Engineers who need to understand and master the rapidly-changing career dynamics of the 21st century will attend "Entering the New Millennium," the 1999 IEEE-USA Professional Development Conference that will be held Labor Day Weekend, Sept. 3-6, in Dallas at the Hyatt Regency Dallas at Reunion. Grouped in six tracks aimed at specific career phases of IEEE members, there will be dozens of workshops to help engineers at all levels develop and use the tools they need to build the career paths they want. Registrants may earn continuing education units (CEUs) for their participation.
The Fort Worth and Dallas Sections have arranged special reduced and block registration packages for local attendees. The Section is also soliciting patron contributions from local companies interested in strengthening the links between industry, education and professional activities. Contact Jean Eason, j.eason@ieee.org for details.
Conference highlights include a keynote speech by R.M. "Mike" Lockerd, P.E., retired vice president of Texas instruments and senior member of the IEEE, on "The Changing Pace of Technology and Its Impact on Careers." Lockerd's duties at TI included 15 years as Chair of the TI Corporate Technical council, responsible for enhancing the productivity of TI's worldwide technical staff of over 10,000 professionals. A dynamic, experienced and motivational speaker, Lockerd promises a message to IEEE members worth hearing.
In addition, a panel of prominent executives from Sun Microsystems, Centaur Technologies, TU Electric, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will discuss the non-technical aspects of career advancement at lunch on Saturday. Their focus will be direct: What do we look for when we hire and promote engineers? The next day, lunch will feature Q&A with candidates for IEEE President-Elect and IEEE-USA President-Elect. The Conference will close with the traditional and lively issues forum for members.
Six fee-based preconference tutorials will be offered on Sept. 3 on project management, writing skills, presentation skills, conflict management, career planning and job search techniques, and HTML and Web page construction. Conference registration is not required in order to attend these sessions. See full program, www.ieeeusa.org/PRODEVCON.
The Fort Worth Section recognized several members for their contributions to IEEE and the profession. The awards were presented at MetroCon'99.
Theresa Maldonado - Engineer of the Year
Professor Theresa A. Maldonaldo, PE was recognized as Engineer of the Year. Prof. Maldonado has been on the Electrical Engineering Faculty at the University of Texas at Arlington since September 1990. She conducts research in nonlinear optics investigating the development of new quasi-phase-matched nonlinear devices for efficient generation of harmonic waves, for example to produce blue laser light with infrared sources. This is important in optical storage and readout devices such as CDs where the shorter blue wavelength allows much greater storage capacity. A second initiative of the research program concerns the development of new thin-film technology with ionic self-assembled monolayers for applications in frequency generation, integrated optics, diffractive optics, and holography. Prof. Maldonado is an active member of IEEE, chairing the technical program for TechCon'98 and serving as advisor for the UTA Student Branch.
John Oberkrom - Young Engineer of the Year
Young Engineer of the Year was awarded to John Oberkrom. John is founder and Vice-President of AO Associates, Inc. providing total systems solutions for business computing enterprises including computer hardware, networks, software, training, support, and maintenance. John was instrumental in the financial success of IEEE TechCon'98 by obtaining corporate sponsorships. John has also been Chairman of the local Communications Society Chapter and Vice-Chairman of the Consultant's Network.
Ed Safford - Outstanding Service
Edward L. Safford III was presented a plaque for Outstanding Service to IEEE. Ed is an active supporter of the Section and over the years has served as Chairman of the Computer Society Chapter and Section Programs Chairman. He has brought in many distinguished speakers for meetings and keynote addresses. Ed is a Deputy Branch Manager for Ground Systems Software at Lockheed Martin.
Tom Sears - Outstanding Service
A service award was also presented to Thomas Sears, currently the Chair of the Fort Worth Communications Society Chapter. In leading the chapter, he built an officer succession plan, and organized a series of quality technical programs. Thomas is a Member of the Technical Staff at Motorola.
Student Activity Awards for UTA Student Branch leaders
Four Student Activity Awards were presented to members of the UTA Student Branch: Frank Castle, Branch Chairman; Thomas Ek, SPAC Chairman; John Weaver, Job Fair Organizer; and Eric Ransom, Student Branch Membership Chairman.
Student Paper Contest winners
Student paper contest winners were also announced. Ann Ni got first place for her undergraduate paper titled "Optical Fingerprint Scanning, Storage and Recognition Process." Ann also placed first at the area level and competed at the Region 5 Level. In the graduate paper contest three winners were named: First - Rastko R. Selmic, "Deadzone Compensation in Motion Control Systems Using Neural Networks;" Second - Javier Campos, "Deadzone Compensation in Discrete Time Using Adaptive Fuzzy Logic;" and Third - Yasser F. Syed, "A Wavelet Block Chain Technique for Use in Zerotree Coding."
Science Fair Awards
Fort Worth Section prizes at the Regional Science Fair went to:
Division I (High School)
SECTION OFFICER NOMINATIONS - The Nominations Committee has announced the following candidates for officer positions for the 1999-2000 term:
Nomination by petition may be submitted through May 31 to the Nominations Chair, Bob Geisel. Petitions must contain the names and signatures of 20 voting members of the Fort Worth Section (member level or above).
TU ELECTRIC RECOGNIZED BY IEEE REGION 5 - Over the April 16-18th weekend, a number of officers from the IEEE Fort Worth Section attended the annual IEEE Region 5 Conference in Shreveport, LA. The conference, which was held in Fort Worth last year, consists of IEEE business meetings, volunteer training, an awards banquet, and student activities.
This year, the Fort Worth Section was delighted to accept an award on behalf of TU Electric, who were voted the "Outstanding Company in Region 5." TU Electric has long supported it's employees' involvement in IEEE, and has supplied many volunteers and officers to Region 5 sections in recent years. The Fort Worth Section has benefited tremendously from this, particularly from the very active Power Engineering Society Chapter, run mostly by TU Electric employees. TU Electric was also a major sponsor of last year's Region 5 Conference and have been a big supporter of the Dallas Section in the past.
In the Undergraduate Student Paper Contest, Ann Ni from UTA was the South Area Winner and Regional Finalist.
LOCAL ACTIVITIES TARGET YOUNG ENGINEERS - The Dallas/Fort Worth Young Engineers (DFWYE) is a recently-formed collaboration between volunteers from local engineering society sections in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. The goal of this collaboration is to pool the resources of the local engineering sections to provide opportunities for young engineers (less than 10 years experience) to get involved in the member societies. There is no intent to create a separate young engineer society, but only to collaborate on programs benefiting all young engineers.
Current plans of DFWYE include SURGE, Symposium for Upcoming and Recent Graduates of Engineering, 23 Oct 1999 with the theme: 'Professional Success in the New Millenium: Technological and Personal Tools to Make it Happen.' For additional information, contact Darren Bryant (darren.bryant@lmco.com.
CONGRESS MAY RE-EXAMINE 1996 TELECOM LAW - The Supreme Court recently handed down a decision reaffirming the general authority of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to make rules applicable to competition among local telephone companies. This benefits AT&T and other long-distance phone companies that prefer to deal with a single national standard on network access instead of rules set by 50 states.
At the same time, the Court held in AT&T Corp. et. al vs. Iowa Utilities Board et. al that the FCC erred in requiring the Baby Bells and other local phone companies to provide competitors access to certain segments of their networks (such as copper wires and switching gear). Local phone companies were gratified that the Court ruling requires the FCC to abandon, or rewrite, a rule that would have made it easier for newcomers to gain access to local networks.
Prompted by the Court's ruling, as well as by a general feeling that local competition is growing too slowly, Congress plans to re-examine the 1996 Act this session and will focus on the FCC in the re-authorization process. The chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the Court's decision shows that the 1996 law created "ambiguity that has led to biased rulings by the FCC." He believes Congress must take a hard look at the 1996 Act as part of the reauthorization of the FCC this year.
By contrast, Sen. Trent Lott, Majority Leader, defended the 1996 Act in Feb. 23 comments to Senate colleagues. Noting that the 1996 Act was a legislative endeavor 10 years in the making, Lott emphasized that "a number of delicate balances were struck to transform our monopolistic market into many competitive ones." He dismissed lack of local competition or the absence of incumbent local carriers in long distance as the only way to grade the bill, noting that "consumer choices, new choices and new technologies are the true test of success." (see www.ieeeusa.org/usab/FORUM/legrpt.html).
BILLS TO ADDRESS CLAIMED SHORTAGE OF HIGH-TECH WORKERS - Rep. James P. Moran, D-Va., has introduced a series of bills to provide government help to address the so-called shortage of information technology (IT) workers. According to Moran, "the workforce shortage faced by the technology sector threatens both our world dominance in the technology sector and our continued economic prosperity."
Moran's legislative package includes four bills to provide - with state and Federal incentives - training programs and help industry in running their own programs.
In related news, industry lobbyists are weighing whether or not to ask Congress for a further increase in the visa quota for high-tech guestworkers. Demand for H-1B visas has been even higher than projected and the 1999 quota of 115,000, is expected to be exhausted by mid-Summer. (see www.ieeeusa.org/usab/FORUM/legrpt.html).
ASME AND SME EXPLORE MERGER - The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME International) and the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) have announced their intention to explore closer collaboration and a potential merger. The governing boards of both organizations agreed to this objective at their meetings in March. The objective of an ultimate merger of SME and ASME would be to advance their educational missions and provide enhanced services to their individual members. A merger would create a single, unified organization that would better serve the entire range of professional needs and would be increasingly responsive to the rapidly changing environment in which the members live and work. See www.asme.org/.
RADIOSHACK/TANDY SCHOLARS PROGRAM - Tandy Corporation/RadioShack is celebrating the tenth anniversary of the RadioShack/Tandy Scholars program. Over the last ten years, $3.5 million in cash and scholarships has been awarded to 2,000 outstanding teachers and students who excelled in science, computer science and mathematics. The Scholars program is designed to help students prepare for leadership roles in tomorrow's technologically advanced world and to encourage the best teachers to guide them. It is the only national program involving a direct partnership between a university and a corporation with awards for both teachers and students. Contact 817-924-4087.
STANDARDS ASSOCIATION APPROVES WEB PAGE ENGINEERING STANDARD - In March, the IEEE Standards Association approved IEEE Std 2001-1999, Recommended Practice for Internet Practices-Web Page Engineering-Intranet/Extranet Applications. The standard defines recommended practices for designing and implementing well-engineered Web pages for use in Intranet and Extranet environments based on HTML (HyperText Markup Language) specifications, migration to XML (Extensible Markup Language) and related industry guidelines. Testing for the IEEE 2001 practices is being implemented by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (www.nist.gov/webmetrics).
IEEE CELEBRATES 21ST CENTURY WITH SPECIAL LIMITED EDITION BOOK - Engineering Tomorrow: Today's Technology Experts Envision the Next Century is a full-color, coffee-table style book that includes interview-based essays from more than 50 IEEE visionaries who envision what the technologies of the next century will bring. The book, edited by Janie Fouke, IEEE Director of Division X and professor at Case Western Reserve University, is filled with full-color photographs and contributions from technology leaders such as Robert W. Lucky and Nobel prize winners Arno A. Penzias and Charles H. Townes. The special limited edition will be printed to order, and orders must be placed by 1 Sept 1999. Books will be stamped with a special 1 Jan 2000 postmark. Contact 800-678-4333 or 732-981-0060.
ENGINEERS GUIDES TO BUSINESS SERIES GOES ELECTRONIC - The best-selling Engineers Guides To Business Series has been released on one CD-ROM. Originally published as 11 separate books, this series seeks to develop within the business-minded engineer an awareness of non-technical skills. Titles include "Winning the New Product Development Battle," "Working in a Global Environment," "Starting to Manage: The Essential Skills," "Marketing for Engineers," "Practicing Engineering Ethics," and more. Contact 800-678-4333 or 732-981-0060.
I am delighted to announce that Lockheed Martin, Ericsson, and the DeVry Institute of Technology are Patrons of the Section and MetroCon for 1999. Lockheed Martin and Ericsson are Gold Patrons and DeVry is a Silver Patron. These companies have generously contributed to help support our programs, chapters, and MetroCon, and we thank them.
This year's MetroCon gave us another year of excellent talks on current and future issues. Minus a few late presentations for the Proceedings, the conference was a success and plans are already underway for next year's event. Thanks to Bob Krause for doing a great job of chairing the conference, and to all the volunteers: Ed Safford, Vasant Prabhu, Bob Hayes, Jeff Carrell, Mark Burt, Shannon Caraway, Rafael Garcia, Diane Collier, and the students from DeVry and UTA.
The Section Executive Committee recently made a unanimous decision to change the Section operating year from a July-June time frame, to a calendar year. The change will have a minimal effect on the membership but will ensure alignment with other IEEE entities and more efficient reporting. In future years, officer elections will take place in late-fall and new volunteers take office on January 1st. In the short-term, the next group of officers will serve an 18-month term (July '99 to December 2000) as we transition to the new schedule.
- Alan Triggs
Recognizing our Section members for their long-time commitment to the profession on the anniversary of their joining IEEE.
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I have a chain of 23 paper clips. If I remove two of them, I can make a chain of any length from one to 23 out of the five pieces. Which two should I remove?
Answer to last month's Brainbuster:
The moves that will get everyone across the river:
| Row Over | Left on Near Side | Row Back | Left on Far Side | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | G W | K Q P PR | G | W |
| 2 | Q PR | K P G | W | Q PR |
| 3 | K P | G W | K Q | P PR |
| 4 | G W | K Q | P PR | G W |
| 5 | K P | Q PR | W | G K P |
| 6 | Q PR | W | G | K Q P PR |
| 7 | G W | -- | -- | all |
Jean Eason, Editor