them on issues of special concern on a regular basis
Get involved in politics

Saturday Night Awards Banquet & Ceremony: IEEE-USA Presents its 2010 Awards

2011-03-06T08:23:00.000-06:00

On Saturday night, IEEE-USA delivered its 2010 awards in recognition of professional, technical and literary contributions to public awareness and understanding of the engineering profession in the United States. Congratulations to all of the award winners!

IEEE USA presented a $2500 scholarship to IEEE Student Member, Zachary Phillips. Zachary’s entry took first place in the IEEE’s fourth annual “How Engineers Make a World of Difference” online video competition. Check out Zachary's video:

John Meredith

Robert S. Walleigh Distinguished Contributions to Engineering Professionalism Award

John Meredith – For passionate leadership in promoting lifelong learning for IEEE members

Award for Distinguished Public Service

Bart Gordon – For promoting science and engineering in the U.S. Congress

Citation of Honor

Bart Gordon

Harold Adams – For leadership in creating the IEEE-USA National Energy Policy Position Statement
C.J. Chung – For creating Robofest to inspire interest in engineering among precollege students
Thomas Gentile – For leadership in creating the IEEE-USA National Energy Policy Position Statement

A. Mayer Sasson – For leadership in creating the IEEE-USA National Energy Policy Position Statement

Regional Professional Leadership Award

Ashutosh Dutta – For fostering industry relations in Region 1
Jignasa Ray – For revitalizing student activities in Region 1

Professional Achievement for Individuals

William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer

Mohamad Berri – For leadership in recruiting students and promoting IEEE membership
Russell Lefevre – For leading the collaboration between IEEE and other engineering societies to form the Technologies for Carbon Management Initiative
Bob Parro – For precollege mentoring through the U.S. FIRST Robotics Competition
Veronika Rabl – For leading the collaboration between IEEE and other engineering societies to form the Technologies for Carbon Management Initiative
Saifar Rahman – For leading the collaboration between IEEE and other engineering societies to form the Technologies for Carbon Management Initiative
Abby Vogel Robinson – For leadership in the design and launch of the new IEEE-USA in Action, an interactive, online publication
Dorota Temple – For mentoring early career engineers in technical excellence and professional ethics
Christos Zahopoulos – For sparking precollege interest in technology and engineering careers through the RE-SEED program

Professional Achievement for Organizations

Rockwell Collins, Inc. – For sustained support of IEEE professional development activities

Colonel Mason

Award for Distinguished Literary Contributions Furthering the Public Understanding of the Profession

William Kamkwamba & Bryan Mealer – For telling the inspiring story of how engineering can change the world with their book, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
Colonel Mason – For increasing public understanding of the profession through the weekly radio program, The Promise of Tomorrow

Award for Distinguished Literary Contributions Furthering Engineering Professionalism

Robert Kanigel

Robert Kanigel – For his substantial body of work on science, technology and engineering and their place in the world

Harry Diamond Award

Rabinder Nath Mdan – For leadership in the development of high resolution tracking sensors for defense systems

Precollege Teacher-Engineer Partnership Award

Percy F. Shadwell & Marion Zeiner – For instilling enthusiasm in engineering and technology by mentoring students at Episcopal High School in Jacksonville, Florida

Rabinder Madan

Entrepreneur Achievement Award

Dileep Rao – For contributions in the areas of entrepreneurship, innovation and development of future engineering businesses

IEEE-USA PACE Training and Quickstart Program

2011-03-05T17:41:00.002-06:00

Jim Look (IEEE Center for Leadership Excellence)

This is an initiative that meets the needs of members and current officers by focusing upon the comprehensive training of future leaders. As a result of recommendations from the 2005 and 2008 Section Congress workshops, projects were started to develop leadership training modules that focused upon the development of leadership skills. In essence 'Quickstart' training is a quick and efficient way to become familiar with a new position.

Questions:

1) What does Quickstart training mean to me?

->In the past leaders were given a box of materials from previous leaders upon the start of their tenure shown how to fill out forms. This was considered 'formal leadership training'. Who do I call for help? The problem is that this methodology is purely procedure focused. 'Quickstart', on the other hand, emphasizes functionality, connectivity, and execution and not just procedure. 'Quickstart' is available on www.ieee.org today and provides new officers with a quick reference quide that is self-paced and requires 30-45 minutes to complete. The program covers the full leadership module.

2) Where do I find it?

Google: 'IEEE cle'

3) What is the 'Center for Leadership Excellence' (CLE)-

This is an officer training handbook that came as a result of Sections Congress with the purpose to ensure quality member opportunities. Common leadership responsibilities for each officer position were identified and 10 subject categories to reflect there areas were designed.

There are 4 phases to the CLE:

a) web/email-based "quick start" info essential for the 1st 30 days in office
b) more advanced "rest of the story" material for individual: web or class
c) individualized modules in valuable skills and knowledge
d) modules designed for leadership

Quick start training is the 1st major deliverable to this goal and training is complete for:

Chair
Vice-chair
Secretary
Treasurer
Chapter Chair
Affinity Chair

PACE:

Bob Dawson (Chair of the IEEE-USA Professional Activities Committee for Engineers)

PACE is a network of volunteers and committees organized at the section and chapter level that provides professional activities for the membership. PACE programs and projects can be conferences, workshops, publications, government involvement, community service, etc).

-One of the most celebrated facts in IEEE is that the members are at the top of the board structure.
-IEEE has 10 technical divisions and 10 regions.
-IEEE-USA has 4 VPs and Professional Activities has 4 committees (SPAC, Government activities, Annual Meeting, and PACE).

Professional Development Seminars (PDS) are professional seminars that focus upon enhancing the soft skills of members. The topics addressed include:

-technical growth
-personal growth
-dynamic adaptability
-"the edge"

Society PACE programs can be keynote luncheons, workshops, or singular projects. PACE project forms are needed in order to receive funding for a PACE program and must be given to the appropriate regional/divisional PACE chairs as well as the appropriate IEEE-USA staff. The forms are available at: www.ieeeusa.org/volunteers/pace/funding.asp

RESOURCES->

IEEE-USA PACE web page (www.ieeeusa.org/volunteers/pace)

*Within IEEE, there is financial assistance from region/division for activities, IEEE speakers via the various speaker lists, region/divisional library (audio and video tapes)
*Outside IEEE-> local chamber of commerce, lawyers on legal aspects of the profession, local business leaders, accountants, financial planners
*From IEEE-USA Washington office - brochures and literature, the "engineers guide to employability".

IEEE-USA Meet the Candidates (IEEE-USA President and Member at Large)

2011-03-05T17:15:00.004-06:00

(Opening Remarks)->

1) IEEE-USA President Elects

Marc Apter: We need to establish an IEEE-USA Sponsored Continuum of Education Program. This is a K-12 program anchored in the pre-college program.

We need to enhance the soft skills and technical skills of young professionals.

IEEE-USA issues->

-Engineer supply
-Older engineers
-Quality if undergraduate education
-Enhancement of status of members of the profession
-Portable pensions in the US
-Employer support of employee's involvement in technical and professional activities

Nita Patel: Manages a team of 30 engineers. IEEE-USA as an organization has challenges that center around communications, declining membership, and relevance to the profession and members. We need to articulate IEEE-USA's vision and we need to understand how our sections interpret this vision. We also need to support people that we corral around our vision and recognize the challenges that they face in promoting change.

2) Member at Large Candidates

Dennis Ray- Undergrad in EE but PHD in Business. Has been involved with congressional contacts and is a member of PES. Wants IEEE-USA to be the trusted source of info and advice.

1) We need to be proactive- workforce is getting older
2) Need to make a big difference in what we do- Make accomplishments known
3) Need to use problem solving skills- there are challenges so we need to be creative in solving them
4) Should not wash the vision out with the bath water
5) We need to fan the flames- support GOLD members

Tom Tierney- Physicist, currently a program manager at Los Alamos, former GOLD chair, vice chair of his section

Change is coming and we need to grow our multimedia offering, ebooks, etc.

----------------------------------
Question: What 3 activities would you champion to increase member value?

Tom: Conferences are our main means to foster new ideas, therefore Virtual conferencing. Youtube and the ability to do real-time streaming. We need to identify the next generation of technologies that will benefit our membership growth.

Dennis: We need to expand the STEP program to capture the GOLD excitement. We need to highlight technology myths as well as relevant policies.

Question: What is your strongest personal trait?

Nita: Being a translator. Able to translate the vision from the top of the organization to the people down below. Able to find the best way to communicate information to your audience.

Marc: Putting teams together. Able to put together a team that can generate the best ideas.

Question: How would the members at large reach out to members?

Dennis: I would not reach out to individual members, I would participate in the board's communication schemes

Tom: Blogs are effective as as having official office hours where members could communicate via videoconferencing.

Question: What policies would you enact to promote our IEEE's 2020 vision?

Marc: I want to add 20,000 new members before 2020. Making more use of technology quicker. Get it out there quickly and make use of it thoroughly.

Nita: We cannot corner ourselves into any one vision. It's not about how many members we have but how we have them engaged.

Question: A significant number of our members have no idea what IEEE-USA is about. How would you address this?

Tom: IEEE-USA has a great webpage and we need to draw more attention to it. IEEE-USA needs to get more involved in the technical conferences, pull out the new technologies, and promote them in new policies.

Question: What can IEEE-USA do to diversify it's sources of revenue?

Nita: Conferences are a great source of revenue but we need to prioritize our ideas and pick the most relevant ones.

Marc: Rather than hold more conferences that concentrate upon traditional ideas, let's look into ideas that have never been tried before.

Question: What do you see as our 1-2 most critical challenges?

Nita: We're losing practitioners because we are not addressing their needs. How do we get them the information that they need to tackle new positions and new jobs?

Dennis: The exodus of so many engineers in such a short period of time is a source of concern. How can we use the volunteer capacity to try and convince them that they can make a difference in helping to meet IEEE-USA's vision?

Tom: We need to draw in new membership but also challenge the current ones.

vtools

2011-03-05T16:04:00.007-06:00

Speaker: David Green

Before the session started, David and his team was nice enough to gave away pins, hats and real tool kits promoting vtools.

So, what are vtools? They are web-based tools provided to sections. Some of these tools are developed in house and some of the them are purchased. These tools may be found at http://vtools.ieee.org and include the following:

- Meetings
- Webinabox
- Voting
- Dimdim (license will expire in 7 months)
- Wordpress
- Fluidsurveys
- Documentaion: vtools blog

As time passes, technology improves so updates to the tools are happening. Recent additions to available tools include:

- Meetings: credit card support for R1-7 through section concentration banking & IEEE web account access to L31 reporting
- WebInABox: Upload and distribute files
- DimDim: new tool will be available when license expires
- eNotice: update and automate

In order to help users, a new Information Management Coordinator (IMC) position has been created in each region for support and feedback. These tools are helpful so visit the website and try them out.

IEEE-USA to Present Journalism Award, $1,500 Honoraria Tonight During Awards Ceremony

2011-03-05T16:04:00.006-06:00

Colonel Mason, executive producer of the "The Promise of Tomorrow” radio program, will receive an IEEE-USA Journalism Award tonight during the IEEE-USA Annual Meeting awards ceremony.

IEEE-USA President Ron Jensen and Past President Evelyn Hirt will present Mason with a plaque and $1,500 honorarium for increasing public understanding of engineering.

Mason’s ScienceNews Radio Network, which originates from the Dallas area, provides weekly broadcasts to radio stations across the country. The one-hour shows specialize in emerging science, open innovation, nanotechnology and engineering. See http://www.promiseoftomorrow.biz/

Bryan Mealer and William Kamkwamba, authors of the book, "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind,” will also be recognized Saturday for telling "the inspiring story" of how engineering can change the world. They will receive their plaques and $1,500 honorarium at a later date.

See http://williamkamkwamba.typepad.com/williamkamkwamba/2009/04/my-book-the-boy-who-harnessed-the-wind.html.

Last year, a special luncheon was held for Washington sci-tech journalists to celebrate the 2010 awards to Holly Morris from Washington's FOX 5 Morning News and Randy Atkins of the National Academy of Engineering.

Past journalism award winners have included NPR's Richard Harris, The Chicago Tribune's Jon Van, and The Wall Street Journal's G. Pascal Zachary.

Nominations are open for this year's "Award for Distinguished Literary Contributions Furthering Public Understanding of the Profession," with a 31 July deadline.

See http://www.ieeeusa.org/volunteers/awards/award8.html

Sustaining U.S. Competitiveness and Innovation

2011-03-05T15:14:00.001-06:00

Speaker Rick Stephens, Sr. VP Boeing, Human Resources

Knowledge and experience allows us to succeed in the development for the workforce for the future.

Mr. Stephens related to our experiences growing up…..we didn’t have cell phones, TV viewing, computers in our rooms. As children, we were found outside playing, building tree forts, creating, riding bikes. Children of today average 7.5 hours per day in the electronic simulated world – cell phones, TV, on-line games, on-line social networks. This is their reality.
Imagine 30 years from now – what will relationships be like? What will we create? Will we live in an electrified world with EV’s, smart grids, smart buildings? What will our family and friends relationships become? Facebook relationships?

There is NO LABOR SHORTAGE in America. Yet, there is a SKILLS SHORTAGE.

The concern is that today’s young are not experiencing the real world but a simulated world. What happens when one plays video games and they don’t make it to the next level? What are the consequences? There are none. No real life experience.
To be successful we need Technical Knowledge AND Real world applications.

What we can do:
-focus on students we need to focus on schools and actively participating by providing students with real world experiences.
- Find more ways to interact with our young – IEEE is good at involvement in robotics and Lego student programs

Creating experiences in the real world is critical to success. The real world is not programmed like a computer.

Concept: there are 320 million people in the US, what if each person volunteered one day/year? You do the math. Image the possibilities.

You can contact Rick Stephens at: rick.stephens@boeing.com

-Gary Perman

Member Retention: IEEE Response to US Members Needs

2011-03-05T15:11:00.001-06:00

Speaker: John Day, IEEE-MGA Membership Development

John started with several facts: trends, graphs, analysis conducted by IEEE Membership Development (MD) such as membership in IEEE has been decreasing by a net 1% per year since 2002. There is a lot of growth and contraction within the network of IEEE members – members become Life Members, Student Members, Gold members contribute to the contraction and growth fluctuations. John provides the detailed information – stats on the IEEE website under Membership Development.
Interestingly, market penetration in the US is only 7.5%
Tenure is longer now and boosts overall retention rates of 83%; the caveat is the first year members which have the highest departure rates. Of the new members, 50% leave IEEE within two years of membership.
This is a concern which needs to be continually addressed at the chapter and section level.
Member Focus: it is important that we solve individual needs of the members – Why are you here? Surprising to me is that there is information available in new member reports provided monthly from the MD offices.
One of the biggest challenges is recruiting new members as well.
Where do new recruits come from?
- Peer activity (referrals from friends, colleges, co-workers)
- Industry conferences.
Top Reasons for Joining IEEE What they will miss if they leave IEEE
Networking with professionals……..27% IEEE Spectrum ……………..35%
Enhance careers…………………………..37% Nothing………………………..25%
Obtain publications……………………..57% Education products……..12%
To join specific societies………………37% opportunity to stay current……12%
Continuing education………………..34% Tech. Society membership……..21%
No reference to missing career development/Network opps.

Some of the challenges of reaching members = time. Members have less and less time.
Ideas to obtain more membership involvement include:
- Virtual meetings where members can participate from their homes or offices
- Conduct a satisfaction survey – Sections and chapters can begin doing this with the help of V-tools. Specifically ask “what is most important thing we can do for you?”
Some of the strategies approved for Regions 1-6 include:
- Target under represented markets
- Improve the value of individual memberships
- Metro. Area workshops
- Software engineering Bundling
- On-Line career Manager
- Employment Networks
Focus #1 Member satisfaction
Achieve “Top Box” satisfaction ranking in meetings, events.
More info, contact Jamie Moesch j.moesch@ieee.org
Focus #2 First Year Member Retention
Know members interest
Act on new member alerts
Recommend that sections create a Liaison position – someone to reach
Focus #3 New Member Recruitment
-familiarize with existing MD resources that are available to sections and chapters.
- add yourself to MD Alert all to received new member updates
- participate in existing collaborative activities and training i.e.: monthly MD webcasts
www.ieee.org/MD
Focus #4 Leverage existing Resources and Tools
-MD Manual
- Member brochures can be ordered on-line for free
Differentiate between Doing and Driving
Know your objective = Member Satisfaction

-Gary Perman

From Student to GOLD

2011-03-05T11:57:00.003-06:00

SPAC - Student Professional Awareness Conference
Vishnu Pandey

There are three types of Student Professional Awareness events: SPACs (conferences), SPAVs (ventures), SPAWs (workshops).

But what is professional awareness? To keep it simple, it is to help understand and develop soft skills.

A SPAC must be non-technical, student planned and student run. Those who benefit most are the planners but it is also a way to recruit future IEEE volunteers and officers. Basically, this is a bridge between students and sections.

The new marketing slogan that is being used is "Is your degree enough?" These events will give them a leg up if there are 200 people waiting in line for 1 job.

Vishnu bought a lot of energy and passion to his talk.

STEP - Student Transition & Elevation Partnership
Jignasa Ray & Kheng Swee Goh

This relatively new program was created to target graduating college seniors. It gives you an opportunity to recognize them and inform them about opportunities in IEEE after college. This event can be held anytime (pref. end of school year), anywhere, is FUN and there is $500 financial support per event. A STEP manual, kit and vtools are available to help in planning and executing the event.

The presentation was very informative and reignited a fire for me to plan one of these this year.

Helping IEEE Members Achieve Career Work-life Balance

2011-03-05T10:51:00.000-06:00

Peggy Hutcheson, CEO of The Odyssey Group and Co-Chair of the IEEE-USA Innovation Institute gave a presentation entitled Career Work-life Balance in which she interacted with the audience on ways for people to better balance their personal life with their work life. Beginning with a personal survey of the audience, she showed how the degree of work-life balance an be very different for different people. Ranking the work-life balancing on a scale of 8 to 80, audience members reported scores from in the teens to as high as the sixties, showing that some people may be totally out of balance, where other people may actually be too under-worked. Following this, she allowed attendees to speak about their own experiences so we could all gain some perspective on the experiences of others.

There are many differences, says Hutcheson, between success and fulfillment. Success is traditionally the external part and fulfillment is typically the internal part--how do we balance both? Balance means different things to different people, but Hutcheson argues that balance is good for the individual and the organization. It is good for the organization because balance increases retention, productivity, satisfaction, profits, and development. Balance is important for reduced stress, sense of well being, satisfaction with work, increased opportunity to contribute, and overall development.

She recommends that one knows what stresses oneself, change what you can, manage what you cannot change, and use stress reduction techniques such as breathing, exercise, and be sure to make conscious choices about life and balance.

Hutcheson argues that most things in life appear somewhere on a grid of contrasting importance and urgency. Some things are high in importance and urgency, high in importance but not urgent, and all combination of the two factors.

Organizations face distinct pressures: downsizing, productivity, demands, customer expectations, and dealing with a company culture. Hutcheson points out that all of these things affect the work-life balance of employees.

Career Tools Available to IEEE Members

2011-03-05T09:37:00.005-06:00

Author: Nastassja Lewinski

Speaker: John Twitchell – IEEE-USA Member-at-Large and past Employment and Career Services Committee Chair

Several career resources are available on the IEEE-USA Careers website (check the left hand side "Quick Links" list)

Just to highlight a few

Career Search Tools:

Employment Navigator
Salary Survey ~14,000 respondents

– By completing the survey, members have access to the Salary Calculator, a good tool to negotiate salaries with employers
– Survey also keeps track of members employment history (used by industry HR departments)

Careers Strategy Forum
Social Networking Resources: LinkedIn IEEE-USA group, Facebook IEEE-USA group
Engineers Guide to Lifelong Employability – E-book, being updated

Career Development ("It's not enough to just look for a job"):

Webinars – Free to members. Next one is March 14 @ 2 PM (Everything You Want to Know About Product Trademarks, presenter: David Ostfeld)

– And if you miss one, don't worry! They are all archived and accessible on the same page. Could be a good PACE element to section meeting.

Online Training Courses
Beyond Job Satisfaction by Nigel Bristow - order from IEEECareers. Could use for door prize at PACE meeting.
CAMIndex – These forms are a good way to keep records for resume building (catalog your patents, presentations etc.)
Consultants Database – members can add their name and the database is searched by people looking for consultants (> 3000 hits/yr). There is also a webinar series on how to be a consultant (archived on IEEE website - Here's one on Consulting 101)
Entrepreneur Village – online community to connect entrepreneurs, angel investors and VC

**Everyone should once a year do a Career Checkup

If you want to become involved in IEEE Professional Activities, consider joining one of these committees:

IEEE-USA Employment & Career Services - Ed Kirchner (Chair)
IEEE-USA Career Workforce Policy
IEEE Career Services
IEEE Ad Hoc Committee on Globalization of Professional Activities
IEEE Member Engagement Life Cycle

NOTE: The slides to this talk are available here.

Chevy Volt & Nissan Leaf Featured at Annual Meeting

2011-03-05T09:24:00.008-06:00

Attendees at the IEEE-USA Electric Vehicles & Personal Transportation Workshop were treated to up-close inspections of the new Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf on Friday. These cars represent the first wave of mass-produced plug-in electric vehicles available in the United States.

Craig Eppling, a regional communications manager for General Motors, drove the Volt to Austin from his office in Dallas. He said the Volt uses electricity at all times and has an all-electric range of 25 to 50 miles, depending on driving conditions. After that, an onboard 9.2-gallon gasoline-powered generator recharges the lithium-ion battery to extend driving range to a total of about 379 miles. He pointed out repeatedly to people viewing the car that it is not a hybrid electric vehicle.

Mark Perry, director of product planning for Nissan America, explained that the Leaf is 100 percent electric and uses no gasoline. It has no transmission, no tailpipe and produces zero emissions. The Leaf has a driving range of about 100 miles when fully charged and has to be recharged to drive further. Perry pointed out that by this time next year, there will be 13,000 public charging stations in the United States, more than gas stations.

The Leaf on exhibit Friday had actually been sold to a customer, who takes delivery today. So when one workshop attendee asked to sit in the car, Perry said it was OK as long as he didn't have a pen in his back pocket. He didn't.

The Volt holds four passengers and the Leaf five. The primary reason for the difference is that the Volt uses a T battery formation, with some of the batteries running down the center of the vehicle. This is similar to the interior hump you see in rear-wheel drive cars like the Ford Mustang. The Leaf does not use this configuration, so it has room for one more passenger.

One drawback to the Leaf is that the outlet where you recharge the battery is in the front of the vehicle and a few owners have forgotten the car was plugged in and driven off. The Volt's charging outlet is next to the driver's side door, thus reducing the chance that an owner would forget to disconnect the electric cord.

Both cars are very futuristic in design and can be monitored and, in some cases, controlled by a mobile app on your smart phone.

The Volt is manufactured by GM at its Detroit-Hamtramck plant in Michigan. The company spent $700 million to retool the plant to produce Volts. By the end of 2012, Leafs for the U.S. market will be produced in Smyrna, Tenn. All Leafs are currently manufactured in Japan.

The workshop also featured electric scooters, which sell extremely well in China, and electric bicycles.

Region 6 PACE Breakout Session

2011-03-04T22:11:00.002-06:00

Officer Attendees:

Ed Perkins - Region 6 Director
Doug Aaskegard - Region 6 Pace Chair
John Day - IEEE Director of Membership Development
Bob Dawson - IEEE-USA PACE committee chair
Bill Walsh - Past Region 2 Director - Humanitarian Efforts

The IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference will be in Seattle from 10/30 - 11/1/2011

Doug explained what PACE is and that you are not just limited to projects. For PACE projects, send in proposal. Upon approval you get half funds and get other half upon submission of report. Typically $500 per year per section. More fund are usually available since some sections don't use their funds.

Doug talk about a proposal from the San Diego Section for a project to do pre-college engineering teaching by members using technology kits.

Youth PACE project ideas discussed:

Engineers Week Event Planning
Mentoring - Corporate Sponsored
GATE program
Grant writing
Scholarships
Elementary school visits
TISP - Engineers in the classroom
Future Cities - Description and discussion followed
SMART competition
STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) activities - get mentors involved, luncheon to introduce programs
FIRST robotics

Members PACE project ideas discussed:

Job search workshops - Power/Mock Interviewings, Resume Writing
Leadership Development
How to - patents, consulting, copyrights, tech writing, working with recruiters, doing presentations, contracts
Project management
Career skill development
Idea lab for engineers to try things out - support innovation and enhance skills ie. Tec^Edge in Dayton, Ohio.
PE License info session and classes

A lot of idea were discussed. Some have been done with success and some are to be attempted.

Region 1 Breakout Meeting

2011-03-04T19:33:00.002-06:00

Region 1 IEEE Meeting (6:05pm-7:35pm on 3/4/11)

Present

Ravi Todi, Mid-Hudson Section.
Charles Rubenstein, Region 1 Director (Long Island Section)
Vince Socci, Binghamton
Al Reinhart, Worcester County
Niresh Chand
Richard Tax, North Jersey
Peter Strecker, Boston Section
David Casper, Providence Section
Ali Abedi, Maine Section
Tom Gentile
Bob Pelegrino
Joe Devita, Rochester NY
Iwan Santoso, Princeton Section
Vishnu Pandey, Worcester County
Nita Patel, NH Section
Jignasa Ray
Alex Loui
Richard Gilachick

SECTIONS CONGRESS

August 19-22, 2011 in San Francisco

Nita Patel, one of the members of the Section Congress committee, gave an overview of Sections Congress. Each region is allowed to give 4 recommendations from the region and is asked to give the name of someone that will champion the cause, plus a plan for execution. The recommendations from 2008 and a report on their progress are available online and can be accessed via the IEEE webpage:

http://www.ieee.org/societies_communities/geo_activities/sections_congress/2008/recommendations.html

The following are the official survey results that have not yet been approved by the region but will be submitted once they are->

1) Better Tools and Services for unemployed members and for career growth
2) Membership Reward Program (MRP): Program allowing members to earn points for participation in IEEE activities. Members can redeem their reward points for IEEE merchandise or services.
3) Update IEEE mission to protect the rights of the engineering profession
4) More publications relevant to industry

Please email Charlie Rubenstein (c.rubenstein@ieee.org) and Nita (nita.patel@ieee.org) with the name of a local delegate if you have not done so already.

PACE

Last year we received $30,000 from IEEE and this funded 40 separate projects for different sections across the region. Our current budget for 2011 is $13,000 and right now Ravi has received ~12 projects that total about $12-$14,000. There is money in reserve and all money is first come, first serve so be sure to get your project proposal in to Ravi and Charles as soon as possible. It's very rare that a project is not funded so be sure to send in your request and they will find money somewhere. Region 1 requires 50% monetary matching for all projects so please keep that in mind when submitting your proposal. Charlie is willing to provide extra help to sections that are financially stressed so please contact him directly to discuss any funding issues that you may have (c.rubenstein@ieee.org).

Unemployed members can renew their membership at 50% off. Region 1 also has a coordinator available, Don Herres (d.herres@ieee.org), that can provide your section with workshop materials to better assist the unemployed members.

Please be sure to let Charlie know if you are having any issues getting help from the staff of IEEE or IEEE-USA. He will do his best to assist you as best he can but alternatively may be able to point you to other people that can help move your request forward.

MEMBERSHIP CONCERNS THAT NEED TO BE ADDRESSED

->More travel funds for regional leadership to attend the Annual Meeting
->Funding for IEEE-USA award recipients to attend the event to receive the award
->Hold committee meetings at the Annual Meeting to cut travel costs for leadership
->Have meetings over Memorial Day/Labor Day

IEEE-USA Leadership Meet and Greet

2011-03-04T19:14:00.003-06:00

The following is a small snippet from the 5-minute introductions given by all the leaders present during the Friday night Meet and Greet->

Jim Jefferies, VP of Government Relations

You can benefit most when you are aware of the government policies in play and their effect on you. There are 100 new members of congress that we have not had any contact with and this a huge priority for our organization. The key to our success is getting the information of the legislature in play out there to everyone and then getting their feedback.

Nita Patel, VP of Communications and Public Relations

Public Awareness- We are good from top down communication but we still need to work on bottom up communication. How can we take your best practices and share them with other members of IEEE-USA?

Gary Blank, VP of Career and Member Services

There are 6 committees involved in the Career and Member Services. Every section should have an active Consultants Network for multiple reasons. Having one means more money for your section and special recognition for your section members that participate in it.

Jim Look, VP of Professional Activities

We lose 80% of our student members in the transition from student members to professional members.We need to figure how to reverse this trend. We have a great opportunity via HKN, the EE honor society, to contact and influence highly qualified engineers so we should work to make this a high priority.

Charles Rubenstein, Region 1 Director

Charles addressed the format of the Annual Meeting->You should have the board available and all of the committees in IEEE-USA available during the weekend to answer your questions. He then asked how many audience members are members of committees and, furthermore, how many are meeting here this week.

Parviz Famouri, Region 2 Director-elect

Some of the challenges facing IEEE-USA is that the US membership is in decline and the life membership has increased, which means that the incoming revenue to IEEE is going to decline even further. Our priority is to ensure that we have a healthy membership in Regions 1-6 by ensuring that our members see the value of IEEE-USA and actively want to stay involved. Studies by IEEE have shown that new members are likely to join if introduced by a colleague. ROMP (Regional Outstanding Meeting Program) was started by Region 2 to highlight the most active sections in IEEE and what they did to achieve success.

David Green, Region 3 Director

We should never downplay the influence that IEEE has on Washington and the issues at large. We are finding that some of our more seasoned members are losing faith in IEEE and the benefits of societal membership. Many of us have been told at 5pm on a Friday that our help is no longer necessary and this is a tough pill to swallow if you do not have a network to support you in your time of need. Region 3 ran a project that identified sections hit hard by layoffs and provided online help to the people affected. IEEE is a network and if all of us work together then we have the ability to help each other and provide help in our times of need.

Jim Reiss, Region 4 Director

Finding and inspiring volunteers is a huge task for IEEE. Region 4 has an issue that it does not inspire it's members when it send outs communications, which is part of a large IEEE/IEEE-USA problem. A telephone call is better than nothing but never underestimate the power of a face-to-face meeting.

Candy Robinson, Region 5 Director

The biggest issue facing our members is that IEEE has lost its relevance (Sections Congress 2008). If we keep doing things the way that we have always done then we're never going to get there. The new ideas come from the sections and it's integral that the leadership start listening to the people on the ground if they want to be relevant to the members. We are doing some wonderful things but we need to start communicating the new tools at our disposal if we want to be relevant.

Ed Perkins, Region 6 Director

We need to figure out how to meet member needs. How can we better dessiminate information about opportunities from the leadership to the membership? Someone once described IEEE as a collection of social networks but we still choose to think of ourselves as a collection of technical networks so we're not figuring out how to engage each other more actively. We need to somehow get this message out that we are actively listening to the members and that we are able to provide them with ample value for their membership.

Managing PEV Loads

2011-03-04T15:32:00.006-06:00

Moderator: Russ Harrison

Speaker 1: Saifur Rahman, Professor at Virginia Tech.

Saifur's talk was entitles "Managing Electric Vehicles in the Electric Power Distribution Network". His talk covered three main topics:

- Where and when will EV be charged?
- Impact of distribution network.
- Is there a way to manage household loads?

He explained that a typical battery charger is DC and the EV charging stations are AC and he compared the different type of charging stations that are available for a few EV models.

He follow with details of a simulation performed on feeder in Blacksburg, Virginia where a case study 100 vehicles that was randomly charged at night resulted in minimal impact on the typical load profile. This simulation also studied the effects of a controlled 240v household devices based on priorities to see impact to load profile.These devices included: A/C, Water Heating, Clothes Dryer and EV. The resulting load profiles showed that load control reduced the peaks during times where there would be an addition of EV loads. The conclusions from this study were:

- Uncontrolled charging will increase peak demand in distribution network.
- Demand response can be used to mitigate the impact
- Must consider customer comfort level.

Saifur has spoken with charging station manufacturers and was told these stations can sense other utilities and therefore delay charging if there are other priorities.

It was great to hear about what a alternatives utility can have other than upgrading infrastructure.

Speaker 2: Mark Kapner, Senior Strategy Planner at Austin Energy.

Mark's talk was entitled "A look to the future: electric vehicles as an energy storage device for ancillary services."

Austin Energy started the Plug-in Partners in 2006 which includes the following projects:

- PHEV school bus
- PHEV trouble truck
- Airport electrification project (ground vehicles)
- Pecan Street Project

Another aspect of of the project looked into the use of wind energy. The wind energy production profile is the opposite shape of the load profile so it would work well with the PEV charging time of day. This extra energy production for EVs can replace carbon output generation that would have been used and reduce NOx emissions by 95% and CO2 by 54%.

The question that we they are trying to answer is: Can PEV batteries be used for ancillary services? The following options are available ancillary services that Mark discussed:

V2G (Vehicle to Grid)
LaaR (Load acting as a Resource)
EILS (Emergency Interruption of Load Services)

He concluded the grid infrastructure has issues that keep this from happening in the near future.

It was nice to hear about what Austin Energy is doing for EV and pioneer charging infrastructure.

Speaker 3: Paul Wattles, Supervisor of Demand Response at Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT)

Paul's talk was entitled "PEV Impacts to the Bulk Electric Grid". He work for ERCOT who is an Independent System Operator (ISO) of 75% land and 85% load of Texas.

He discussed a ISO-RTO Council study of PEV impacts on bulk power grids. This study projected a penetration rate of about 43k EVs by 2020 for ERCOT and a 237MW demand if all cars were charging at the same time. This study recommends 'smart charging' and V2G was out of scope and therefore not studied.

Based on data, ERCOT has plenty of capacity for EV loading.

Paul concluded that PEVs are often cited as candidates to provide wholesale ancillary services to the ISOs but there are lots of hurdles.

It good to see what alternative uses PEVs can be in the long run.

Overall, this session provided a lot of insight into how to manage PEV loads and what is and is not possible.

PEVs and the Electricity Business

2011-03-04T15:25:00.007-06:00

Moderator: Mayer Sasson

Speaker 1: Harold Adams, Senior Planning Engineer at Downes Associates, Inc.

Harold spoke on the "Opportunities and Risks for Utilities". He covered two major topics. The first topic were questions that the utilities must address in order to be successful in the EV charging business. These questions are:

- How much total demand caused by PEVs?
- When will the demand will occur?
- Where is the demand?
- What price will consumers will pay for electricity to charge PEVs?

The second topic includes the discussion of five issues with charging EVs for a utility. These issues were:

- Charging infrastructure
- Impact on the distribution system
- Impact on Capacity
- Supply and Grid Planning
- Impact on Electric Markets and Rates

Harold provided a good overview of what is necessary for a utility to take on PEV charging.

Speaker 2: Dr. Jim Gover, Professor at Kettering University.

Jim's talk was entitled "Business and Technical Hurdles to Widespread Implementation". His talk focused on the future of auto business climate and its technical challenges.

Two key items he highlighted was the high possibility of federal subsidy going away and the entrance of competition from China. The technical challenges he discussed were:

- Computer Models for Optimization of System Integration
- Batteries
- Power electronics
- Motors

He approximates that about 3 million electric and hybrid cars will be sold in the US by 2015. He also identifies that the lack of marketing of hybrid technology is problem and that it is better to hybridize heavy vehicles to maximize economics.
An interesting prediction Jim said was "At $5, which seems like the 'magic number', people will buy compact cars and hybrids regardless of economics." He concluded that the need to promote alternative values of hybrid technology and that institution and public education needed are the top two issues that need to be addressed.

Jim's talk gave us some good insight into the economics of the the charging business and what a utility needs to prepare for.

Speaker 3: Chris Mi, Professor at the University of Michigan.

He spoke on the safety and longevity concerns of batteries. He reported that 600 deaths & 3600 disabilities a year from to electrical incidents and that risks with charging stations cannot be identified immediately. It is a wait and see situation.

The focus of his talk was on charging technology. There are three types of charging: direct (conductive), inductive, and wireless. We currently use and have technology for direct charging. The safety concerns for this type of charging is the impact of weather and electrical exposure due to the use of exposed cable and connectors. Inductive is better but wireless charging is the best solution for safety, convenience and efficiency in the long run. It is possible but there is a lot of obstacles to get there.

Chris' talk was a Very interesting talk about inexperience of charging, its safety concerns and the future of charging technology.

Overall, this session provided us with a lot information that must be addressed for us to get the EV infrastructure ready for widespread use.

What Happens During Breaks?

2011-03-04T14:37:00.006-06:00

Besides coffee and snacks, during the breaks the attendees had an opportunity to network with colleagues and volunteers around the exhibition area. They also visited the booths from Boeing, National Instruments, KLD Energy Technology, IEEE-USA Career and Services, IEEE Government Relations, IEEE Membership Development, IEEE-USA S-PAC and IEEE Benefits. This is a great way to exchange ideas, best practices, and discussing issues among the Regions, Industries, and IEEE Societies. Attendees were happy to take away many giveaway goodies and the knowledge about the other activities.

Here are some highlights:

IEEE R1 PACE Chair, Ravi Todi putting the KLD Energy Technologies “electric drive system” motorcycle in gear…This is the same motorcycle that Mark Sze-To of Electric Avenue Scooters + market and his wife rode @ 20 miles from Northeast Austin to the IEEE-USA Annual meeting location today.

Mike Goodell, Ground Support Systems and Weapons Program of Boeing informing Jignasa Ray, P.E., IEEE-USA Communication Committee Vice-Chair and blogger about the Diversity Blueprint that they use for Employee Development at Boeing.

Vishnu Pandey, IEEE-USA S-PAC Committee Chair talks to Patrick Meyer about S-PAC and becoming an S-PAC speaker.

Electric Vehicle Policy Issues at Austin Energy

2011-03-04T14:23:00.001-06:00

At the Electric Vehicle Policy Issues panel, Austan S. Librach, P.E., AICP, Director, Emerging Transportation Technologies at Austin Energy discussed his utility's efforts to incentivize the usage of plug-in electric vehicles. In 2006, Austin Energy undertook the Plug-in Partners program; then in 2008 the Smart Charging Pilot Project; in 2009 the Plug-in Electric Vehicle Project; in 2010 the Central Texas PEV Summit; and again in 2010 the Federal Grants program.

Austin Energy’s primary team focus areas are on the business impacts, outreach and marketing, stakeholder issues, public charging stations, and smart charging and communications infrastructure.

A problem with planning for the future is that estimates are inconsistent regarding the future penetration of electric vehicles. In Austin there could be 36,000 electric vehicles in 2020. Other estimates show as much as 200,000. The point is that no one really knows.

Austin Energy is initiating a pilot phase of the PEV Program. This includes a home charging program offering a rebate up to $1500 for EVSE and panel upgrades and charge management research and pilot program with a January 2011 roll-out. There is a public charging program which will build 100-200 stations on public and private property. Under this program, a consumer can get unlimited charges for their vehicle for only $25 for 6 months, or on the spot charging for $2/hour. There are also goals to develop a swipe card program which will allow access to all Austin charging stations with a single card.

The most serious challenges for PEV development, according to Librach, are the rate of penetration uncertainty; new infrastructure requirements; lack of standards particularly for communications and resource networking; reliability impacts; power quality; and potential peak demand impacts.

Electrical Vehicle Market

2011-03-04T11:52:00.006-06:00

This morning’s Electrical Vehicle Market panel began with Craig Eppling, Regional Communications Manager at General Motors who presented primarily on the Chevy Volt. He explained that much of the motivation behind the Volt comes from GM’s desire to explore energy diversity. Indeed, there are many excellent options for powering alternative fuel vehicles, but today Craig was talking about battery electric vehicles. In fact, he drove a Volt to the conference and it is parked right out front!

While the popularity of the Volt is still ramping up, GM has apparently already been thinking about the next generation. Eppling indicated that fuel cells will be the next big thing; he envisioned a day when residential consumers could use water or natural gas on their own property, in conjunction with a solar panel on the roof, to make their own hydrogen on the spot.

Next up was Mark Perry, Director of Product Planning at Nissan America. In an energetic presentation, Mark began by setting the stage--pointing out that there are 600 million cars on the road today and that there will be 2.5 billion on the road by 2050. Coupled with this growth is the fact that the US spends $1 billion per day on imported oil. The bottom line is that alternatives are needed and they’re needed now. Nissan now has over 20,000 reservations for the Leaf and over 300,000 “hand-raisers”. Perry anticipates that this is a huge growth area, especially in the face of increased public charging stations, of which he estimates there will be 13,000 by this time next year.

Third to speak was Ali Emadi, Founder and President of Hybrid Electric Vehicle Technologies, Inc. and Harris Perlstein Endowed Chair Professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Emadi presented a more academic-oriented talk, discussing the overall needed “paradigm shift” from gasoline vehicles to electric vehicles. He pointed out that there have been many paradigm shifts over the last 100 years, such as mass use of electricity, mass production of cars, aerospace industry, computers and main frames, personal computers, communications and wired phones, cell phones, smart phones, Internet, digital processors, search engines, and social media networks. However, says Emadi, the automotive and electric power industries have operated mainly in evolutionary mode with incremental changes. PHEVs, according to Emadi, are the best solution for transportation and are giving tremendous momentum to a new paradigm shift.

Last to speak was Rob Ferber, Chief Technology Officer at KLD Energy Technologies. Although the shortest presentation of the bunch, Ferber had an extremely powerful message. KLD Energy Technologies develops a transmissionless, electric drive system that improves the performance of vehicles while substantially decreasing their impact on the environment. Although there are multiple applications for KLD’s technology, a primary application is in electric scooters. Ferber pointed out that there are virtually zero electric scooters in the US. There is, however, one market that dominates in electric vehicle sales: China. And 20 million of the electric vehicles sold in China in 2010 were two-wheel electric vehicles.

Charging Infrastructure Forum Recap

2011-03-04T11:25:00.002-06:00

Charging Infrastructure
Moderator: Dr. Russell Lefevre
Speakers:
Justin Murrill, AMD
Blake Dickenson, AeroVironment, Dir customer service
Rachel May, Austin Energy

United States' Goal = 1 million Electric Vehicles (EV) on US roads by 2015

Blake Dickenson of AeroVironment (AV)– Charging Infrastructure Roll-Out. AV manufacturers Energy technologies and Unmanned Aircraft systems.
AV has 20 years of battery charging experience. They promote EV level 2 public charging.
Patent pending in energy storage – battery space system such as apartment complex charging.
EVSE – Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment. Must be UL – listed. Connectors are not live until fully connected and communicating to the car. Common connector for Level 1 and 2 ….doing away with multi-standard connectors for obvious reasons.
AV is doing a lot of residential installs today: site assessment (mostly on-line) – Customer Portal – Installation- EVSE Service/Diagnostic tool (charging units are coming out far earlier than cars are arriving on the market) – Customer Training –
Thoughts on Special EV Rates encouraging off-peak charging
Many utilities are making it expensive by dropping a second meter (adding thousands of dollars to installation costs)
EVSE as a sub-meter – no additional costs.
Issues AV running into:
1. Permit and inspection issues from the cities; inconsistency of municipalities. Public process and red tape is slowing down permit process. Oregon is a good example of successful permitting. Statewide permitting process.

What is the future: EV Ecosystem:
Commercial
Residential

NRG EvGo expanding using their “freedom Stations” started in Houston and expanding out throughout Texas.
Using a “subscription service” offset from your home utility bill

Speaker Justin Murrill. AMD Global Sustaining Manager.
AMD is focused on charging at the workplace.
AMD started installing stations 5 month ago, well before release of EV’s. AMD
63% want EV’s but want their employer to provide charging stations.
Commitment to environment
Federal pilot installation project.
Federal Tax credits.
13 early city adoption of charging Stations.
AMD is committed to jumpstarting the EV market.

Challenges:
Unknown station use
Rate of market adoption uncertain
Increased AMD energy use – which proved nominal
Loss of high demand parking
EV availability still limited.
Next steps:
Continue promoting availability to our employees, vehicle options and government rebates
Monitor station use and emission savings

Rachel May, Austin Energy, Sr. Research Analyst. Emerging Transportation Technologies.
Content of program to get charging infrastructure out to home within 1-2 years.
Austin Energy preparing for 36,000 PEV charging in Austin area.
The concern for energy is the clustering issue of several charges occurring at the same time (in same neighborhood) which impacts transformer with the potential of costly electric grid upgrades.
2 programs:
PIP Plug in Partners rebate program up to 1500 toward purchase/install of level 2 CS.
Home charge mgmt pilot
PEV communication – w/ vehicle, with EVSE between appliances.
Plug In Everywhere" is the public charging focus.
Home charging will meet most of driver’s daily needs.
So why need public charging? Convenience factor. Belongs where you get your groceries, where people are congregating; soccer games, bar/restaurants.
Austin partnering with Coulomb Charging stations.
Working with community by offering free CS availability, free to station host,
Focus at hotels, hospitals tech campuses, property owners, national retailers.
Austin’s goal is that no EV driver will be more than 5 miles from a public charger. Austin’s goal to provide access to all charging stations with a single card.

Overview of this Forum: Very informative from a 500 foot level view of Charging Stations and infrastructure rolling out within the next few years. The focus is on both residential and public charging – residential being the priority focus as the majority of EV charging will occur at the home. Speakers also discussed the advantages and challenges and costs faced by charging companies and utilities.
-Gary Perman

Professional Software Engineering Licensure Open Forum

2011-03-04T09:32:00.000-06:00

At Thursday night’s open forum on Professional Software Engineering Licensure, the main theme was “the software engineering PE exam is imminent.” The presenter and audience had a very interactive question and answer session about how this will affect software engineers in the U.S. The speaker, Mitch Thornton, current vice-chair of IEEE-USA’s Licensure & Registration Committee and past chair of the committee, began with a summary of licensure and the recent history that has led to the development of a software engineering licensure exam.

“In a lot of people’s minds there’s still confusion about what licensure really is. The goal is not to see how smart a person is, the goal is to protect public health, safety and welfare and in order to do that there needs to be some way to ensure at least minimal competence,” Thornton said.

And he cleared up the difference between licensure and certification. Certification is more of a voluntary credential, he said. This is a credential that people can achieve to demonstrate that they have mastery of knowledge in some subject. Certification generally is not at the minimal competence level, whereas licensing is a privilege granted by a regulatory body that’s mandatory in order for you to practice and offer your services to the public and ensure health, safety and welfare.

He also reminded the audience that many different professions require licensure -- medical doctors, nurses, accountants, lawyers, plumbers, electricians, etc.

Then he answered a few questions the audience was interested in:

Would all software engineers need to be licensed? No, only those providing their services directly to the public.
Would all software have to be developed or supervised by licensed software engineers? No, only software that has an impact on the lives, property, economy or security of people.

Then he gave a bit of background on the history of the software licensure initiative. Here’s an article that describes it in detail: http://www.todaysengineer.org/2011/Jan/licensure.asp.

Currently, the software engineering PE exam specifications are being developed. Once they get approved, exam items will need to be written, and the first exam will need to be assembled, reviewed and administered. The software engineering PE exam should be available in the 10 states that requested the exam and other jurisdictions if their state boards take action to provide it. Thornton predicted the first administration will probably be sometime in 2013.

Karl R. Rábago Delivers Invigorating Friday Morning Keynote Presentation

2011-03-04T09:26:00.000-06:00

Friday’s keynote morning speaker was Karl R. Rábago, Vice President, Distributed Energy Services at Austin Energy, who gave an invigorating overview of his utility’s efforts to develop renewable energy, energy efficiency, and electrified transportation. Austin Energy is the nation’s 9th largest community-owned electric utility, serving more than 400,000 customers and a population of almost 1 million. The utility provides service within the City of Austin, Travis County, and a small portion of Williamson County.

Austin Energy runs a Plug-in Partnership Program. Under the program, residential Plug-in Electric Vehicle (PEV) owners within Austin Energy’s electric service territory receive a rebate of up to $1,500 for the purchase and installation of a Level 2 (220/240 volt) charging station. This is just one of many programs administered by Austin Energy demonstrating their commitment to energy efficiency and renewable energy.

According to Rábago, these programs are made possible by Austin Energy’s committed leadership goal. Karl defined leadership as crafting an agenda inspired by vision, convening people around a common agenda, and serving people in pursuit of the agenda. Austin Energy embraces these leadership goals, which are embodied in their vision. Namely, their vision is to built environmental and transportation sector responsibility powered by clean, efficient and increasingly renewable electrical energy and providing customers with a growing menu of services and options to enable them to maximize the value derived by energy services.

Rallying behind these objectives is devastatingly important, according to Rábago, to combat climate change, which he views as the single most significant threat facing the globe today.

Rábago referenced Frank Ackerman’s Climate Economics in Four Easy Pieces in Development (2008), in which Frank discusses four primary aspects of climate economics: First, your grandchildren's lives are important; a low discount rate is needed to validate concern about far-future outcomes. Second, we need to buy insurance for the planet; prevention of catastrophic worst-case risks, not response to average, expected outcomes, should be the motivation for climate policy. Third, climate damages are too valuable to have prices; the impossibility of putting meaningful prices on human life, endangered species, and ecosystems defeats attempts at cost–benefit analysis of climate policy. Fourth, some costs are better than others; the ‘costs’ of active climate policies will create jobs, incomes, and new technologies, while avoiding the physical destruction of the much worse costs of an increasingly extreme climate.

Rábago concluded by maintaining that leadership does require vision--leadership is required, and leadership is rewarded. We need to remember, according to Rábago, that these are systems issues; we need to solve for multiple variables to reap greater benefits. And we will make mistakes. This is a learn-by-doing experience!

Thursday Night Keynote Speaker: James Kennedy

2011-03-04T08:22:00.001-06:00

The 2011 IEEE-USA Annual Meeting’s first keynote speaker was James Kennedy, the eighth director of the John F. Kennedy Space Flight Center. During his talk entitled “Lessons in Life and Leadership (inspired by stories of life at NASA)," he shared interesting stories from his journeys and contacts found through his work.

Kennedy began by saying “I consider myself a friend of IEEE. I thank you all for your volunteer service. I find that most of you do this out of your love and passion for IEEE and as an outsider looking in, that is most commendable.”

He also made sure we knew that he was not an astronomer, astronaut or astrologist, but was a mechanical engineer from Auburn University who loved his wife and the 30 years spent at Marshall Space Flight Center and the four years he served as director of the Kennedy Space Flight Center.

Kennedy invited everyone to visit http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov to view some of the spectacular images captured from space and some that he uses to highlight his 52 principles for effective leadership. Since this was just a prelude to his hour-long presentation that will occur on Sunday, he shared the following two principles to wet our appetite.

Tip #31 - Invest in Friendships, They Have a Great ROI. Kennedy spoke about investing time in establishing friendships by helping others and recognizing them. You can establish life-long friendships even from simple encounters with others at meetings such as this one.

Tip #38 - Take Pride in Your Organization. Kennedy spoke about the great pride he sees individuals, especially IEEE member Leslie Martinich, taking in our strong organization. He not not only applauded this but also considered it a must to maintain the vibrancy of the organization.

With only these two tips, Kennedy definitely left the audience wanting to hear more. You can hear more from him on Sunday from 10-11am. Oh, and if you’re at the Annual Meeting, he’s giving out free NASA pins to everyone he meets this weekend!

Nita Patel also contributed to this blog.

Austin Energy Leadership

2011-03-04T08:06:00.010-06:00

President Jensen opened Friday's conference festivities with an overview of the conference's goals and gave all attendees a taste of things to come throughout the remainder of the weekend. He then introduced keynote speaker Karl Rabago, Vice President at Austin Energy.

Karl Rabago's talk centered around the concept of leadership in developing sustainable energy sources that involves crafting an agenda inspired by vision, helping people buy into that vision, and then supporting these people as they diligently work to move that vision forward. Municipal electric utilities are the hub of energy services innovation today and Austin Energy's mission statement is to provide a source of clean, renewable, affordable, and reliable energy to it's customers while also providing excellent customer service. Climate change is a reality and the only way that we as a society can start addressing this valid concern is to start changing the way that we do things and the way that we live our lives. Today's world is complicated and is further complicated by the fact that our everyday lifestyle is centered around devices that require a steady source of energy to operate properly (gas powered cars, handheld devices, etc). Think about the number of devices you own that require charging. Our own habits need to change and our priorities need to be put into perspective if we intend to be successful in the long run. Do we want to start investing in clean and renewable energy or do we want to start investing in additional infrastructure to support our growing lifestyle?

The city of Austin has a long term goal to utilize 35% renewable energy and achieve a 20% drop in CO2 emissions by 2020 by introducing a clean portfolio of options. Today's strategies include electric transportation, low income energy and weatherization, energy storage, smart grid & Pecan Street Project, Zero Energy Capable Homes by 2015, Austin Climate Protection Plan, Municipal Energy Efficiency Leadership, and Green Economy. With these options Austin has already achieved a +900MW energy efficiency savings, started utilizing 11% renewable energy (all volunteer supported), and lowered the average consumption with rates 15% lower than average. With this it has still shown itself to be both highly efficient and extremely reliable. To highlight Austin Energy's leadership in the renewable energy arena, Karl put up a chart stating that Texas could have saved $4.58 Billion in one year if all customers had been Austin Energy customers.

President Obama has stated multiple times that one of his goals is to dramatically increase the number of electrical cars on the road by 2020. With this being said, one of the problems faced is whether the current electrical infrastructure is capable of supporting multiple electrical vehicles charging at one time, referred to as "dumb charging", during peak hours. How do we address this issue? The options at our disposal is to change the pricing model, have charging stations at the work places, utilize solar energy, or simply invest the time and energy to improve the technology to become more efficient. There are a number of solutions and all have pros and cons so finding the right one will take time and a substantial monetary investment in both the public and private sector.

Karl concluded his presentation by stating that leadership requires vision and leadership is rewarded. Being able to reap greater benefits will require solving for multiple variables but it's important to keep in mind that this is a learning environment and mistakes will be made but the real tragedy for future generations would be if we did not learn from these mistakes.

Contact Karl R Rabago (karl.rabago@austinenergy.com)

Electric Vehicles to Take Center Stage at IEEE-USA Workshop

2011-03-04T02:41:00.003-06:00

The new Chevrolet Volt and Nissan Leaf will be featured attractions at the IEEE-USA Electric Vehicles & Personal Transportation Workshop, which begins today at the Renaissance Austin (Texas) Hotel.

The vehicles can be found outside the hotel, and attendees will be able to ask questions and see the vehicles up close.

Craig Eppling, a regional communications manager for General Motors, will discuss the Volt on the electric vehicle market panel, which begins at 9 a.m. in ballroom B. He will be joined by Mark Perry, director of product planning for Nissan America; and Rob Ferber, chief technology officer for KLD Energy Technologies. Ferber is a former science director at Tesla Motors and was responsible for Tesla’s early drive train integration of motor, controller and battery systems.

Other event focus areas include charging infrastructure; PEVs and the electricity business; customer acceptance; managing PEV loads; electric vehicle policy issues; PEVs and the electric grid; and personal electric transportation. The charging infrastructure panel also starts at 9 a.m., in ballroom A.

In addition to the Volt and Leaf, personal transportation devices such as electric scooters and bicycles are also scheduled to appear.

The workshop will explore the challenges and opportunities of electric vehicle transportation and feature eight panels of more than 20 technology, industry, academic and policy experts.

For more details on the event, see http://www.ieeeusa.org/calendar/workshops/EVPT/.

IEEE Candidates Forum

2011-03-03T23:20:00.002-06:00

IEEE-USA President Ron Jensen kicked off the IEEE-USA Annual Meeting this evening. With more than 200 attendees, this year's IEEE-USA Annual Meeting is sure to be exciting! Following the keynote speaker, Ron led a Q&A session with the two candidates running for IEEE President-Elect, Roger Pollard and Peter Staecker.

Below are excerpts from their remarks and responses to a few questions posed by meeting attendees.

Opening Remarks

Pollard: I’ve been an academic for the last 36 years, but I’ve also worked in industry. I just retired from the University of Leeds in England. I’ve been chair of the electrical engineering department and dean of engineering. I’m continuing to work part-time for a small outfit called Agilent Technologies and I’ve consulted for them for the last 30 years. I’ve been an IEEE volunteer for more than 35 years and I’ve done my share of duty in chapters, I’ve been a section chair, I’ve worked on the region committee, been active in the Microwave Theory & Techniques Society, been on TAB, PSPB, and on the Board of Directors. What I’d like to talk to you about is that I see the future of IEEE in terms of a number of major issues. The first of these is that IEEE is transnational -- IEEE’s leader must understand the U.S. base and the issues that its members raise and that’s because this is where the majority of our members live. Membership is and remains at the heart of IEEE. I support the development of a multi-tiered membership structure. Create a new membership model where everyone would have a society membership bundled in with membership. They should accrue additional benefits that are based on years of membership. We need to make a number of other disciplines, like life sciences, welcome here. All the world’s problems and challenges are interdisciplinary and we cannot live in silos. IEEE must get involved in education at all levels, that’s the only way we can ensure the future of our membership. The future of IEEE is about building a global community.

Staecker: I am also from the Microwave Theory & Techniques (MTT) Society. I am not an academic, I grew up at Lincoln Lab and then went to industry where I spent the rest of my career. I’ve been a member of the MTT society for many years, I’ve been working with IEEE for many years and I just completed my fifth year on the Board of Directors. What I want to talk about is advancing technology for humanity. In that short little phrase there is much direction and challenge for us. Advancing technology means advancing the business of our technology. We are highly regarded for our publications, this is the business we’re in. We’re in this business in a very competitive environment and while we have a good position and we have a strong record of providing very good content we need to work on this every day. We need to move away from just supplying PDFs, we need to supply knowledge. This is going to take a lot of investment. Advancing technology means enlarging our technology footprint and we’re having trouble doing that because we have 45 societies and we’re tightly grouped and we’re filling in the footprint by filling in the white space and this leads to arguments of who owns what and instead we should think outside the box. Grand challenges should give us ideas to move into the life sciences. We need to constantly improving member value globally. You have set the tempo for moving that into the rest of the world. We’ll look to you for guidance on that. The tricky part is that to be effective globally you have to be successful locally. And this is tough stuff. You can argue that this is a little easier to do in Regions 1-6 because we’re kind of homogenous. We can gain from our diversity. Advancing technology means preparing our youth from K-12. It’s very important to prepare youth for engineering careers.

1. How do you see the role of IEEE-USA fitting into the larger IEEE?

Staecker: I think IEEE-USA is the poster child for member careers. That’s the immediate plus. Anything having to do with member value and career help is something that you’ve been doing here for a long time.

Pollard: I think if IEEE-USA didn’t exist you’d have to invent it. In almost every other country that I know of, IEEE co-exists with a national society. In the U.S., IEEE is the national society, IEEE-USA exists embedded in it and it’s stronger and better for that. I believe that being able to represent the profession in the strongest possible way to your government of whatever flavor as well as being able to be embedded in a technical profession is important.

2. How do you plan to reverse declining membership in IEEE-USA?

Pollard: That’s a difficult question. The real problem is that there is a decline in membership in all kinds of societies and associations. People are reluctant to join anything -- it’s not unique to IEEE-USA or any organization. What you need to do is demonstrate value. People need to feel that they are joining a community of other like-minded people and what they’ll get out of it is as valuable to them. It seems to me the community is the important thing, the way in which they feel they are made to be viewed as important by the people who count -- the people who create jobs, the people who take your taxes, etc. Get that message out there and make sure people understand what it is that IEEE-USA and IEEE is all about and it’s not about: you pay your money and we deliver you goods and services. It’s about creating a community with like-minded professionals with goals of where they want to be.

Staecker: This is an element of IEEE that’s been leaving us -- the practitioner. We are not relevant to the people who deal with specifications, standards, program directors, etc. Those people do not find value in IEEE. We’re not going to be able to do it through the standard offerings that we have now because they’re all designed now for high-level research and academics. The Xplore database offerings are ideally tailored for moving forward through an academic career but don’t help the practitioner. We can do that and increase our membership.

3. Why is there an IEEE-USA and not an IEEE Europe or IEEE Asia? Is this a potential source of resentment to international members?

Staecker: Yes, but there are features in IEEE-USA that should be in every region. I see elements of that happening already. There’s an organization in Region 8, they’re working on member careers and member value and so if the concept of IEEE-USA were to change at all, it could change in a way that would be uniform across all regions. I don’t see it as a lasting problem.

Pollard: To answer that question you’ve got to understand we’re a product of our history. In the case of several countries in Europe, their national associations started off as gatekeepers and some still are. In order to practice engineering you needed to join an organization. IEEE offered membership and has never set itself out to be a gatekeeper and that’s the biggest difference historically. It’s very unlikely given the history that things like IEEE Europe or IEEE Australia, would exist on same sort of basis because of the way IEEE-USA has grown. It’s a good idea but I don’t think it’s going to happen.

4. Member engagement requires better communications top down and bottom up. do you have a vision of how that should work?

Pollard: I think we do a pretty good job of communications top-down. Everything from the various publications and e-mail lists. I’m sure people get fed up with top-down communication. We haven’t been doing good with bottom-up communication. This is great opportunity for social media -- Facebook and LinkedIn are beginning to create a bottom-up source of consensus of member views and member groupings and these are being read quite avidly at the top of IEEE to get messages of what members think and want and ways to share experience and knowledge. The bottom-up communication is growing quite rapidly.

Staecker: I agree with Roger on the social media piece. It’s really helping us understand what’s going on and that plays right into the issue of: to be effective globally, you need to be ffective locally. You’re going to have to have networks that associate the feelings of localities and move them right up to the top level. Who is going to do this? I think it’s going to be the young people of our society because they’re the ones who are so good at it now. I’ve had the pleasure and honor of working with GOLD for the past few years and those folks are just amazing. They offer the bridge between students who are in the school and the full members who are in IEEE and they are the ones who are communicating on a daily or hourly basis about what they do and what they think we should do, but you don’t have to be young.

5. What are your top 3 activities you will champion to generate more value for IEEE members?

Staecker: [1] The business aspect of our technology -- we’re in a competitive world and we need to be competitive. [2] Member value. [3] Continuing education.

Pollard: [1] You need to make sure that there is more information that is relevant to the whole range of our stakeholders, especially the practitioners. The information is there, the trouble right now is that it’s data in Xplore and we need to mine that data to find information practitioners can use. [2] Change the membership model and expand the range of different benefits and different values people can get from it. Membership cannot be one size fits all. [3] Understand member development through their careers and make sure we have a range of offerings that are applicable to people in different stages in their careers and employed in different industry and activities.

6. How should we better market benefits of IEEE membership?

Pollard: The biggest problem that I have right now with IEEE membership as we presently market it is that we say to people: “Come along, join IEEE, pay your dues, and that will give you a nice magazine every month and in addition it will entitle you to buy a whole range of other products and services you can find about it.” That has seemed to be on the old side for me. We recruit people just to sell them products and services. We need to rebuild the membership model. We do not have a very clear value proposition for what IEEE is. Why should you become a member of IEEE? Until we have that value proposition -- I think it’s first and foremost about community (networking, etc.) -- it becomes very difficult to sell it. That’s not just a local problem it’s a global problem and it’s demonstrated in our retention issue.

Staecker: I agree with Roger, we need to focus on membership but there are other things. Advancing technology for humanity -- it’s the humanity piece that will make us more familiar to more people. That in itself is a good advertisement for IEEE. The humanity piece is beginning to happen; we have a number of volunteers who are interested in reaching out and helping people less fortunate than themselves. What we need to do is encourage that. The other part is to inform the public through all volunteer activities of what is going on in IEEE and make us more visible.

7. IEEE-USA has been very effective at affecting policy in the U.S., how can IEEE affect policy outside of the U.S.?

Staecker: I don’t know the governmental issues or how easy it is to have discourse in other regions. There’s a certainly a model for interaction that can be adapted to any region.

Pollard: I think that the answer to this question is about understanding that governments are actually the same worldwide. Governments are usually ill-informed. I don’t know what the situation is in the U.S., but there is only one qualified scientist in Parliament. The problem is ignorance. IEEE-USA is a good role model for everybody else in the other regions in the world to combat that ignorance, how to effectively provide factual information and lobby not on the basis of “we give you lots of money or we vote for you,” but here is fact, here is real useful information, please read it, please take some notes on it. Those are lessons that IEEE-USA can give to other parts of the world and I think it’s been singly effective to lobbying in Washington.

Closing remarks

Staecker: We are technologists. We live to solve problems, incremental as well as big picture. We can do all this stuff that we need to do.

Pollard: IEEE is important. IEEE is important not just to all of us but to the world at large because it’s one of the very few gatherings together of people across these boundaries that can solve big world challenges. It seems to me that the future of IEEE is about building a global community of technologists working to create the future. Technology and technologists do not know boundaries, least of all geographic-wise. If we can build this global community we can have some sense that we are doing something about creating a sense of community for our children and grandchildren.

Open Forum: NASA: Moon launch of our Century

2011-03-03T23:12:00.001-06:00

Speakers: Doug Taggart, Chair Committee on Transportation and Aerospace policy
Barry Tilton, vice-Chair, Committee on Transportation and Aerospace

This forum began with questions to attendees to help give ideas to the speakers as to what direction their committee should focus its efforts regarding, in particular – the recent US Congressional decision to stop Space Exploration.
Should IEEE develop a policy statement in regards to this decision? In a nutshell, Obama’s administration and congress has the attitude toward NASA and Space “Been there, Done that” and wants to direct monies spent on space to more practical endeavors such as transferring American technology to third world countries.
Is IEEE, as engineers, in a position to help guide policy?

Repeatedly, throughout the discussion, attendees circled back around to the question of Why?
What is the benefit of Space exploration? Why send people to Mars? Why go back to the moon? In my opinion, NASA has done an extremely poor job of “selling” space since the Star Wars program. I think most Americans see the return on investment as extremely poor as though NASA only accomplishment is to show us pretty cool photos of Space and other galaxies. Again….what’s the benefit?

Barry Tilton made an exceptional point at the end of the evening: NASA is funded at the pleasure of Congress and NASA is forced to “re-tool” upon each new Administration. Projects don’t get completed and therefore they have little to show for it. This is a fundamental problem that could be solved by congress locking in funding until the project is completed – no matter what the administrative change in government happens to be. Canada is a good model for this.

It was discussed by several like minded attendees that we – NASA, engineers, the government, needs to determine Why…..why explore space? Is it for nationalism, defense, to discover rare minerals, or is it just to satisfy our basic American need to “explore”?
In my opinion, we should allow Commercial, entrepreneurial companies to explore space, especially if the motive for doing so is financial gain – mineral exploration in particular. Wouldn’t our engineers be better served if IEEE petitioned (lobbied) the government and encouraged commercial space exploration?
One argument discussed – private enterprise is not interested in pure research and it is governments’ responsibility to fund space exploration? I disagree. Industry funds pure research through our universities and colleges quite successfully.
Do we want government involved in mineral exploration?

Yet, Speaker Barry Tilton made a good argument for government funded space exploration “Humans are their best when they are exploring. It’s the question we don’t even know to ask that is most likely to move mankind forward” The question – have we, as Americans no longer have a passion for exploration?

The question remains: Should IEEE develop a strategy statement, from an engineering perspective, a declarative statement – or is that just putting the cart before the horse?

I think most left the forum with more questions than we entered the forum with, yet there appears to be a consensus on one thing: NASA, IEEE, the American people need to answer the question WHY. Why do we want to explore space? What will motivate us? One attendee echoed “we need to provide a challenge. When it’s there, people will rise to the occasion – as Americans, we have a great history of rising to the occasion” Once we can answer the question “Why”
Then we (IEEE) can move forward with developing a policy and “selling” it to politician and the people.

-Gary Perman

Meet the 2011 Bloggers!

2011-03-03T23:06:00.002-06:00

Curtis Lu, P.E., is a Electric Power System Engineer working in the Standards department at Seattle City Light. In this position, he researches, develops and publishes construction and design standards for the company. He obtained an M.S. from the University of Washington and is a licensed P.E. Curtis is a past Seattle Section chair and currently serves as the GOLD chair.

Patrick E. Meyer, Ph.D., is an energy and environmental policy analyst, specializing in policies of alternative energy and fuels and renewable electricity generation, global sustainable energy systems, and energy and environmental systems modeling and analysis. Patrick is currently serving on Capitol Hill as the 2011 IEEE/AAAS Congressional Energy Policy Fellow in the Office of Congressman Jay Inslee. He is also a member of the IEEE-USA Communications Committee and serves as the Energy, Environment and Sustainability Editor for IEEE-USA Today’s Engineer and IEEE-USA in ACTION. Previously, Patrick managed a private consulting company, Meyer Energy Research Consulting, and also worked as a research associate at Energy and Environmental Research Associates, LLC. Patrick received his Ph.D. in Energy and Environmental Policy from the University of Delaware, which complements his M.S. in Science, Technology, and Public Policy and B.S. in Public Policy from the Rochester Institute of Technology. Patrick is co-author of multiple academic journal articles and more than thirty editorials on alternative energy and technology innovation. He enjoys mountain biking, hiking, and camping, and has visited more than eighty parks in the US National Park Service.

Vishnu Pandey is a Unix administrator at Philips Lifeline in Framingham, Massachusetts. He's currently the chair of the S-PAC Committee and is an S-PAC speaker. He's a former gold chair for Worcester County and a former member of the Annual Meeting committee. Vishnu has a Master's degree in electrical engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI).

Gary Perman is a certified recruiting professional and the president of PermanTech, which specializes in working with executives of technology companies helping them surface, evaluate and hire critical staff including executives, managers and engineers.

Jignasa Ray, P.E., has been an active IEEE volunteer since 2006. She is currently chair of the Region 1 Student Activities Committee (SAC), Chair of North Jersey's Women in Engineering (WIE) and member-at-large. She also serves on the international MGA SAC Committee and is vice-chair of the IEEE-USA Communications Committee. In 2010, Jignasa was approved as national speaker for the S-PAC program and also presented at the 2010 Student Branch Congress in Leuven, Belgium. Jignasa has a B.S. in Electronics Engineering from DeVry Institute of Technology and an M.S. in Transportation Management and Construction Management from NYU-Polytechnic University. Professionally, she is a licensed engineer in New York and works as a Communication Engineer for Systra Engineering. Prior to Systra, she worked as an Intelligent Transportation Systems Project Manager for MTA Bridges and Tunnels in New York City. She has 10+ years of engineering and construction experience with specialization in telecommunications.

Abby (Vogel) Robinson, Ph.D., is a communications officer in the Research News and Publications office at the Georgia Institute of Technology. In this position, she writes about Georgia Tech research discoveries and developments, and assists reporters in their coverage of Georgia Tech research. Robinson earned her Ph.D. in bioengineering from the University of Maryland on research she conducted at the National Institutes of Health. Robinson has been an active IEEE volunteer since 2005, when she was selected as IEEE-USA's Mass Media Fellow. She serves as chair of the IEEE-USA Communications Committee and as an editor for IEEE-USA Today’s Engineer and IEEE-USA in ACTION.

Andrew Quecan is currently a graduate student at Stanford University completing his MSEE. He received his BSEE and BS in Finance from the University of South Florida in 2008. He was a 2007 WISE intern for IEEE-USA. Andrew continues to be involved with the IEEE-USA Online Engineering Video Scholarship Competition.

Special thanks to Chris McManes, IEEE-USA Public Relations Manager and who serves as the organization’s principal media contact. He often serves as IEEE-USA’s spokesman and has traveled across the country stressing the value of media relations and good writing skills to IEEE members. McManes came to IEEE-USA after working for two-and-a-half years as sports information director at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. While working as a sports writer for the Las Vegas Review-Journal in the 1990s, McManes covered numerous high-profile events, including NASCAR Nextel Cup racing and the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. McManes graduated from the University of Maryland in 1982 with a degree in kinesiological sciences (the study of human movement). He also attended the University of North Texas and studied journalism at the University of North Carolina.

Special thanks to John Yaglenski, IEEE-USA Information Technology Manager and who oversees IEEE-USA's electronic communications programs, as well as supporting IEEE-USA's IT infrastructure and use of technology. Before joining IEEE-USA, John was General Manager of Web Development for Erols Internet, now RCN Corporation, the nation's largest regional Internet Service Provider. John's technical specialties include interface design, graphic layout, multimedia production, NT server installation and maintenance and Active Server Pages. He also excels in developing and formulating effective Internet marketing solutions that work in tandem with print and media advertising. John started his career as a full time radio personality and program director working town to town, up and down the dial in such markets as Dayton, Ohio, Frederick, MD and Washington, DC. He is a graduate of the University of Dayton in Ohio with a BA in Communications, and currently resides in Maryland with his wife and two children.

Countdown to the 2011 IEEE-USA Annual Meeting!

2011-02-28T08:42:00.002-06:00

Beginning this Thursday, March 3 is the 2011 IEEE-USA Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas! The 2011 meeting will provide an unparalleled training opportunity for IEEE’s U.S. volunteers and members. Industry leaders will explore one of the most important engineering challenges facing the world: engineering automobiles and transportation systems to make better use of available energy resources and to implement innovative energy solutions.

Attendees will be briefed on pressing social, economic and political issues surrounding transportation and energy, as well as training in how to take outreach programs and ideas home.

In addition to transportation and energy topics, the program will provide sessions on basic volunteer training, interactive workshops honing leadership skills, exhibits on the latest IEEE products and services, opportunities for networking and exchange of best practices, and the IEEE-USA awards ceremony recognizing the best of our U.S. engineers.

The 2011 IEEE-USA Annual Meeting also:

Hosts exhibits and pre-conference webinar's focusing on the latest IEEE activities, products and services.
Offering discussions and workshops from experts on engineering career development and lifelong employability.
Provides updates on the IEEE-USA's current legislative priorities affecting technology and engineering careers, and information on how members may take part in an effective grassroots lobbying network.
Highlights outstanding programs and services for local members provided by Section, Chapters, Regions & Societies through poster sessions, panel discussions and awards.
Provides unparalleled opportunities to meet and network with other IEEE members from across the country and across all segments of the IEEE leaders and membership, from senior managers to recent college graduates and most IEEE Societies to exchange ideas and discuss issues of importance to the U.S. engineering profession.
Disseminates information on IEEE and IEEE-USA products and services.
Provides a forum for US Region and Section volunteers to meet, discuss and exchange information on significant topics including "Policy and Technology in Transportation and Energy,” continuing career development, and policies that support research and innovation" affecting U.S. members, Sections and Regions.

Throughout the 2011 meeting, our superb team of bloggers will summarize conference presentations and events and blog here, so that meeting attendees and the general public can stay up to date on conference happenings. Please check back soon for our first posts, beginning Thursday night!

2010 Annual Meeting Ends

2010-03-07T18:33:00.003-06:00

The IEEE-USA Annual Meeting came to a close today with final presentations on the PACE network and one by the Awards Committee.

On behalf of this year's blogging team, we hope you have a great year and join us at next year's Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas!

PACE Training

2010-03-07T08:00:00.010-06:00

PACE training at the Annual Meeting was conducted by David Pierce, Vice President of Professional Activities for IEEE-USA. His presentation was educational, providing resources and ideas for PACE chairs to take back to their sections.

Mr. Pierce started his discussion focused on his career and how it has changed over the years. He began by chronicling his career from avionics technician; to technical supply; to missile work; back to working in technical supply; back to school for an electrical engineering degree; to work for a utility company where he worked on distribution, system design, long range planning; and then finally on to a career in forensics examination and products liability, the area in which he currently works. His employment progression provided conference participants with a chance to recognize that employment in engineering is hardly static, and we must all continue to work on our professional skills.

He then discussed the history of electricity back to 1663, tracing its advancement over the years from Von Guericke, to Franklin, to Galvani, to Volta, to Ampere, to Ohm, to Faraday, to Morse, to Bell, to Edison, to Tesla, to Marconi, to Hertz, to Fleming, to Kilby, to Zuse.

As Mr. Pierce detailed the history of innovation through these scientific leaders, he integrated his discussion with the conception of IEEE and its roots in the scientific leaders of the day. He went on to chronicle the roller coaster of employment and IEEE's role in assisting engineers with employment.

Mr. Pierce's discussion then focused on the many faces of IEEE -- from GOLD members to Life members. He segued into the structure of IEEE Student Branches. Each student has a Branch Counselor, a Branch Chair, Branch Officers, and committees. Likewise, he reviewed the structure of the Section, which has a Section Chair, Section Officers, Committees, Technical Society Chapters, and Affinity Groups.

He also noted that IEEE was split into different geographical areas, by section and region, with each region also having officers and committees. These geographical barriers, however, are as less significant as before due to internet connectivity and other advancing electrical communications. He discussed MGA, the different societies of IEEE and new technology working groups.

After much antipation, Mr. Pierce then focused on PACE and its importance to IEEE-USA. PACE is a grassroots network of IEEE volunteeers and commitees organized at the Section and Chapter levels with support from the Region, IEEE, and the Professional Activities Network. PACE promotes the professional interests of IEEE's United States members, and can include committees on Government Activities, Employment and Career Activities, Technical Policy, Student Professional Awareness, and Pre-College Education, which represent many of the subject areas that PACE is involved in.

PACE also facilitates the distribution of various IEEE-USA Commmittee products and programs to members, stimulates professional activities, improves communication between IEEE-USA members and IEEE-USA leadership, provides input for the Annual Meeting, maintains and operates the volunteer network, provides leadership training, improves electronic communication, enhances the quality of member information, and improves the planning process.

A PACE project must first start with an idea, followed by a proposal form, planning and an event, followed by a follow-up report.

Posted by : Nate Bailey, NoVa GOLD Co-Chair, Email: njbailey@ieee.org

Awards Ceremony and Banquet

2010-03-06T22:30:00.000-06:00

As the Cumberland banquet room fills, the awardees and annual meeting attendees mingle, having upgraded to business attire for this celebratory function. A three-piece modified wind trio (flute, bass, guitar) is providing soft background music, and salad is being served. Members seem to have realized that their networking opportunities are coming to an end as well, as the rate of business card exchanges seems to have risen dramatically since I entered the hall.

Diane Collier, Awards and Recognition Chair, welcomes eveyrone to the dinner and recognizes past presidents of IEEE-USA, members of the IEEE-USA Board of Directors, and past IEEE-USA award recipients.

IEEE-USA President Evelyn Hirt welcomes everyone to Nashville and encourages nominations for next year's awards. Of the 24 award recipients this year, and 16 of them are here in Nashville. She reminds everyone that selection was not an easy task and proceeds to introduce 2009 IEEE-USA President Gordon Day to present the awards. Dr. Day notes that presenting these awards is one of the nicest things an IEEE-USA president gets to do.

The first awards to be presented are to the winners of the "How Engineers Make a World of Difference" Online Engineering Video Scholarship Competition. Participants produced videos which conveyed the idea that engineers aren't just geeks and nerds, but rather work on interesting and important problems that improve quality of life. The top three winners, whose videos were just shown, are:

3rd place: Carrie Hunter, Pensacola Junior College- A video that introduces viewers to a geotechnical engineer on a phone at a beach

2nd place: Zachary Phillips, LeTourneau University- Shows a number of "cool" inventions starting with audio equipment by Dr. Amar Bose

1st place: A team from University of Nevada at Las Vegas, represented in Nashville by Sergio Flores Castro- Engineers are people who solve real problems; College + an idea = a world of difference.

Now, following the video competition presentations, we begin the process of recognizing top-notch contributors from within IEEE-USA. Here are some highlights:

IEEE-USA Professional Achievement Award: To recognize significant and specific contributions of individual and organizational efforts in the development and implementation of professional activities in the United states

James V. Leonard accepts for Boeing, which is recognized for efforts toward promoting diversity in the workforce, environmental awareness, and support of IEEE members
---Leonard states that he is thankful for ABET accreditation and IEEE awards recognizing engineers, some of whom are at Boeing

Gary Bishop accepts and individual award in recognition of leadership and support of GOLD and K-12 activities

Kheng Swee Gho recognized for leadership in GOLD and SPAC activities
---Salutes GOLD members for enthusiasm

John Richardson recognized for 25 years of support of communications policy initiatives in IEEE-USA
---Most proud of the IEEE-USA Committee on Communications Policy's early support for broadband initiatives, thanks IEEE-USA Technology Policy Activities Manager Debbie Rudolph for keeping the committee on track

Gordon W. Young recognized for getting support of local business in the 2009 IEEE-USA annual meeting
---Notes that it is easy to get support when you communicate the importance of engineering

Michael Hayes, Vishnu Pandey could not be in attendance.

Regional/Divisional Professional Leadership Award: To honor members in U.S. regions and divisions for their outstanding leadership efforts in advancing the professional aims of the IEEE in the United States

G. Thomas Bellarmine selected for leadership in PACE activities in region 3

Carey C. Carey

Uri Moszkowicz selected for leadership in GOLD and student activities in region 1

Kevin Taylor selected for leadership in integrating Power and Energy Society into annual meeting last year

Loretta Aarellano, selected for leadership in region 6, and Darlene Rivera, selected for women in engineering leadership in region 1, could not be in attendance.

Citation of Honor: To honor individuals who have made exemplary contributions toward achieving the aims of professional activities in the United States

Thomas Jepsen selected for leadership in advancing medical policy and healthcare delivery

Mitchell Thornton

Precollege Education Committee Teacher-Engineer Partnership Award

Richard Sanders and George R. Haus selected for improving pre-college learning through science activities and exposure

Award for Distinguished Literary Contributions Furthering Public Understanding of the Profession

Randy Atkins of the National Academy of Engineering selected for weekly radio innovation reports in Washington
--"This is radio for all people."

Holly Morris not with us tonight, but she was selected for live television reporting of the Future Cities competition

Award for Literary Contributions Furthering Engineering Professionalism

Lee Howard selected for reports on misuse of the H1-B visa program, not able to be in attendance

Harry Diamond Memorial Award (IEEE-USA award since 1992): To honor an individual for distinguished technical contributions in the field of electrotechnology while in U.S. government service
James McGarrity, advisor to the Defense Nuclear Agency, selected for contributions to the understanding of radiation effects of microelectronics, among many other contributions

IEEE-USA Award for Distinguished Public Service: To honor individuals not currently in the practice of engineering for furthering the professional goals of IEEE-USA

Dr. William Wulf for contributions while president of National Academy of Engineering, such as leadership of the report "Rising Above the Gathering Storm"
---Gives very direct but emotional overview of younger life, and how he was reliant on government and university support and encouragement to pursue his dreams.
---"This profession of ours is egalitarian. Its meritocracy... It really is the American dream."
---"I felt very strongly that it was my obligation to pay back."

Shawn Otto: As a political strategist, speaker, science advocate, and screenwriter, communicates on transforming America's relationship with science and technology
---Recognized for his work on "Science Debate 2008"

What do we do during breaks?

2010-03-06T16:53:00.018-06:00

During the breaks, attendees mingled around the exhibition area to network with colleagues and making new friends. They also visited the booths from Boeing, Scheider Electric, IEEE-USA Career and Services, Region 1 to 6, IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society, WIE and IEEE Benefits. A great way to exchange ideas, best practices, and discussing issues among the Regions, Industries, and IEEE Societies. Attendees were happy to take away many giveaway goodies such as the batteryless flashlight with radio from Boeing, towel blanket from IEEE Benefits, flashing LED light pens, and the knowledge about the other Regions activities.

S-PAC Pop Quiz

2010-03-06T16:32:00.003-06:00

What career advice would you give to your 21 year-old self? Please post your comments.

S-PAC Committee

S-PACs and Beyond

2010-03-06T16:20:00.002-06:00

Before Kristi Hummel, IEEE-USA SPAC Chair, commenced her talk, she asked the audience “What career advice would you give to your 21 year-old self? What about your 40 year-old self?” The participation was very high. To list a few answers “If you want to do it, do it. Once you go into the workforce, it will be very different to go back to school”, “Get into an internship program”, “Be confidence in yourself, and find what you want to do”, ”To get your PE license”, “If you think about getting your MBA, unless you can get into the top MBA school, otherwise it will be a waste of time”, “To set goals for your next 5 years”, “Choose your passion, and when you are looking back, you will be more satisfied that you had chose the path of your passion”, “If you are at 40, it is important to give back to the Society”……….

Kristi continued “Let Think S-PAC!”

What is S-PAC? Student Professional Awareness Conferences (S-PACs) are structured events organized by student branches where students listen to experienced engineers from diverse backgrounds and discuss topics from the six critical professional development categories. It is a student-managed conference with speakers who are mostly engineering professionals. Kristi added that S-PAC is the most popular and successful program, and last year, S-PAC celebrated its 30 years anniversary.

S-PAC topics can be Career Growth, Working (Balancing Work with Personal Life, Expectations Vs Reality), Professional Ethics, Self-Management, Engineer and Public Policy, or Importance to the Professional Society.

The Benefits of S-PAC to student are:
- Organizers of S-PACs gain project management experience
- Attendees learn valuable lessons and wisdom shared by working professional
- Initial networking with someone in industry
- Successful S-PAC boosts the momentum and activity if a student branch
- Student gain an awareness of the larger IEEE organization

Guru Madhavan, from Region 2 Washington DC Section, quoted “S-PAC pairs student with talent professionals, and the energy transfers.” Charles Rubenstein, Region 1 Director, quoted “One way the IEEE shows leadership is by giving people a safe, protective environment for cultivating their talents. S-PAC does this for students. Members provide the needed support and coaching for the student.”

After the audiences have shared their experience with their past S-PAC activities. Kristi went through the steps for organizing a S-PAC event. First is to contact the S-PAC Coordinator, and then select a date and location for the event. Next, to build the program.
Then, the student organizers will need to fill out the Budget Sheet, and send it to the Coordinator. Funding sources are School, IEEE (Section, Region, Chapter, Society, PACE or MGA), and ticket sales. Lastly, to publicize the event.

There are 48 National Speakers and located throughout the US. Student can select speakers from any Region, and IEEE-USA covers one speaker’s travel expenses. Kristi encouraged the audiences to consider becoming a S-PAC National Speaker. According to Joe Lilli, IEEE President-Elect Candidate, speaking at S-PAC has provided him an opportunity to share work experiences with the participants while at the same time learn what the hot topics are in the classroom. And, David Pierce, IEEE-USA VP-Professional Activities, said being a National Speaker for S-PAC is a fun, engaging opportunity to influence young minds.

Kristi also introduced another two great S-PAC programs: S-PAV (Student Professional Awareness Ventures) and S-PAW (Student Professional Awareness Workshop). Then, she gave the pop quiz for the audience to answer and win the S-PAC notepads.

Kristi ended the presentation by asking, “What are you going to think when you think of students?” Audiences exclaimed, “Think S-PAC!”

IEEE-USA Board Member-at-Large Candidates Forum

2010-03-06T16:12:00.002-06:00

Annual Meeting attendees heard from this year's candidates for IEEE-USA Board Member at Large -- Mauro Togneri and John Twitchell. Below are excerpts from some of the questions the candidates were asked to answer by audience members.

1. Why does IEEE-USA exist?

Mauro: I think we’ve been told already by the speakers at this year’s and last year’s Annual Meeting that engineers in the future need to be a different type of engineer than we’ve seen in the past. We’ve gone from very generalists to very specialized engineers, but always highly technical. Engineers now need to be businessmen and engineers and they need to have the ability to work on human relations and on teams, convey their ideas to their peers as well as the public. IEEE-USA is a necessary component to take the members’ skills in the technical fields to cross them over to promote our ideas, sell our ideas, and interact with all facets of people including arts and government.

John: An electron in the U.S. is the same as one in Canada and in Europe. IEEE handles electrons pretty well I think. Our IEEE-USA members in Regions 1-6 have many issues that are unique to the United States. Licensure is unique to the states in the U.S. and the educational system is different from the educational system in many other places. The national electrotechnology policies that our organization supports go to a different audience than IEEE can provide.
2. How can IEEE-USA keep a strategic vision so that we can overcome the rising storm?

Mauro: I believe IEEE-USA is vital in maintaining the strategic vision of the country because so many of the technical areas that we’re involved with have to do with the issues issues that cause the gathering storm. We need to keep focus on the entire message of the gathering storm because it’s a holistic solution to the problem. We need to convey the message to our members and create the vision for the IEEE-USA that works toward solving the whole problem and not pieces of it.

John: I think we have begun to focus on the implications of the gathering storm and we need to continue to do that.
3. What is the most effective way to engage members and how would you implement it?

Mauro: I agree that we have to use all means of communicating to the members that are available in today’s world with today’s technology. I think we need to translate some of the things we do involving law, patents, etc. to make sure the members get the message as to what we’re doing. Some of the stuff we do -- reading the position statements -- it’s not clear what we’re really saying.

John: I agree that member engagement begins at the grassroots level. I think it would be very difficult to get individual IEEE members in Regions 1-6 engaged in many of our issues, but we do have a mechanism in place to communicate with members and get them involved -- our system of regions and sections. We can focus on getting regions and sections involved.
4. What is your favorite aspect of IEEE-USA?

Mauro: My favorite aspect is being able to work with the other volunteers because we have such a talented group of people here. They are willing to spend time to help the members. My passion is the careers of our members as they go through their employment or start companies because I think that is very rewarding on a very large scale.

John: It’s very satisfying to meet and work with people like yourselves all from diverse parts of our electrotechnological industry while trying to serve our members.
5. What is one of the most important public policy issues?

Mauro: I think the most important issues are some of the things that are happening with patents. For the members, the policy issues have to do with what we do with education.

John: I think our national energy policy is currently the most important issue we face. Our country is at a crossroads with respect to energy supply and there is a terrific balance trying to be reached between the environment and cost and reliability and the use of natural resources. I foresee at least for the next 5-8 years energy policy is going to be one of the most important things.
6. What will you do differently to turn around the aging member population statistics?

Mauro: I think part of it is we need to get industry to realize and see the kind of benefit that membership in IEEE is bringing to their companies. The other is we need to find a way to take the S-PACs and transition the students from students to members.

John: 25-35% of employees are going to be eligible to retire in 3-5 years from my company. We need to get more members, but our members have to come from college and the way that’s going to work is to encourage our K-12 kids to look at science, technology and math education as an attractive, exciting field for them.

IEEE-USA President-Elect Candidates Forum

2010-03-06T16:00:00.000-06:00

Annual Meeting attendees heard from this year's candidates for IEEE-USA President-Elect -- Jim Howard and Marc Apter. Below are excerpts from some of the questions the candidates were asked to answer by audience members.

1. Why does IEEE-USA exist?

Jim: IEEE-USA exists to represent the interests of IEEE in the U.S. and represent the IEEE U.S. members. IEEE-USA is the only organization approved to lobby in the U.S. I think IEEE-USA is the paramount organization that we need to make sure that in Regions 1-6 we have repsreentation in places where we need it when we need it.

Marc: About 40-odd years ago, some very smart people realized that IEEE members in the U.S. needed unique representation. At first it was a committee, then it was a board, now it’s IEEE-USA. They were right. We do need unique representation. We have a very unique structure here in the U.S. and we need a unique organization to represent us and we need to get the rest of the U.S. to understand who we are and what we represent.

2. How can IEEE-USA keep a strategic vision so that we can overcome the rising storm?

Jim: I think that IEEE-USA is in the leadership role in their process of putting a plan in place of trying to address this and as you watch the IEEE-USA of the future you’ll have an idea of how we’re addressing it from the grassroots all the way to Washington.

Marc: The number one way would be the will to do it and I think the will is there. It’s obvious in the past few days talking to people here, there’s a will and a desire. We have the structure and the organization and it’s just going to take will to make it happen.

3. What is the most effective way to engage members and how would you implement it?

Jim: The most effective way to engage members is at the grassroots level. The grassroots level is where we can actually have impact. How we can do that has to do with communications. What is the best method to communicate? One of the best ways we can do that is to be at the Annual meeting to take the messages back to their members.

Marc: The best way to engage the members is to communicate our message to them and listen to what they have to say back to see what we’re missing. We need to communicate to them as many different ways as possible -- whether we’re talking paper, e-mail or any of the other new social networks that our members are now involved with. No one way is going to solve the problem.

4. What is your favorite aspect of IEEE-USA?

Jim: My interaction with the dedicated volunteers. That interaction is just such an enhancement in the way I do my job -- the fact that the volunteers are willing to spend an entire weekend at meetings and spend time at home to get our messages out.
Marc: My favorite part is the part that got me involved to start with and that’s the PACE network. It has been fun!

5. What is one of the most important public policy issues?

Jim: Energy right now is our key policy that we have to address as a nation if we’re to survive. We can bring in more production and we can bring in more manufacturing, but without the infrastructure we cannot survive.

Marc: Critical infrastructure protection, which involves every other policy -- energy, transportation, aerospace. It is everywhere, so if we don’t get that right, the other policies aren’t going to succeed.

6. What will you do differently to turn around the aging member population statistics?

Jim: It has been my privilege to work on the S-PAC committee for several years now and I’ve been very impressed with this group of young folks and the message they’re able to get out to the students. If we can expand the program and message, all of us can benefit from it because students begin to see the relevancy of IEEE-USA and what we have to offer as they progress to their professional careers.

Marc: Get new members who are younger. Get new members from all the fields of interest of IEEE, not just our traditional electrical and computer engineering targets. We need to target all areas of interest.

IEEE-USA Government and WISE fellowships

2010-03-06T15:41:00.005-06:00

Author: Nastassja Lewinski

Interested in policy? IEEE sponsors two programs to help members gain first hand experience in the policy arena, the Government Fellowship program and the Washington Internships for Students of Engineering or WISE Program.

During the session, former government fellows Bill Behn and Tom Tierney described how their policy fellowships broadened their view of Washington as well as enhanced their careers. As a Congressional fellow, Behn worked in the Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation within the House Science and Technology Committee. His role included working on recording hearings and drafting legislation as well as evaluating oversight activities related to Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) reauthorization and Bayh-Dole act.

Unlike the Congressional fellowship through which IEEE has sponsored 90 fellows since 1973, the Diplomacy fellowship program is newer, founded in 2002.

Both Behn and Tierney are former diplomacy fellows. Behn worked as a Foreign Affairs Officer under the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs in the State Department and is now a Senior Science Advisor there. Tierney worked under the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism in the State Department and has returned to his research at Los Alamos National Lab.

Tierney added to the discussion his perspective on how science and policy are interconnected.

Policy enables science – Affects the direction of research
Policy drives science – Strategies affect public need
Science drives policy – Discovery changes society
Science enables policy – Solutions product capabilities

APPLY NOW for the 2011 Government Fellowships (2 Congressional and 1 Diplomacy). Deadline is March 15, 2010.

For those that are still students, the WISE internship program provides an opportunity to gain a related policy experience. Although the 2010 WISE internship application period is now closed, applications for the 2011 will be accepted until December 31, 2010.

Matt Ezovski and I gave an overview of the WISE Program, whose goals are promoting participation of young engineers in shaping public policy. The 9 week internship program is open to students in their junior, senior or final year of college as well as engineering grads beginning a Masters in a technology policy related degree.

Interns have the opportunity to visit many federal agencies and attend hearings on the Hill in preparation for their public policy paper due at the end of the summer. These papers are published online and some have been submitted for formal publication (for example, see Ezovski's paper on RFIDs). In addition to the educational and networking benefits of the internship, DC is filled with cultural and nightlife activities making it a great city to spend a summer.

For more information, please check the WISE Intern website.

Be WISE and apply!

Regional Poster Presentations

2010-03-06T13:35:00.015-06:00

Regions 1-6 presented their posters' on their activities within their regions. Each region presented their activities such as GOLD, Sections, Robotic events, social and networking events, humanitarian workshops, vehicular technology chapter meetings, etc. On the right are some of the posters that were presented at the Posters Presentation Session.

Some key points to note are of the following:

Southern NJ High School Robotic challenge occurs on April 24 ,2010
Region 5 robotic challenge occurred in Kansas City on the same time as they presented their poster
Region 4 focuses on recruitment and retention by sending their GOLD members to middle schools, and motivating students to get interest in electronics. Some of their GOLD activities include snowboarding and skiing at a discounted rate.
Region 1 focuses on professionalism and humanitarian, leadership, new jobs creation and retaining jobs in the green field. Some examples of Region 1 activities were the white water rafting event, a comedy club event, humanitarian workshop, and Student Transition & Elevation Program (STEP).
The Baltimore Section will host the high school robotic competition on April 17-18. GOLD members are extremely active within the region while there is still potential to expand on some sections. Region 2 also has collaborative events with nearby sections. Region 2 also has collaborative events with nearby Sections.

Posted by: Ryan Janak, Baltimore GOLD C0-Chair, email: baltimoregold@ieee.org

Growing Innovation & Entrepreneurship

2010-03-06T12:56:00.020-06:00

Charles Lord Region 3 Leadership Development Chair and Ron Jensen IEEE-USA Presiden Elect presented on Growing Innovation and Entrepreneurship in your Section.
This presentation was really interesting because Charles provided very good examples and went into details about the future of Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He was quick to point out the importance of Small Business's and that they account for 39 percent of the country 's gross national product creating two out of every three new jobs.

Having a innovative plan is another key factor that Charles highlighted in his presentation. Vision goals, means to get there, tool's material needed, milestones were among the several factors he mentioned. Personal plan is also of importance because it involves good financial planing (IRA) and great organizational skills.

Charles also engaged with the audience by asking what is the definition of an Entrepreneur?
"One who organizes, manages, and assumes the risk of a business or enterprise"
A consultant is an entrepreneur but not all entrepreneurs are consultants.
Consultant "one who gives a professional advice or services: expert".

IEEE-USA with its members should get involved and use the resources to make your local section the "go-to" source for growing entrepreneurs and growing innovation. The IEEE members should work together to make things happen stated Charles.

There are number of websites available for training SCORE provides a great deal of advice and useful tools, FastTrac helping people peruse their entrepreneurial dreams, Innovation Institute focuses on programs to advance the preparation of leaders responsible for innovation of new products and services by sharing the experiences of successful innovators in a coordinated program of interaction, mentoring and networking, Facebook and LinkedIn.

In conclusion he added it is really important to establish a web presence (google documents, web pages), form a steering community (invite other groups to participate), establish a budget (materials). Also look for possible PACE funding and region MGA and don't forget to PUBLICIZE!

Congressional Visits Days

2010-03-06T11:30:00.003-06:00

Debbie Rudolph presented on Congressional Visits Days (CVD) in track 2 on projects. The presentation was face paced and attended by about 20 people. Compared to other presentations this one was more interactive with a lot of time dedicated to questions. Jim Jefferies was also listed as a presenter but the presentation was given mostly by Debbie.

Congressional visits are opportunities for IEEE members to meet congressmen. The event takes place over several days in late April (28-29), early enough to have an impact on legislation. The first day covers training, briefing, and awards (given to congressmen). The congressional visits occur on the 2nd day. It was started 15 years ago by about 20 organizations. 2010 priorities consist of innovation and competitiveness, with jobs as a key component, and R&D advocacy.

The visits are attended by regions and sections. Attendees are matched up with congressmen from their districts. Attendees include a mix of new and returning attendees and even includes students. To help bring students, there is a 3 year old program that provides $1k funding for 1 student / region. Last year only 2 students took advantage of this program so more are needed.

There is also a program called WISE which targets students. In this program, 3 students are selected to spend 9 weeks in summer working in Washington DC. It grooms future leaders who can contribute to future public policy making.

There are several advantages to attending: team building, interaction with members outside IEEE-USA, building relationships, and representing your interests. A recommendation was given that everyone should spend 10% of their time on advocacy.

After the CVD, you first need to write a thank you letter to the congressmen that you worked with. You also need to share your experience with others, through newsletters and programs at region, section, and society meetings. You can also join IEEE-USA policy committees, such as developing IEEE-USA position statements, agency and congressional relations, and develop and plan conferences.

IEEE Center for Leadership Excellence

2010-03-06T10:46:00.002-06:00

Author: Nastassja Lewinski

We all find ourselves picking up new hats – presenter Charles Lord mentioned how IEEE leadership positions are great opportunities to get involved, meet new people and pick up another "hat."

When volunteering in IEEE leadership, such as becoming a chapter or section chair, volunteers were historically handed "the box" which felt like a 4 drawer filing cabinet because it was all paper forms – remember those pre-internet days? Essentially the training manuals told volunteers who to call in IEEE but still left the more important question "what do I do?" a bit unclear.

The IEEE Center for Leadership Excellence (CLE) is not only trying to simplify the form process by going electronic but also provide leadership training such as strategies on how to lead and inspire people. In a way, IEEE volunteerism can be considered the "best kept secret" in engineering management. As some may already know, the “do it or you’re fired” tactic doesn’t work for volunteers so you really can learn how to get people motivated.

A bit of history, CLE started as a project / ad-hoc committee in 2009 under the MGA (Member and Geographic Activities) board but is meant to provide resources for all IEEE members. These resources are geared towards answering the concerns of new leaders. For example, you may be thinking, “I was just elected chapter chair. Now that I’m chair what does that mean?”

CLE has developed a web and email based "quick start" resource to make the first 30 days of office run smoothly. This includes modules for officers (chair, vice chair, treasurer, secretary, technical chapter chair) which take about 30-45 min to complete. Essentially they provide “job descriptions” and cover common ground for each volunteer such as

• Understanding your members – A very important task since how can you lead your fellow members if you don’t know them?
• Getting organized through tools – vTools, SAMIEEE, e-Notice, etc.
• Documentation management

These initial resources are already online and there is more to follow.

For those that are interested in more information, please check the IEEE Center for Leadership Excellence page.

What is Engagement? Communications With & Among Your Members

2010-03-06T10:38:00.004-06:00

David Green, director-elect of Region 3, described methods for engaging and communicating with members.

He began by discussing what engagement is and why individuals engage IEEE. Here are a few reasons:

Access to technical information
Career development tools
Continuing education
Access to discounts
Venue to give back to society and the profession
Creation of content
Social networking
To make a difference

Green said the most important things to remember are that “engagement should be person-to-person and is an obligation that if we practice it, there can be benefits.”

There are many ways to communicate with members in your local section and Green touched on several, which are described below.

Send a broadcast e-mail to the masses. How do you do that?

Form a group reflector address (requires adding e-mail addresses yourself to list)
Send through E-Notice (uses member database to send to all members of a section or all members in a specific zip code, etc.)
Use mail merge to create messages that can be personalized with person’s name in the message and the person’s specific e-mail address in the TO field (use SAMIEEE)

What should you do?

Customize the e-mail for the specific audience
Provide links to the resources cited
Keep message short
Provide layered message (inverted pyramid journalistic style)
Provide feedback/participation avenues

If you have a section web site, it should include a:

Search box
Roadmap for site users
Mechanism for feedback (officer e-mail addresses or form) and monitor it

Another idea is to create a group for your section or chapter on social networks including:

LinkedIn - use discussions to ask questions of importance to members
Facebook
Second Life (and other virtual worlds)
Plaxo

IEEE and IEEE-USA have many tools for communicating with the members in your section, so get out there and use them!

Products and Services of the IEEE-USA

2010-03-06T10:23:00.002-06:00

Have you ever wondered how IEEE-USA can serve you? Have you visited the IEEE-USA website and taken a chance to navigate the plethora of information? Peggy Hutcheson and Mauro Togneri presented on a 360 Degree View: Your Business, Career, Employment Needs.

Peggy started the session by asking session attendees about the number of products and services offered by the IEEE-USA. Many volunteers knew of 5 and diminishing numbers standing up to 18 products and services.

The products and services covered fall under three categories: Employment Assistance, Career Development and Enhancing Business. There are e-books, webinars, presentations and other information available through the IEEE-USA Website.

The Career Navigator offers webinars for resumes, interviewing and networking skills. The Career Navigator offers networking, job seeking and blogs. Peggy stated, "even experienced leaders [within the IEEE] are surprised with everything the IEEE-USA has to offer."

Mauro followed Peggy's topics focusing on the missing building blocks of innovation and how the Innovation Institute focuses to determine the risks and ways to address these missing blocks to improve innovation.

The Innovation Institute started with e-books and webinars to address the issues and now uses mash-ups. The mashups are focused to pull industry and academia to focus on the challenges through online tools to allow projects such as Green Energy or the Humanitarian Technology Challenge thus reducing the need of participants to travel.

Another tool in the belt of IEEE-USA is TechMatch, allowing entrepreneurs an area to post business plans for a small fee (typically around $100) and allow potential investors an opportunity to browse plans and select ones of interest. This eliminates the extra time it would take for an entrepreneur to pitch a potential investor and save the time of the investors, a two-fold benefit.

There are many committees within the IEEE-USA that assist in innovative areas and lobby to ensure innovation is not hindered by law. The IEEE-USA Intellectual Property Committee is the advocate for members currently focusing on Patent Reform that could weaken the protection of a patent.

With all these services, contact your section PACE Chair, visit the IEEE-USA website (www.ieeeusa.org) and ask questions about how IEEE-USA can help you. The service may already exist and the IEEE-USA Committees have volunteers ready to help.

360 Degree View: Your Business, Career, Employment Needs

2010-03-06T10:19:00.030-06:00

Peggy Hutcheson, CEO, The Odyssey Group & Co-Chair IEEE-USA Innovation Institute and Mauro Togneri Co-Chair, IEEE-USA Innovation Institute & Entrepreneurs Activities Committee, spoke about career and growth development, employment issues, and entrepreneurship.

The beginning of the presentation was really engaging because Peggy asked the attendees to name products and services offered by IEEE-USA. Many people were able to name at least 10. Peggy was quick to mention that the tree major areas are Employment Assistance, Career Development and Enhancing Business.

The IEEE-USA website has a career navigator link which is very useful tool for job search, networking, blog, video and premium services. There are e-Books, webinars, presentations, business skills and other information available.

Mauro Togneri spoke briefly about Norman Augustine who started the Innovation campaign and therefore the Innovation Institute was developed. He was quick to mention that the main focus was to address the risk and obstacles involved in order to improve innovation. He noted the mash-up is a strategic plan in which universities, industries, students and engineers/members collaborate together to brainstorm potential ideas and help projects such as Green Energy to make a real impact in humanity without making a major commitment of your time or resources.

The IEEE-USA Intellectual Property Committee is currently helping members focusing on Patent Reform. Copyrights (protect expression of idea), Trademarks (protect awareness of idea), and Trade Secrets (protection development ideas) are among the few intellectual properties which protects a patent reform. IEEE-USA also focuses on legislation, position statements, international trade and inventors rights.

Please visit the IEEE-USA website to find out more information. Engage yourself, get involved and make a difference.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER: William A. Wulf

2010-03-06T09:57:00.006-06:00

William A. Wulf, Ph.D. from the University of Virginia - Charlottesville and past President of the National Academy of Engineering provided an excellent Saturday morning keynote address on the importance of maintaining international competitiveness. Wulf argued that there is an overall lack of attention to this critical issue and neglecting competitiveness will have dire consequences for the US and engineers in particular.

Wulf began with a narrated history of the National Academy of Sciences which, for those who were unfamiliar with the organization, provided a framework perspective on how the organization operates and its overall credibility when producing high-profile reports. One particular report was the topic of discussion: Rising Above the Gathering Storm.

Gathering Storm is a report written by the National Academy of Sciences in 2007 which sought to bring into spotlight the critical issues of innovation and international competitiveness. The report specifically called for a comprehensive and coordinated federal effort to bolster US competitiveness and pre-eminence in the areas of science and technology. The report, according to Wulf, was constructed on the notion that the US is no longer maintaining the infrastructure of investment, education, and research that is needed to succeed in the twenty-first century.

The strength of the US, according to Wulf, has always been the nation's ability to innovate. The US now needs to bolster this strength. Failure to do so will have dire consequences for the nation. As outlined in the Gathering Storm, the US must undertake four critical changes:

Increase America's talent pool by vastly improving K-12 mathematics and science education;
Sustain and strengthen the nation's commitment to long-term basic research;
Develop, recruit, and retain top students, scientists, and engineers from both the U.S. and abroad; and
Ensure that the United States is the premier place in the world for innovation.

When originally written, support for Gathering Storm was immense. Wulf argued that the support demonstrated an instance of bipartisanship--truly a rare alliance given the political atmosphere of the last decade. The report received a tremendous level of support, including focus in the State of the Union address.

Of course, the question is: "did anything happen?"

The answer is unfortunately more "no" than "yes". The bills spawned from the Gathering Storm received strong authorization, but no appropriation. That is, the National Academies received the authority to carry out the research and tasks outlined in their report, but there was no money to do so! Without funding, nothing can be done.

This is not to say that nothing at all happened. Wulf pointed out that there was one successful spawn from the legislation, that being the ARPA-E program. As found on the ARPA-E website, modeled after the successful Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), ARPA-E’s mission is to fund projects that will develop transformational technologies that reduce America’s dependence on foreign energy imports; reduce US energy related emissions (including greenhouse gasses); improve energy efficiency across all sectors of the US economy and ensure that the US maintains its leadership in developing and deploying advanced energy technologies. Truly a strong mission, and a needed organization.

Wulf provided his insider opinion when he pointed out that there are a lot of other needed aspects that did not make their way onto the priority list in Gathering Storm. Wulf argued that there needs to be a renewed sense of risk taking and entrepreneurship, a revising of tax laws, construction of better intellectual property protection mechanisms, and the development of laws that protect the public but simultaneously encourage innovation.

In closing, Wulf recapped an experience he had in June 2006 when he attended the meeting of the Chinese Academy of Engineering in Bejing. At this meeting the President of China gave a Keynote Address in which goals were outlined which Wulf thought sounded shockingly similar to the contents of Gathering Storm. The difference, according to Wulf, is that China is acting where the US is lagging. The Chinese are pushing hard to turn their country into an innovation-driven nation and they're being much more successful at it, starting by rapidly transforming their universities into world-class institutions.

Wulf conveyed that momentum around the Gathering Storm has clearly subsided. But if the engineering community gets vocal about it maybe that momentum can be revitalized. IEEE and IEEE-USA could play a particularly important role in making sure that there are more material and measurable results from the Gathering Storm. Saturday's sessions will focus on how engineers can play a role and help bring attention to these critical issues. It is hoped that attendees will walk away from the IEEE-USA Annual Meeting with a full toolkit usable to help foster innovation and competitiveness in the US.

Politics and Your Section

2010-03-06T09:04:00.005-06:00

Russell Harrison motivated an audience to work with their elected leaders to change public policy. As the Senior Legislative Representative for Grassroots Affairs for IEEE-USA, Harrison is responsible for helping IEEE members in the U.S. interact with, and ultimately influence, elected officials.

Harrison’s key advice – reach out to your congressperson! “Congressmen are desperate to hear from actual people,” explained Harrison. “Within your section, within your state, within your congressional district, we want to talk with one voice to tell Congress how we want to make this country better. The more often we do that, the more likely we’ll be successful.”

Congressional staff persons were recently surveyed about what had “some” or “a lot” of influence over their boss’s vote. Ninety-nine percent said a visit from a constituent, 96 percent said a letter from a constituent, 93 percent said a lobbyist, 65 percent said form letters. A visit is most impactful because if you take the time and effort to travel to Washington, they know you mean it.

What can local sections do?

Visit your local legislator’s office - Send 1-5 people (people who care about the issues you'll be discussing and people who vote in the district), send a written invitation by e-mail 2-3 weeks in advance (IEEE-USA can help), have a specific message, ask for the legislator but accept staff, expect to be there an average of 20-30 minutes, have something to leave them (IEEE-USA can help), and follow-up.
Invite your local legislator to a section meeting - You'll need around 100 people to get a member from Congress to attend. Send an invitation 6-8 weeks in advance (IEEE-USA can help), make the legislator the center of attention (give them time to speak), make it easy, follow-up and be flexible.

You can also empower your members on policy by making policy part of the discussion in your newsletters and section meetings. You can do this by sending information from Eye on Washington, Today’s Engineer, and Action Alerts to your section members. Focus on what your section members are thinking/worrying/talking about.

Harrison's final words: The American political system is the most accessible and most easily influenced political system in the world, so get involved!

Region 1 Breakout Session

2010-03-06T01:38:00.002-06:00

Ravi Todi, Region 1 PACE Chair, hosted the Region 1 Breakout session at Salon C. The objective of the breakout session is to exchange idea and discuss what work and what don’t in the Section. Region 1 was honor that Marko Delimar, Region 8 Director-Elect, chose to join the Region 1 breakout session. Marko was here to learn about the PACE activities, and will bring what he learnt back to Region 8. The breakout session was adjourned with a group photo (without Marko).

Innovating Beyond the Gathering Storm

2010-03-06T00:45:00.003-06:00

Dr Guruprasad Madhavan, Program Officer, Policy and Global Affairs at The National Academies, spoke about Innovating beyond the Gathering Storm. He explained the origins of the National Academies and noted "the National Academy of Sciences is an organization that was founded as a result of innovative thinking during the Civil War."

Briefing the conference attendees on the present public perceptions on innovation and competitiveness, Madhavan also explained the origins of the Rising Above the Gathering Storm report, the corresponding federal and state impacts of the report including the America COMPETES Act, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and the follow-up recent reports and activities within the National Academies. He urged the attendees to review the many relevant reports available freely online at the National Academies Press.

Responding to a question on how and why he chose public policy as a career path as an engineer, Madhavan responded "My doctoral research was focused on developing a non-invasive muscle stimulation device to improve lower limb blood circulation. I was doing an experiment in my lab in early 2008, and I had this sudden realization that instead of stimulating tiny mechanoreceptors in the foot, may be I need to be stimulating the economy. I applied, and was later accepted for a science and technology policy fellowship at the National Academies to work in an economic policy board in Fall 2008. That was the time when the economic crisis was beginning to deepen. I got a battlefield view of economics and policy. Enriched and inspired by that experience, I applied for a position at the National Academies for a fulltime position following my PhD."

Madhavan added engineers could also innovate by encouraging students and young professionals to move into various career pathways beyond the traditional molds of engineering. "There are a lot of career paths less traveled that could gain from an engineering mindset."

Book Signing Event

2010-03-06T00:01:00.002-06:00

"Winning the Global Talent Showdown” by Edward E. Gordon. Edward was the Friday luncheon keynote speaker. He spoke about the 21st Century High Skills Talent Development Imperatives. His book talks about how Businesses and Communities Can Partner to Rebuild the Jobs Pipeline.

Left: Evelyn H. Hirt, IEEE-USA President

Right: Edward E. Gordon, President of Imperial Consulting Corporation.

Region 2 Breakout: Up Close and Personal!

2010-03-05T22:59:00.000-06:00

Tonight's Region 2 Breakout Session provided an up-close-and-personal view of IEEE in action. From stories of chapter and section activities to a personal introduction of each Region 2 attendee, we all learned a great deal about each other in a relaxed and social environment. It was tremendously pleasing to hear the stories and reports of what really goes on at ground level--a perspective that is often lost when in the larger group sessions. Personally I enjoyed the opportunity to network with people that live nearby to my own home. The region breakout sessions are an important and much-needed component of the Annual Meeting!

Roundtable Ideas Discussion (Red or Yellow Dot?)

2010-03-05T16:58:00.017-06:00

Left: Madeleine Lowe, Region 1 New Hampshire Section
Right: Ed Neller, Region 6 Central Iowa Section

They talked about how to engage first year members and young members (GOLD) to be more active and participate Section activities.

GOLD Members have been trying to figure out what is the color dot sticker (either Red or Yellow) means on the attendees’ badge. Is yellow dot for GOLD members, and Red for other members? But, Soon’s badge had Red dot!!!

Finally, the answer revealed at the Roundtable Ideas Discussion this afternoon. The attendees were split into 2 groups. And, each group was assigned to discuss and brainstorm the below 4 issues:

Red Dot:

1. Getting the Word Out.

2. Membership -recruitment, retention, engagement (including PACE) - What's different about US?

Yellow Dot:

1. Industrial Relations - getting business to support IEEE

2. Employment - What is IEEE's role in supporting members' careers?

Considering a Career in Consulting: The Ins & Outs

2010-03-05T16:43:00.002-06:00

Dr Gary Blank, a consultant and VP of IEEE-USA Career and Member Services, gave a tutorial on consulting in the Continuing Education Career Development track (track 2). The presentation comes from part 1 in a larger tutorial that the speaker normally gives:

1. How to get started
2. How to set fees
3. How to win contracts
4. How to find clients

The presentation started by defining a consultant as someone who works independently. He then covered the current consulting climate. The recession has hurt the consulting market but on the bright side layoffs have created opportunities for consultants as companies sometimes over cut and then need consultants in their place.

He covered a number of common myths about consulting. You need an email address and a phone number but you shouldn't sit by the phone expecting business to come to you. You need to be a certified Professional Engineer (PE) to call yourself a consulting engineering . You may make a lot of money for a given task but may not be able to find work year around. There will be politics wherever you go. Some good points are that you're self employed, get tax benefits, and can work at home sometimes.

He then covered the reasons to become a consulting an engineer. In addition to the reasons described above, he gave a story about how it can be used to provide income during a career switch.

Next he covered common details and concerns about getting started. You don't need an office. You do need to advertise but not in the yellow pages. You rarely need a security clearance. You need to be easy to reach but you don't need a fictitious name. You need to keep records for taxes, get business cards, a business license, liability insurance (which you can get through IEEE-USA), stationary, resumes, computer, e-mail address, website, and clients. Incorporation is optional.

He last talked about how IEEE-USA can be useful to starting a career in consulting. He showed where the resources can be found on the IEEE-USA website. IEEE does a survey of consultants fees, which you can use to determine how much you should be charging. You can pay $79/year to be listed on a database of consultants, which should help you find clients. You can join a local consultants network, which has recently expanded outside the US. Last, there are consultants workshops that you can participate in.

What Issues are Plaguing IEEE-USA?

2010-03-05T16:27:00.002-06:00

During this afternoon's roundtable session, IEEE-USA Board Members brought forward issues that they believe are plaguing IEEE Regions 1-6:

We need to communicate better about products, services and programs with our members (Blank)
What is the best process for setting the public policy priorities? How would you like to receive public policy information? What other non-traditional approaches can we use to put forth public policy? (Jeffries)
Member apathy at the local level (Polavarapu)
Value and format of the Annual Meeting (Pierce)
Membership retention and recruitment (Robinson and Stogner)
How to encourage companies to support membership, involvement, and volunteerism of their employees as IEEE members (Bramlett)
Employment resources (Perkins)
Should we be encouraging new PACE programs in the sections? How should we prioritize programs? (Rubenstein)
Public awareness of engineering and IEEE-USA (Patel)

Region 1 Rock!

2010-03-05T15:17:00.002-06:00

Officers from Region 1 woke up early today, and had a breakfast meeting with Charles Rubenstein, the Region 1 Director. Issues on Region 1 PACE, SPAC, and Membership Development were discussed. The group also talked about a new initiative on Membership Development, and planning to submit a proposal for the MGA Challenge.The Region 1 also invited their special guest from Region 8: Marko Delimar, Region 8 Director-Elect, who showed up later to join the table. The breakfast and discussion were good, and Region 1 Rock at the IEEE-USA Annual Meeting.

Chris Mi presents on hybrid and electric vehicles

2010-03-05T15:09:00.000-06:00

Chris Mi, Ph.D. from the University of Michigan-Dearborn presented on hybrid and electric vehicles, arguing that the vehicles may offer a gateway to energy and environmental sustainability. These technologies are greatly overdue, hinted Mi, when one considers that 'peak oil' predictions show that oil will last only another 43 years at current consumption rates. Further, one must consider that increased emissions, including greenhouse gases (GHGs) that cause climate change are projected to only increase in the coming decades. This two-fold dilemma of energy and environment has caused scientists and engineers to begin developing new alternatives to gasoline vehicles.

Hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) may help to solve humanity's energy and environmental problems. HEVs have a number of key advantages, argued Mi, including that they allow for the optimization of the operating point of an internal combustion engine (ICE) and allowing for the ICE to stop if not needed. Also, HEVs recover the kinetic energy from braking allowing for greater overall system efficiency.

The problems with HEVs are their high initial costs, reliability concerns, warranty issues, and safety with dealing with high voltage electrical systems. These problems will need to be overcome before HEVs will realize significant market share gains.

Mi showed that other alternatives exist, such as plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). PHEVs come in multiple incarnations such as extended range electric vehicles (EREVs), blended PHEVs, and neighborhood electric vehicles (NEVs), each of which should be applied in different situations depending on a number of difference scenario characteristics.

A major challenge in all hybrid systems is overcoming the weaknesses of the batteries. Mi shows how each battery type has its own set of challenges:

Lead acid battery: energy density too low;
Nickel metal hydride battery: ideal for HEV but still not without challenges;
Metal air battery: not mature yet;
Ultracapacitors: energy density too low; and
Flywheels-energy density too low.

Mi showed optimism, however, when he argued that "everyone's working on this so hopefully there's a solution to all these problems in the next few years."

Another challenge, according to Mi, deals with how to properly evaluate and present the many HEV alternatives. One way to evaluate the vehicles is to measure how much fuel is displaced by operating a vehicle which uses electricity rather than gasoline. Even more importantly, according to Mi, is how you present this information to the public. Mi argued that the current window sticker included with every new car is simply not adequate. Mi suggested an appropriate labeling method be implemented which presents more useful information such as highway and city fuel economy ratings in all different modes of vehicle operation as well as presenting electric energy consumption and information on vehicle range when operating on electric mode. With more information it would become possible to evaluate what type of HEV would be appropriate for what scenario.

In his closing arguments, Mi maintained that hybridization of vehicles is absolutely not the ultimate solution because the vehicles still rely on fossil fuels to some degree. However, HEVs will help build a pathway to a sustainable future. Mi argued that a coordinated effort is needed across all modes of transport, such as undertaking smarter urban planning, better public transit systems, developing high speed rail, and building smarter and safer vehicles. Only through a collective effort by multiple stakeholders will we be able to break free of markets dominated by gasoline-powered personal vehicles.

The Global Talent Showdown

2010-03-05T14:01:00.007-06:00

Edward E. Gordon, president of Imperial Consulting Corporation and author of "Winning the Global Talent Showdown: How Businesses and Communities Can Partner to Rebuild the Jobs Pipeline", gave a persuasive presentation during lunch about 21st century high skills talent development imperatives.

Gordon spoke about the STEM shortage that is beginning to hurt our economy and other economies around the world. During his presentation, Gordon explained that our economic future depends on the actions we take to reinvent the U.S. education-to-employment system over the next decade because in its current form it will not support an advanced tech economy.

“The problem is here right now, it’s burning real bright and it’s going to get Supernova in the next decade,” noted Gordon.

While 62 percent of jobs today require a strong high school liberal arts background and some type of college degree, this will jump to 74 percent by 2020. There will be 123 million vacant jobs, but only 43 million qualified persons to fill them -- partly because on average only 70 percent of children graduate high school today.

According to the Alliance for Excellent Education, 52 percent of Hispanic students, 56 percent of African American students, 57 percent of Native American students graduate, and 78 percent of white students graduate from high school.

“We keep raising the education bar in the workplace and no one is paying attention,” noted Gordon. “The generation that’s retiring is more educated than the generation that follows.”

In addition to having an unqualified workforce, we also have problems with loss of talent. The globalization paradox is a worldwide problem and in the future, we’re not going to be able to import the talent or export the goods, Gordon said.

“These are not engineering issues per say, or education issues per say, they are cultural in nature,” said Gordon. “Engineers from other countries are returning home because they can make more money there, they can set up business there, and they can be with their families there.”

There are also issues with outsourcing and foreign direct investment exporting low- and high-skill jobs.

What is the solution to these problems? According to Gordon, the U.S. needs to adopt a more sustainable long-term business culture and rebuild the STEM pipeline.

“IEEE has a civic and moral responsibility in every community in this country to work through community-based organizations to reinvent the system,” he said.

Community-based organizations and non-government organizations are being organized through business-education partnerships and the participation of chambers of commerce, unions, parent organizations, workforce boards, economic development commissions, professional or trade associations, and other community activists. The long-term goals of these organizations are to ultimately change their state education/training mandates so that schools will offer education programs for a knowledge economy and businesses will see lifelong employee training and education as another essential component of just “doing business.”

We must turn our system and culture around to address the long-term challenges associated with a STEM-based knowledge economy designed to support technology and job growth.

“You have to know when to hold them and you have to know when the fold them,” Gordon said during his presentation.

Will the U.S. make the sacrifices needed in the short-term so that our country advances and wins the global talent showdown?

For more information, read Ed Gordon’s article in IEEE-USA Today’s Engineer entitled “The Technology Paradox: A Digital Economy Without a STEM Workforce?” http://www.todaysengineer.org/2009/Mar/STEM.asp

RT, Embedded Systems

2010-03-05T12:39:00.004-06:00

Hamid Vakilzadian (right in picture), from the University of Bebraska-Lincoln, presented an overview of real-time and embedded systems in the 4th unnamed track. The presentation was attended by about 15 people.

The presentation started with an overview of computers and the Von Neumann Architecture as background for what goes into an embedded system. Embedded systems were then defined as hardware-software systems dedicated to pre-defined tasks. Examples given included pacemakers, ATM machines, and GPSes. They contain dedicated processors responding to external input in order to meet real-time constraints, which come in many forms (performance, reliability, and form factor for example). They are composed of lightweight hardware such as 8, 16, and 32-bit microprocessors with 10-64MB of on-chip RAM, with design times approaching months rather than years.

The presentation then progressed into a discussion of embedded system components. The platform can consist of any combination of microprocessors, programmable logic, and other specialized components. Processors have good software support such as real-time operating systems (RTOS) and are made by many manufacturers but lack hardware flexibility and aren't as fast as custom logic. Programmable logic (FPGAs, CPLDs, etc), by contrast, are fast and flexible with high degrees of parallelism but require knowledge of HDLS, have longer development times, and are harder to debug. Most of the time here was focused on these components but RTOS and real-time databases were also mentioned.

So far the presentation focused on embedded systems and so naturally the speaker moved on to a discussion of real-time systems. Real-time constraints can be classified as either hard, soft, or firm. Hard constraints are critical, meaning that violations result in catastrophic failure. Soft constraints are not critical but utility may gracefully decline over time. Firm constraints are those who utility value drops rapidly after a certain period of time. In other words, if it can't be done by the deadline it may as well not be done. A car cruise control system was given as an example of these types of constraints.

The presentation covered the embedded system design process last. Design complexity is increasing faster that designer productivity so the process is evolving. Techniques to support design complexity include delayed hardware/software partitioning, abstract and decomposition based design, iterative development, description languages, and simulation. Hardware and software have traditionally been designed separately and then integrated at the end but this approach often results in schedule delays, poor quality designs, and costly modifications. The proposed approach is to add an integrated modeling substrate where hardware and software designers collaborate throughout the design process.

The presentation finished with questions. One person asked about the speaker's opinion of what was going on inside Toyota right now. He thinks it isn't a braking problem but mentioned that debugging intermittent failures like these can be very difficult.

BEST Middle & High School Robotics Competition...What is it?

2010-03-05T12:19:00.003-06:00

I think we have all heard of FIRST Robotics Competition and maybe a few have heard of BEST Robotics Competition, but what is the difference? George Blanks of Auburn University explains the some differences and the BEST approach.

FIRST Robotis Competition robots run in the $20,000 to $30,000 for an event targeted towards 15-20 kids. They tend to involve more design by actual engineers instead of the students. While FIRST does address the awareness issue of Engineering to students, it is difficult to work into the school curriculum.

BEST Robotics Competitions have an initial start-up cost to create a licensed hub [center that has the power kits and provides the competition arena]. These costs are not passed to the schools and schools pay no fees. Past the initial investment of approximately $800 per kits for the hub and arena costs [typically around $700], successive events require raw materials typically under $200 per kit.

With the reduced costs for BEST Robotics Competitions, it puts it within reach for local non-profit organizations wishing to organize the event or multiple corporate sponsors to dedicate funding and more importantly mentors from their Engineering staff.

The short, BEST offers a cost effective way to introduce engineering to students and design goals students can associate with while learning about various topics such as nanotechnology or handing a reactor meltdown in a fun atmosphere with mentors to guide and not build their robots.

BEST also offers other programs to get engineering into the classroom with smaller projects and paper contests. Visit the BEST site for more details.

Innovative power Engineering Program

2010-03-05T11:52:00.008-06:00

Paul Imbertson, an Associate Education Specialist from Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Minnesota, spoke about reforming the Curricular in Electric Energy Systems at the meeting “Innovative Power Engineering Program” track.

Paul asked, “Why do we need the Reform?” There is opportunity, climate is changing, power energy is affecting regions, and Energy is a big topic now. He then presented the Electric Power Generation by Fuel types, and claimed currently there is a big push for renewable energy. He also introduced the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which include investing in the Smart Grid.

Getting back to Paul’s question, he presented the aging workforce in power energy. 46% of electric utility engineering jobs could be vacated by 2012. Faculties are retiring, programs are weakening, and former strong programs are declining or ending. Hence, there is a crisis in our Undergraduate Education. Paul claimed the courses have not kept pace with the industrial practices, failed to address present and future opportunities, and power program have stagnated. To fix it, we can tap the young people enthusiasm for the environment and the future energy, and provide them the guidance.

So, University of Minnesota developed a curriculum with three core courses: Power Electronics, Electric Drives, and Power Systems. The unique of these three courses are:
1. Only three courses
2. Room for complementary courses such as analog and digital control, Analog Circuit Design, Thermodynamics.
3. Courses were carefully designed.

As a result, there was an increasing student enrollment at University of Minnesota. Over 100 schools are using the new reformed curriculum in various combinations. In addition, there are hardware laboratories in 97 University courses. And, their goal is to reach 175 schools by the end of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) grant.

For more information: www.ece.umn.edu/groups/power

How to Get Involved in K-12 Schools

2010-03-05T10:52:00.006-06:00

Dusty Fisher, chair of the IEEE-USA Precollege Education Committee, and the committee’s past-chair Ken Reid, led an exciting talk about how IEEE members can become involved in their local schools.

Fisher started by asking the audience what is the biggest technology milestone of the new decade. After receiving audience answers of smart grid, twitter, and others, Fisher gave the answer: Computer Engineer Barbie. Yes, Barbie’s next profession will be a computer engineer!

“Barbie -- because she’s an engineer -- is seriously going to impact girls and boys. Boys will look at girls differently and believe they can contribute,” said Fisher. “They go on sale in October and I’ve already ordered three.”

In order to impact today’s Barbie generation, IEEE members must get into the schools and interact with children. A few things that don’t work in terms of talking to schools and doing projects with students, according to Fisher:

Sending a fax
Sending an e-mail
Cold calling
Letters to the board or principal
Diaspora of K-12 environment, including charter, private, public, parochial, districts, counties, cities and home schooling

So how can you get involved? Find a child in school -- maybe your own -- and get involved in a particular school effort, such as robotics competitions, the Future Cities competition, science fairs, and science and math clubs. Mentor and encourage the students! Read about how IEEE members are involved in the FIRST Robotics competition: http://www.todaysengineer.org/2009/Jun/FIRST.asp and the BEST Robotics competition: http://www.todaysengineer.org/2009/Nov/BEST.asp

Once you make contact with a teacher, you should tell them about IEEE-USA Teacher Reward/Grants that are available. Read one teacher’s firsthand story about receiving this award: http://www.todaysengineer.org/2008/Jul/PEC.asp.

Reid followed with a discussion about other ways you can get involved:

· JETS TEAMS competition: http://www.jets.org/TEAMS/index.cfm. IEEE members can join teams and mentor students.

· Project Lead the Way -- middle and high school curriculum to get students ready for engineering or technology in college: http://www.pltw.org. IEEE members can serve on the local boards and certification teams.

· MentorNet -- IEEE members can become mentors for college students: http://www.mentornet.net/.

· National Girls Collaborative Project: http://www.pugetsoundcenter.org/ngcp/.

· Teacher in Service Program (TISP): http://www.ieee.org/web/education/preuniversity/tispt.

· Develop a speakers’ bureau in your section and have IEEE members give presentations at schools.

The bottom line: Go out and inspire future engineers!

For more information about the IEEE-USA Precollege Education Committee activities, visit: http://ieeeusa.org/volunteers/committees/pec/index.html.

Corey Schou on Information Assurance Principles

2010-03-05T10:51:00.003-06:00

Corey Schou from the National Information Assurance Training & Education Center, Idaho State University provided a presentation entitled Integrating Information Assurance Principles in the Engineering & Computer Science Curriculum. Schou made his arguments through analogies and story-telling, providing an entertaining view of a field less-understood by non-programmers. He argued that today, most programs are essentially built out of cast iron, which is brittle, rather and steel, which is strong. He argued that we must program with steel.

Using Microsoft as an example, Schou maintained that Microsoft writes security which only satisfies users but, as we all know, doesn't always work perfectly. They create programs that aren't secure. Schou argued that a Microsoft programmer would likely be unwilling to stand under the bridge that they themselves built. In another example, Schou maintained that one could not convince a Toyota employee to stand on a highway with his back to an approaching vehicle--given the recent developments and vehicle recalls, the employee wouldn't trust that the brakes would work. Although Toyota hasn't admitted that the problem is a software issue, given that the root cause of the problems are still unknown, Toyota's programmers may not be confident enough to trust their own code.

The bottom line is that engineers and programmers cannot assure the quality of their work just by putting a seal of approval on it. It needs to actually be secure and reliable.

Schou argued that today's computer science students need to understand that these programs need to work all the time--not just most of the time. But, how does one teach this lesson in a curriculum? We need to use mental models, according to Schou, which are essential for any type of teaching. Many applications are vulnerable due to bad programming habits. We can solve the problem through early binding. That is, force the teaching of information security at the begining and at all steps along the way. This is a challenge because few, if any, books have any lessons on information security. So, we need to teach things differently; we need to teach the proper methods early and reinforce the proper behavior.

Developing Tomorrow’s Workforce Today: A Challenge for IEEE Chapters and Members

2010-03-05T09:48:00.004-06:00

George Blanks, the executive director of BEST Robotics Inc. and an IEEE member, spoke about the BEST Robotics competition, which he called a fun way to get students involved in science and engineering. During the competition, middle- and high-school students are asked to go from design to market on a robot in just six weeks.

“We went from this being recognized as a robotics competition 11 years ago when we started to being a K-12 workforce development program,” said Blanks. “The program creates an educational partnership between industry, K-12 and higher education.”

Blanks asked the audience to picture a local middle school, and then explained that these students are the future of the engineering workforce. In five years, these students could be joining the workforce.

“What extraordinary measures are you taking to get them ready to become engineers? Are you doing anything in your local school system?” Blanks asked the audience. “I hope your involvement goes beyond career day…because we have to get kids engaged in engineering that shows them it’s fun, possible, and doable if they have the right science and math background early enough.”

Blanks urged colleges, universities, and IEEE sections and chapters to become a hub for local BEST Robotics teams. BEST is free to schools -- equipment and materials are provided -- and all schools regardless of their type -- public, private or home schools -- or location are eligible to participate.

Read an article about the BEST competition recently published in IEEE-USA Today’s Engineer: http://www.todaysengineer.org/2009/Nov/BEST.asp

Archive: Meet the 2010 Bloggers

2010-03-05T09:14:00.006-06:00

Patrick E. Meyer, Ph.D. is Principal at Meyer Energy Research Consulting, Newark, Delaware, and Research Associate at Energy and Environmental Research Associates, LLC., Pittsford, New York. Holding a Ph.D. in Energy and Environmental Policy from the University of Delaware, Meyer specializes in alternative energy, electricity, and fuel technology policy analysis; global sustainable energy systems; and energy and environmental systems modeling and analysis. Meyer is a member of IEEE and the IEEE-USA Communications Committee and is IEEE-USA Today’s Engineer Energy, Environment & Sustainability Editor.

Abby Vogel, Ph.D. is a communications officer in the Research News and Publications office at the Georgia Institute of Technology. In this position, she writes about Georgia Tech research discoveries and developments, and assists reporters in their coverage of Georgia Tech research. Vogel also serves as chair of the IEEE-USA Communications Committee and as an editor for IEEE-USA Today’s Engineer.

Robert Vice is a Hardware Engineer at Measurement Computing in Norton, MA. He has designed Data Acquisitions products for USB, PCI and PCI Express and a key role in the development of Message Based DAQ (a new approach to allow rapid development on many different operating systems). Rob also volunteers with the Boston Section as the Treasurer and PACE Chair and at the Region level as the Region 1 SPAC Coordinator. He remains involved with the GOLD assisting in both Boston activities and as an Area Coordinator under the Region 1 GOLD Coordinator. While he is not working or volunteering with the IEEE, he enjoys rock climbing, ice climbing, snowboarding, mountain biking, camping paintball and other outdoor activities and sports.

Uri Moszkowicz is the R1 GOLD Coordinator, holding the position since 2008. He belongs to the Boston section, holding the position of student activities chair, and was previously the Boston GOLD chair. He currently works for Mentor Graphics on a compiler for an FPGA based emulator, specializing in graph partitioning. He previously worked for Maxtor, JPL, and Intel.

Soon Wan is a Senior Design Engineer in the Research and Development Engineering group at VICOR Corporation. He works with a team to design and develop high power density DC/DC power converter with innovative technologies and patented topologies. Soon has been serving IEEE GOLD Community since 2000 when he founded Boston GOLD Affinity Group. He was the 2009 MGA GOLD Committee Past Chair, and he chaired the committee from 2007 to 2008. Currently, Soon is a member of IEEE N&A (Nomination and Appointment), and a member of the IEEE Humanitarian AdHoc Committee. He is also serving as the IEEE Region 1 Membership Development Chair, Boston Section Treasurer and TAB GOLD Representative. Soon love golfing, snowboarding, flying (student pilot), traveling and spending time with his family of 3 kids.

Ata Atanasov is a Network Administrator at Beauvoir in Washington, DC. He provides system administration and ensure high level of reliability and stability along integrated systems. He also identify equipment, software, and operation system requirements. Ata is involved with building and configuring servers, tablet pc’s, backup and recovery plans, network security, and images (using Ghost 3.1). Developing technical and user procedural documentation (Service Desk Plus) and resolved issues with connectivity, hardware, software and operating system. Ata also volunteers with Washington Section and serves as GOLD Chair for Washington, DC Region 2.

Ryan Janak is the Baltimore GOLD Co-Chair. He is also the graduate student liasion of the Morgan State Chapter. Currently, as one of his priorities within GOLD is to reach out to the local student chapters in order to bridge the gap between the students and the professional section. Ryan is currently a full-time student at Morgan State University in Baltimore, MD. He is currently finishing up his thesis report for his M.Eng and persuing a M.B.A. degree. He is also seeking full-time employment, in electrical engineering, begining in the Summer. He can be contacted at baltimoregold@ieee.org.

Nastassja Lewinski is a Ph.D. candidate in Dr. Rebekah Drezek's lab at Rice University. Her research interests include exploring the potential of utilizing quantum dots for in vivo disease detection by understanding the mechanisms behind quantum dot toxicity, and addressing public policy concerns on nanoparticle safety.

Matt Ezovski is a software engineer in the Security Technology Business Unit of Cisco Systems, Inc. in Boston, MA (region 1). He holds an M.S. in electrical engineering from Cornell University and is currently leading IEEE-USA's initiatives on the issues of network traffic management and net neutrality through the IEEE-USA Committee on Communications Policy. Matt's research has focused on peer to peer networks and network security, and he enjoys skiing and tennis in his spare time.

Special thanks to Chris McManes, IEEE-USA Public Relations Manager and who serves as the organization’s principal media contact. He often serves as IEEE-USA’s spokesman and has traveled across the country stressing the value of media relations and good writing skills to IEEE members. McManes came to IEEE-USA after working for two-and-a-half years as sports information director at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. While working as a sports writer for the Las Vegas Review-Journal in the 1990s, McManes covered numerous high-profile events, including NASCAR Nextel Cup racing and the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. McManes graduated from the University of Maryland in 1982 with a degree in kinesiological sciences (the study of human movement). He also attended the University of North Texas and studied journalism at the University of North Carolina.

Special thanks to John F. Yaglenski III, IEEE-USA Information Technology Manager and who oversees IEEE-USA's electronic communications programs, as well as supporting IEEE-USA's IT infrastructure and use of technology. Before joining IEEE-USA, John was General Manager of Web Development for Erols Internet, now RCN Corporation, the nation's largest regional Internet Service Provider. John's technical specialties include interface design, graphic layout, multimedia production, NT server installation and maintenance and Active Server Pages. He also excels in developing and formulating effective Internet marketing solutions that work in tandem with print and media advertising. John started his career as a full time radio personality and program director working town to town, up and down the dial in such markets as Dayton, Ohio, Frederick, MD and Washington, DC. He is a graduate of the University of Dayton in Ohio with a BA in Communications, and currently resides in Maryland with his wife and two children.

Keynote: Rising Above the Gathering Storm

2010-03-05T07:42:00.004-06:00

Friday morning’s keynote speech by Norman R. Augustine, Retired Chair & Chief Executive Officer at Lockheed Martin, started with a warning, “I need to caution you this early in the morning that part of this talk will not be uplifting -- I plan to tell it like it is.” Augustine continued, “We [are] talking about a situation that is much more fundamental, more profound, and more difficult to fix than this little financial disruption that we just suffered.”

And what did Augustine tell the audience after that warning? It is still possible to increase America’s talent pool by vastly improving K-12 mathematics and science education; and still possible to sustain and strengthen the nation's commitment to long-term basic research. As chair of the Committee on Prospering in the Global Economy of the 21st Century, which created the Rising Above the Gathering Storm report almost five years ago, Augustine should know if a happy ending is still possible.

Augustine believes that if the U.S. economy is to survive, we need to produce a cadre of engineers who are the best educated, imaginative and creative innovators and entrepreneurs.

“Only four percent of the workforce is scientists and engineers…but that four percent creates jobs for the other 96 percent. That’s why you should be concerned about science and engineering in this country,” said Augustine.

However, Augustine cautioned, the citizens who take the jobs created by science and engineering need to have the tools to operate in a high-tech world, which could be difficult given that today’s youngest generation is the first to be less educated than their parents.

At the time the Gathering Storm report was prepared, the K-12 system was performing abysmal and today Augustine says it’s still performing abysmal by international standards. While there are some outstanding schools and outstanding teachers, by international standards, we aren’t even competitive on average, he said.

While Augustine admitted that the K-12 problem is not a lack of tax payers to support our students, he did say that we need to make funding in the areas of science and engineering a lasting budget action not just stimulus-based funding. In addition, Augustine said that the nation’s industrial sector should do more to invest in research to create more jobs for scientists and engineers.

In the area of higher education, American universities were unarguably viewed as the finest overall institutions available five years ago.

“There was no one who could see any significant reason why that would be subject to change in the distant foreseeable future,” Augustine explained. “On the other hand as we now know with the collapse of the economy and tax revenues, U.S. public institutions find themselves facing increasing budget cuts.”

As a result, lists are being made of the star faculty members at U.S. institutions and they are being lured to institutions abroad, Augustine said.

The bottom line is that if we are going to compete in today’s global economy, we need to prepare our students to be successful engineers and commit ourselves to funding scientific research in America.

First night progress

2010-03-05T00:25:00.000-06:00

A handful of IEEE Volunteers remained in the hotel lobby after the Italian Buffet Dinner and cracker-barrel sessions to discuss Regional progress, ideas and brainstorming of new initiatives and ways to work on a MGA Challenge project.

It was also a good chance to reconnect with fellow volunteers from all the six Regions and greeting the late arrivals with a hug, handshake or friendly hello.

So far, everyone is excited for tomorrows sessions. So much excitement, that a group plans to get together between meetings to discuss some new initiatives and address issues with projects currently in progress.

Welcome & IEEE Candidates Forum

2010-03-04T19:13:00.026-06:00

IEEE-USA President Evelyn Hirt kicked off the IEEE-USA Annual Meeting this evening. With more than 200 attendees -- and 75 first-timers -- this year's IEEE-USA Annual Meeting is sure to be exciting!

During her opening remarks, Evelyn said that by the end of the weekend, all meeting attendees should understand who IEEE-USA is, understand what IEEE-USA does, take this knowledge and bring it back to their organizational units and share it with other members.

Then Evelyn led a Q&A session with the two candidates running for IEEE President-Elect, Gordon Day and Joe Lillie.

Below are excerpts from their responses to a few questions posed by meeting attendees.

What do you see as the greatest weakness of IEEE and how would you improve it?

Lillie: Everyday everyone touches something that IEEE had a part in making. We as an organization need to get the credit for what we have done. That’s not necessarily financial credit, but recognition for the profession. We have a public visibility committee that’s making progress in Regions 7-10 now and we’re using the members in those areas to be spokespersons for IEEE.

Day: As volunteers, we focus our energies looking inward toward the detailed workings of the organization rather than looking outward toward what we can accomplish, to the people we can serve and to the public we can influence. We need to focus on the notion that engineers change the world.

What is the single most important issue facing IEEE today?

Lillie: I think it’s a fundamental strategic strategy around the world. I think that’s where we have a big gap. We have a lot of success, we can wave the flag and say we’re successful. What we are doing with publications and conferences is at risk if we don’t take better care of the membership around the world.

Day: We have four sets of stakeholders -- members, volunteers, customers for products and the general public. I think the main challenge is to serve all of those stakeholders as well as we can in a way that addresses the changing needs and the rapid advance of technology.

What do you see as IEEE-USA’s role in professional activities for IEEE?

Lillie: Gordon and I worked together to see if we could expand areas outside the U.S. to get access to professional activities. I think we owe these members access to professional development, but there are cultural, language and financial barriers and we just can’t give our products away.

Day: I agree with Joe. Perhaps the biggest takeaway from that program between IEEE-USA and MGA was the importance of tailoring professional activities to the local region.

How will you improve IEEE’s relevance to the profession and industry?

Day: A lot of what we have to do is reaching out and telling the story of what technologists do. That’s the profession part and the public part is telling that story of how we do create a world that’s never been before. I’ve always gotten more out of my volunteering than I gave to it and I’m always trying to tell that story to my employer and other volunteers.

Lillie: I think industry takes us for granted and we let them do it. You look at standards, what we have done on creating new technologies and industry takes those and runs and makes a profit. We need to justify to industry that they are what they are because of what IEEE has done, but it's a two-way street.

What would you do to promote opportunities for young professionals?

Lillie: IEEE is not going to create jobs, but IEEE can influence public policy that creates jobs. I think that’s a role IEEE can play outside of Regions 1-6. If we can influence public policy on a broader scale than we’re doing it now, then I think everyone benefits.

Day: I’ve had a mantra in talking to the press -- engineers create jobs. That’s something we need to get more widely understood. Engineers have ideas and are ready to use them to build companies and we need to make sure that we provide that infrastructure.

While trying to expand engineering fields and support members, what suggestions do you have for getting our members more involved?

Day: I think everyone in this room understands what they get out of IEEE volunteer work and IEEE membership. It’s not the same for everyone. We need to get that message out, promoted, articulated and marketed.

Lillie: I think one of the keys is membership engagement at the local level. The challenge for all of us is to work together to create programs that attract members. The presenters and audience members at meetings all benefit. Joining together at the chapter and section level to share knowledge is where we can make a difference.

To read more about the candidates, please visit www.gwday.net (Gordon Day) and www.ieee.joelillie.com (Joe Lillie). And please vote during the election!

Coming Soon: Coverage of IEEE-USA 2010 Annual Meeting

2010-03-01T15:06:00.004-06:00

The 2010 IEEE-USA Annual Meeting will take place from March 4-7 in Nashville, Tennessee. We've assembled a dynamite team of bloggers this year and will be regularly reporting on most (if not all) sessions. Detailed information on the 2010 Annual Meeting can be found here. Check back in a the coming days for more pre-event posts. See you in Nashville!

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Sunday Morning

2009-03-01T10:24:00.002-06:00

Diane Collier hosted the What makes a winner panel discussion today. Before getting into deep discussion she announced the best GOLD poster winner: Region 2 - Rachel Krepps.

For the rest of the discussion, some of the members that were recognized at the IEEE Awards banquet gave a short story or speech on their IEEE membership and what it means to them. Jim Fancher, Ed Perkins, Donald Hill, Richard Kolodziejcyk and Martin Izaak offered inspiring words that should encourage us all to make the most of our IEEE membership. We should stay active, bring others into the circle, help change public policy for the better, continue to outreach to pre-college students, and support our fellow engineers through award nominations and volunteering.

And thats all folks! Have a great year, we will see you in Nashville!

Sunday Region 5 breakout

2009-03-01T09:29:00.002-06:00

Welcome to the Region 5 Meeting!

*If Jim Look has committed expenses to you, file for reimbursement with your local section and send a copy of it to Jim.

For all in Region 5 - if you want to get a program up and running but do not have the resources or money, please contact Jim Look.

Region 5 will focus on the Energy Debate. Here are the ideas we currently have:
Legislative action
- Promote alt energy
- Bring sanity to the discussion
- Be tech resource

Providing community awareness
- Educate on energy conservation
- Facts vs. myths
- Pros and cons of being green
- K-12 education on energy

Promoting energy awareness to members
- Local meetings and conferences

Solutions to alternative energy
- Engaging industry in diaglog about energy solutions
- Standards for new technologies

Inter-organizational collaborations
- Habitat for Humanity (design energy efficient homes)
- Engineers without boarders, green building council, AIA

Each section was tasked with developing one PACE project to support the Energy Debate. These ideas will be listed at a later date on the Region 5 Website.

Practicing Lifelong Learning

2009-02-28T16:47:00.002-06:00

Mr. John Meredith’s successful career, in which he held a variety of positions, makes him the perfect presenter on lifelong learning. He believes lifelong learning is relevant to an audience of any age, even students. The continuing need to learn arises from the unprecedented rate of technology growth, the constant introduction of new tools into industry, and competitive pressures both domestic and global.

One of the biggest excuses for not increasing your knowledge, skills, and abilities is lack of time. I agree completely because I use that excuse myself. A bit of advice is to stay organized. Organization leads to efficiency, which in turn leaves more time for learning activities. Everybody is responsible for creating their own professional development plan and making it a priority. Mr. Meredith presented a process on planning for growth.

Establish your goals both short and long term
Do an honest assessment of your knowledge, skills, and capabilities. Talk to your boss, coworkers, and others to learn where they see you and your strengths
Determine gaps that need to be filled and identify sources of improvement
Carry out your plan
Periodically update your plan

Reading is one of the best ways to learn. You can choose different methods of reading depending on the information you are looking for. Skimming is useful to answer the questions who, what, when, or where. Scanning is useful to answer how or why. And studying can be used to answer how or why in-depth. Other ways to learn include surveying documents, asking questions, holding interviews, taking notes, mind-maps, and active listening.

Mr. Meredith’s other thoughts:

Find a mentor, someone you are comfortable with and you can learn from
Everyone should have a desire to learn and form learning habits
Share your knowledge and skills
Write papers, present and conferences
Teaching and mentoring (where you are the teacher because you learn from your students)
Organize educational events in your workplace or for your IEEE Section, Chapter, or Society

I really enjoyed Mr. Meredith’s presentation. He gave a lot of good tips and advice. I particularly like his idea of becoming a mentor or teacher. Teaching and explaining ideas and concepts to others is a great self assessment tool and a great way to learn things you may not know yourself.

A Methodology for Improving Company Wide Energy Efficiency

2009-02-28T16:17:00.002-06:00

The speaker this afternoon was Lee Stogner and this session had approximately 30 attendees.

It was interesting to hear that Lee’s interest started by hearing from a friend about building a home using 2x6’s. This allows more room for energy efficient products between studs. He showed us the results from a survey by Price Waterhouse Cooper shows oil prices as top barrier and stated that energy costs affect the bottom line of companies.

Lee posed the question, “What single device consumes the most energy in the US?” The answer was motors consume 23% of all electricity consumed, most of any device.

Lee went on to present the five topics to focus on which is listed below:

1. Improving Energy Management
2. Improved System Operations
3. Improved Asset Management
4. Workflow Improvements through Lean Six Sigma
5. Engineered Capital Projects

Lee summed up the talk by presenting the Methodology for Improving Company Wide Energy Efficiency which includes the following four steps:

1. Energy Assessment
2. Maintenance Improvement Program
3. Systems Optimization/Real Time Monitoring Program
4. ERP/Lean Six Sigma across the Supply Chain

Lee finished by answering questions and asked the attendees and you, the readers, to comment on and discuss the presented Methodology and topic.

He did a great job in give a big picture view into energy efficiency at the company level that we can all implement and relate to.