Busy Week

This has been a busy IEEE week for me. On Monday it was the Section EXCOM and we had a good turn-out - 24 attendees I believe. There were at least four new faces which is always a good sign. I met Karen Krause for the first time and really enjoyed her enthusiasm and look forward to a lot of activity from her as Industry Liaison Chair. I also met two new volunteers for the Awards Committee who will be helping Livio identify section and regional awards and soliciting nominations for them. It looks like we will be sending seven EXCOM members to the Region 1 Summer Meeting in August. This is a great networking opportunity when leaders from all 22 sections in the North East gather to share war stories, learn from each other's experiences, learn about the Region initiatives, learn about their roles and responsibilities and generally immerse themselves in the IEEE organization for a couple of days.

I also attended the TePRA Steering Committee on Tuesday. This is the organizing committee for the Section Robotics Conference in November which is rapidly approaching. There were a couple of new faces at that meeting as well - John Masciola from Caliper Life Sciences and NBill Michalson from WPI. Fresh ideas are always welcome.

Added My Calendar

It has been quite a while since I made an entry. I recently had a very enjoyable vacation in New Mexico. We spent most of the time at an artists convention in Albuqurque but also visited Santa Fe, Taos and Los Alamos.

The Boston Section EXCOM is next Monday and I need to set up Steering Committee meetings for the TePRA Robotics conference which is coming up in November and the 2010 ITMC(International Technology Management Conference).

I have added my IEEE calendar to the links on the right so that anyone can check on upcoming events.

Industry Liaison

I was able to fill another important position on the EXCOM today. Karen Krause accepted the position as Industry Liaison for the Section. The Section has been intent on reaching out to local industry and explaining the benefits of the IEEE to them. I am confident that under Karen's leadership we will now make rapid progress in this area.

Volunteer Coordinator

I have been able to fill another important position on the Executive Committee, EXCOM. Yesterday Soon Wan accepted the position of Volunteer Coordinator for the Section. We have been getting many new offers from members who would like to help with section activities. Soon will be acting as a bridge between these individuals and the officers of the EXCOM and various conference steering committees and other Ad hoc committees. I welcome Soon's talents and enthusiasm as he brings fresh ideas and now fresh people into the section leadership.

International Technology Management Conference

The IEEE Technology Management Council (formerly known as the Engineering Management Society) has approached the Boston Section to find out if we are interested in hosting the 2010 ITMC conference. We had an exploratory meeting on Tuesday, March 9th, when nine section volunteers showed up to debate the pros and cons of accepting the TMC offer. The overwhelming response was "Yes - if we can negotiate an agreement with the TMC that is win-win for both parties. I will keep you posted as the talks progress.

The Technology Management Council website may be found at http://ieeetmc.org/

Vacation in the Sun

There has been a brief interruption in my blog as I am spending a few days visiting friends and family in Florida. We passed an entertaining hour taking a tour of the town of Celebration on a Segway with my step-son and grandson. The first few moments were terrifying but I quickly became comfortable and roared off in pursuit of the younger generations.

Recently an Industry Day was held in New Jersey and was a great success with about 300 attendees and many industry leaders giving talks on the state of the Telecom industry in general and their company in particular. In order to build on that success the Region 1 Industry Liaison Coordinator is encouraging the Northeastern Region to hold a similar event in our Area. I have already spoken with Mimi Tam of the New Hampshire Section and agreed to participate in initial discussions on the topic when I return from vacation.

If you are interested in participating in the organization of such an event just let me know.

Update on TePRA Robotics Conference

We had another TePRA Steering Committee meeting this evening which I hosted at Textron. I am very pleased with progress. Taskin Padir has really put a lot of effort into molding the technical program, the Call for Papers and now the conference website. Michael Gennert and Bill Michalson from WPI are the Technical Program Chairs and Taskin, Also from WPI, represents them at committee meetings. The committee is reaching a consensus on many topics. We have agreed on the conference dates, November 9th & 10th, the milstone calendar of significant dates, such as abstracts being due on May 15th, and that we definitely want to have a student competition again.

Helen Greiner has agreed to be Conference Chair once again and Colonel Barry Shoop has agreed to represent the Military on our Steering Committee.

We are off and running. Once we finalise the Call for Papers in the next few days we will be pulling out all the stops to get publicity for the conference. We are better prepared than last year but we need all the help we can get.

Engineers Week

The Boston Engineers Week activities are now over. I think that they were very successful in spite of our concerns that the economic downturn might put damper on things. We had over twenty five company tables in the Career Fair on Thursday February 12th and over two hundred students were looking for jobs. A number of volunteers staffed the IEEE table spreading the word about the benefits of joining the IEEE. Thank you Rob Vise, Ted Kachanski, Palo Pierce and Jim Matthiesen for giving your time to the IEEE cause!

I made a point of asking as many attendees as possible for their impressions of the event. The response was overwhelmingly positive from both company representatives and from students. In fact the only mild criticism I heard was from a couple of Oceanic Engineers who pointed out that there were not many job opportunities for them at the companies participating. However they said they didn't really expect any!

The next day was the Luncheon when over 280 engineers, managers and students listened to Helen Greiner talk about a career in Robots and Amy Smith talk about a career in simple inventions that help the people of the Third World. Many awards were presented to enthusiastic youngsters who had decided to participate in engineering or science projects.

Next year I must involve more IEEE volunteers to raise the public profile of the IEEE organization. However I did meet Michael Smith of the ASME and agreed to work with him to put on joint events with our two organizations.

Volunteer Needed

While I was at the Region 1 meeting in Newark, NJ, this weekend I was approached by Jignasa Ray from the New York Section who is looking for Webmaster for the Region 1 GOLD website. The GOLD acronym stands for Graduates Of the Last Decade, so if you graduated less than ten years ago and you are interested in maintaining a website let me know and I will put you in touch with Jignasa, (with no committment on your part). You can then find out a little more about the job description to see if it suits your interests and availability.

New Appointment

An old friend of the Boston Section, Rob Reilly, has accepted the position of Montreal Sister Section Coordinator. In this role he will lead the Boston Section's efforts to develop opportunities for cooperative activiites with our new Sister Section. Rob will be assisted by Bruce Hecht, Uri Moszkowicz and Gil Cooke.

If you would like to help Rob in his new role let me know by posting a comment on this Blog.

Region 1 Winter Meeting

I am driving down to Newark tomorrow to spend an exotic weekend at Newark Airport. I will be representing the Boston Section at the meeting and reporting on my (limited) activity as Region One Conference Coordinator.

I enjoy Region meetings as they give you the oppportunity to exchange ideas with other Sectuion Chairs from the North East. Region one includes Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and half of New Jersy. (My apologies if I have missed anyone.)

I will be reporting on the TePRA robotics conference, our Engineers Week Activities, the numerous chapter meetings, our new relationship with Montreal and a host of iother topics such as membership, Industrial relations and the like. I will post my impressions ofthe meeting on my return.

January Executive Committee Meeting

The first EXCOM meeting of the year will be held on Monday. Traditionally this has been the one meeting each year when all the Technical Chapter Chairs are invited to share their successes and challenges with the ECOM committee. A common theme over the years has been the difficulty of finding volunteers to help with organizing chapter meetings. This year we have invited a number of new volunteers to the meeting in the hope that we can match up the interests of the volunteers with the needs of the Section and the Chapters.

We will know soon enough whether this idea is successful or not.

I am planning to give an overview of the IEEE organization at the National/International level and then describe some of the volunteer opportunities in the Section. Bruce Hecht will describe the Lecture Series opportunities and then we will break for a buffet meal during which there will be ample opportunity for new volunteers to talk to Chapter chairs about their interests and the chapter needs.

I have great hopes for this format producing some motivated volunteers and satisfied Chapter Chairs.

TePRA Steering Committee Meeting

The next Steering Committee meeting for the robotics conference, Technologies for Practical Robotics Applications, TePRA, will be held at 6:30pm at Textron Defense Systems in Wilmington, MA.

New faces are always welcome so if you would like to come along and learn about what we are doing just sign up on the website www.time2meet.com/ieee-textron/ so we know how much pizza to order.

Boston Chapter PES Rejuvination Meeting

The Boston Chapter of the PES (Power & Energy Society) is seeking volunteers to support the efforts of the Chapter to provide Boston Area PES members quality programs to enhance their professional, career and personal goals and needs.

The Chapter has a number of volunteer positions available for IEEE members who would like to actively participate in setting the short, medium and long range goals for the Chapter. There are currently openings in many facets of the Chapter, from committee membership involvement to Executive Committee positions.

Please join Ron Tabroff on Tuesday January 20, 2009 from 6:30-8:30PM for a kickoff meeting to discuss how we can become the premiere organization on power and energy information and education in the Boston Area. The meeting will be held at the Garden Room which is on the 5th floor of the National Grid facility at 201 Jones Road in Waltham, MA.

For additional information please call Ron Tabroff at 978-535-2815.

Lecture Series

The Boston Section has been putting on Spring and Fall semesters of short courses for many years. This lecture series has been very successful providing a very valuable resource to our members. In recent years the attendance at these courses has been dwindling and many have to cancelled.

We have tried changing the format, content and price of the courses but nothing seems to work. The demand for these course just doesn't seem to be there any more.

Any thoughts and suggestions on this topic would be welcome.

Engineers Week Career Fair

Mark your calendars.

Boston Engineers Week Career Fair
Hyatt Regency Boston Hotel
Thursday, February 12, 2009
3:00PM - 7:00PM

Corporate Tables: $600
Please suggest to your company that they participate in the Career Fair on Thursday or attend the luncheon on Friday.

Career Fair Free for Student Attendees(and Engineers)

For more information www.engineers.org/engwk.html
or
email econrad@systems.textron.com

Volunteers
We do need a few volunteers to staff the IEEE table and to talk to students about engineering as they attend the Career Fair. If you are available on Thursday February 12th anytime between 2pm and 7pm or Friday February 13th between 11am and 2pm please send me an e-mail john.conrad@ieee.org

Montreal: Our IEEE Sister Section

We recently signed an agreement with the Montreal Section to become sister sections for the next three years. This is an opportunity to develop a relationship with another IEEE Section of a similar size and composition. According to their website they have twenty five technical chapters and six student branches.

The Montreal website is http://ewh.ieee.org/r7/montreal/

We have already received a request for some assistance with providing some contact information at some of Boston's colleges and universities. The Montreal Student Branch at Sherbrooke University has started to plan a one-day trip to Boston in May 2009 and hope to visit a number of schools while they are in town.

In the words of Laurent Lamarre, the 2009 Section Chair, in a recent email to me he said "IEEE Sherbrooke(Student Branch) is interested in visiting some of your most prestigious universities. Our preliminary plan is to go to Boston on May 2th in bus, spend the whole day visiting universities, laboratories and/or industrial organisations and to come back in Sherbrooke during the night. It should be very easy to find interested people for this activity but we plan to limit the number of places in order to fit in one bus.

I would really appreciate if you could help study the feasibility of the project. For now, my main concerns are about the access clearance we need to visit the universities and the possibility to visit laboratories/industrial organisation during the weekend.

Our first idea was to concentrate our efforts on the MIT and Harvard but I would appreciate if you could give us suggestions on which university/labs/companies to visit."

Obviously I will be respondeing to Laurent and offering help on bealf of the Boston Section memebrs.

IEEE-USA Annual Meeting, Salt Lake City

I have just made my first decision as Section Chair. I decided to approve Rob Vice's request to attend the IEEE USA Annual Meeting in Utah on February 26th. Rob is the Pace Activities Chair for the Section. The theme of the meeting is Alternative Energy which seems to be on everyone's mind at the moment.

You Have to Start Somewhere

My term as Chair of the IEEE Boston Section starts tomorrow and my first assignment is to write an article the Reflector newsletter. I am not filled with inspiration but hopefully I will get my creative juices flowing by the weekend.

One of my over used expressions is
"Do it wrong quickly so you have more time to fix it."
This is just a provocative way of saying don't over analyze. Build a prototype and try it.

If you have any suggestions, let me know.