by George F. McClure, USAB Member-at-Large
Now that the budget bills are signed, it's time to see how Congress and the Administration are meeting IEEE-USA's 10 specific legislative goals. So far, the news is encouraging - significant progress, in the form of legislation enacted, has been made on five of our priorities, and other bills advancing our positions are pending. Here's a look at the actions on eight of our goals:
Retirement security legislation to improve portability of pension plan benefits and expand IRAs.
Tax incentives, regulatory reforms, and public investments to promote new enterprise and create well-paid, value-added jobs.
Strengthen Federal investment in research and development.
Permanent extension and expansion of the research and experimentation tax credit.
Tax exclusion for employer-provided educational assistance and eligibility for graduate education expenses for the tax exclusion.
Legislation to provide protection against unauthorized copying of original useful articles.
Relaxing US export controls and other regulations on encryption technologies to the maximum extent possible.
Repeal of Section 1706 (IRS Code) and restoration of the Section 530 Safe Harbor for engineering service providers.
by Bob Krause, Chairman, Consultants' Network
OK, I'm over 50. I've been told I don't look it, but sometimes I sure feel it. This week I added a scanner to the list of peripherals on my computer system. To do that I had to open up the case and do the "Ross Perot thing" of looking under the hood. Since I'm not an "under the hood" type of engineer, I did this with great trepidation. I'm a computer user, not a computer mechanic. Well, through my bumbling, I managed to get the scanner to work but lost the use of the CD-ROM drive. I figured out how to get it back, but then lost the scanner. I finally got them both working but starting getting error messages on booting up. My efforts to get rid of them only increased their number until my Windows 3.1 program crashed. In frustration, I bit the bullet and finally joined the rest of my computer guru friends on the Windows 95 frontier. Then some of my older programs refused to work for the new guy in charge and went on strike. After lots of begging and pleading and plenty of phone calls to all my geek friends in the Consultants' Network, I finally got all my programs talking to each other, accepting the new boss, and talking to me. The whole shebang forced me to learn much more about how my computer does all those things than I ever really wanted to know. But I guess I'm wiser because of it.
And so it has been throughout my entire career. I graduated at a time when the demand for engineers was the lowest it had been in six years and had to learn a lot in a short period of time about marketing and selling myself. But I got a job while others were still crying the blues. Almost everywhere I worked, there were problems to be solved and the "new guy" got the assignment. I have always yearned for the luxury of being taken in hand and being "shown the ropes." But no such luck. I worked in design for a while only to find it boring. So I took a new direction, went to school at night for an MBA, and got into the business end of the company. My first assignment was to take over the cost allocation, rate design, and computer simulation duties of the guy who just quit, the only guy in the company who knew how to do it. Back to square one on yet another learning curve.
After working for 2 power companies during 18 years, I went out on my own as a consultant in utility regulation, only to find a year later that the demand for my services in Texas would drop. So I had to find a new market outside the state, and then even outside the country. Eventually, the demand picked up in the States. But now the industry is rushing like a speeding train to deregulation, threatening to wipe out the demand for the expert services I have been offering. As always, I saw the need for change coming, and accepted the fact that this was another problem to be solved and it was up to me to solve it. I went back to the drawing board, jumped on another learning curve, and am in the middle of solving new problems for new clients that are emerging in the new industry of deregulation.
I'm over 50 and have learned more in the last 5 years about solving problems, making business deals, forming strategic alliances, career survival, and world travel than I ever knew before. The reason I've survived is because I've always seen obstacles as problems to be solved and have tried to stay on the uphill side of the learning curve. If I start to go downhill, then it's time to jump on a new curve. Although I fight change to some extent, like all people, I have generally seen change not as a threat, but as an opportunity. It means I've been forced to learn more than I ever really wanted to learn about a lot of things. But I've usually become wiser because of it.
SALARY WORKBOOK - IEEE-USA will release a new publication, 1997 Salary Benchmarks: A Personal Workbook later this year that will allow engineers to compute comparative estimates of pay for thousands of different employment situations. The new publication will use the results of a regression analysis of factors influencing compensation to generate a computational formula that estimates median salaries for engineers. Results from these calculations closely match those derived from direct analysis of income statistics in the complete 1997 IEEE-USA Salary and Fringe Benefits Survey released earlier this year. The new publication will be priced at $14.95 (member). For more information, contact Bill Anderson, IEEE-USA, 202-785-0017, w.anderson@ieee.org.
COMMERCE STUDY SUPPORTS IT WORKER SHORTAGE CLAIMS BUT LOOKS TO IEEE-USA - The Department of Commerce released a report on September 29 citing potential infotech labor shortages in the United States. According to the report titled America's New Deficit: The Shortage of Information Technology Workers (www.ta.doc.gov), "evidence is mounting that job growth in certain information technology fields now exceeds the production of talent. America's fastest growing companies are finding inadequate numbers of qualified information technology workers to staff their operations. If this trend continues, the impact of the resulting information technology worker shortage on US competitiveness in global markets could be severe." The report suggests that the emergence of a worldwide shortage of information technology workers means that US employers can no longer rely on increased immigration or outsourcing to foreign countries to alleviate significant IT skill shortages. Instead, the report states, "the United States - as well as other industrialized countries - will increasingly have to rely on policies and strategies directed at educating, training and retraining their domestic work forces." IEEE-USA was cited in the report and at the press conference as expressing concerns that claims about the magnitude of the information technology worker shortage are exaggerated and Commerce has requested IEEE-USA assistance in the investigations. See IEEE-USA's Legislative Report.
IEEE-USA SPEAKS AGAINST DOMESTIC RESTRICTIONS ON ENCRYPTION - IEEE-USA participated in two coalition letters to the House Commerce Committee opposing amendments to the Security and Freedom Through Encryption Act (HR 695) that would impose new restrictions on the use of cryptography. In the first letter, a coalition of industry and trade associations argued that the proposed restrictions were "incompatible with the consumer, corporate, and national security benefits of the national information infrastructure." In the second letter, IEEE-USA joined leading scientific, mathematics and engineering societies in stating that the encryption restrictions would hamper "the open exchange of scientific information and the progress of scientific research and development."
HOUSE COMMITTEE EXPLORES INTERNET DOMAIN NAME ISSUES - In hearings, the House Science Subcommittee on Basic Research explored the transition of the Internet domain name system to private-sector control when the National Science Foundation's exclusive contract with Network Solutions, Inc. expires in March 1999. At issue is how to manage the registration of approximately 1.5 million current and 125,000 new Internet domain names filed each month. The hearing produced some fireworks as witnesses criticized the international approach proposed by the Internet Ad Hoc Committee. Donald M. Heath, president and CEO of the Internet Society and IAHC plan supporter, urged Congress and the Executive Branch to make up its mind quickly to avoid delays in implementing a new domain name system. Rep. Charles Pickering, R-Miss., chair of the Science Subcommittee, threatened to introduce legislation if the domain name registration and dispute resolution functions were relocated out of the United States.
IEEE-USA will begin publication of a quarterly magazine, Today's Engineer, the first magazine to be devoted exclusively to the professional lives of engineers in all technical fields, in January 1998.
"In our era marked by rapid changes in technology, world economy and corporate culture, there is a crying need for a publication that gives engineers the tools they need to build successful and rewarding careers," said Gus Gaynor, the new magazine's editor-in-chief. "Today's Engineer aims to provide them what they can't get from technical courses, conferences and publications - and present it with intelligence, sparkle and wit." Gaynor added that he hopes Today's Engineer will help engineers "think outside the cubicle" in order to take control of their professional destinies.
The premier edition's cover story will examine "the crossroads of the engineering profession," analyzing contrary forces which either threaten to deprofessionalize the practice of engineering or promise to raise it to new levels of professionalism. Other topics to be explored in the first year:
For more information on Today's Engineer, call 202-785-0017, email ieeeusa-magazine@ieee.org or check out www.ieee.org/usab/TODAYS-ENGINEER/. Subscribe with your membership renewal or call 800-678-IEEE and ask for product no. JP2969-0-0-10. Annual member subscriptions are $12.95.
DISCOVER MAGAZINE SEEKS INNOVATORS - The IEEE has been invited by Discover magazine to nominate candidates for the 1998 Discover Awards for Technological Innovation. Nominations should be for innovations that will help individuals in their everyday lives, or that will improve the quality of life for society. The nomination form can be downloaded from Discover's Web site. The deadline is 19 Dec 1997.
FORTESCUE FELLOWSHIPS - Applications for the 1998-99 Charles LeGeyt Fortescue Fellowship are now available from IEEE Awards Activities, 732-562-3840, awards@ieee.org. Applications are due 15 Jan. 1998. The fellowship is awarded to a beginning graduate student every other year for one year of full time graduate work in electrical engineering. The stipend is $24,000. Graduate Record Examination aptitude and advanced engineering tests are required.
IEEE - OXFORD UNIVERSITY ENCYCLOPEDIA PROJECT - IEEE Press and Oxford University Press have agreed to collaborate on a comprehensive encyclopedia on electrical and electronics engineering and computer science, with versions of the work to be offered in both print and electronic media. The Encyclopedia of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science is slated for release on 30 June, 2000. Project information is available on the Web. For additional information contact Kenneth Moore, IEEE Press, 732-562-3954, k.moore@ieee.org.
EVOLUTIONARY COMPUTATION VIDEO TUTORIAL - Evolutionary computation is a new and expanding field with applications that often go beyond solutions offered by the classic techniques. The Educational Activities Board has produced a video-tutorial, Introduction To Evolutionary Computation, sponsored by the Neural Networks Council and offering an overview of this new technology. The presenter, Dr. David B. Fogel of Natural Selection, Inc., discusses the areas of genetic algorithms, evolution strategies, and evolutionary programming. In addition, the video covers genetic programming and artificial life, as well as connections between the fields of evolutionary computation, neural networks, and fuzzy systems. Contact Educational Activities, 723-981-1686.
NEW VIDEOS PROMOTES ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY TO LOCAL STUDENTS - The IEEE Educational Activities, in conjunction with the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), United Kingdom, is making available an exciting video series that can help engineers introduce technological concepts to pre-college students. The video series consists of three tapes and interactive, reproducible workbooks grouped under the title The Faraday's Lecture Series.
The tapes can be ordered separately or as a whole set. Single tape costs: $29.95; the whole set: $75.00. Contact Educational Activities, 732-981-1686.
Recognizing our Section members for their long time commitment to the profession on the anniversary of their joining IEEE.
50 yrs
40 yrs
35 yrs
30 yrs
25 yrs
You have two straight iron bars that look identical. One is a magnet and one is not. How can you tell which is which by just touching them to each other?
Answer to last month's Brainbuster:
When a boat goes across an aqueduct, the load does not change. The boat weighs the same as the water it displaces.
Jean Eason, Editor