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Chair's Welcome Message
'Inspire Enable Empower Engage'
Will Make This Year the Best Ever
As hierarchical computing and technology platforms are eclipsed by peer-to-peer structures, IEEE is undergoing a similar transformation. Inspire Enable Empower Engage. This is IEEE's mission statement and our grassroots call to action as IEEE members and volunteers.
As IEEE celebrates its 125th anniversary, the Northern Virginia Section enters its 33rd year. I am certain that this will be our best year ever, because in 2009 vTools (volunteer tools) will enter our vocabulary. IEEE volunteers, including our Section's own Marc Apter, have led a team initiative to develop a suite of software tools designed to help us do our volunteer jobs more efficiently.
The Northern Virginia Section will beta test each vTool as it is rolled out, and we will enjoy immediate benefits from these remarkable tools.
Have you heard of the L-31 report? This is how IEEE tracks section and chapter activity to calculate section rebates. Unfortunately, the information is generated through an unwieldy report that requires our volunteers to reconstruct meeting data after the fact. Not anymore, thanks to vTools Meeting System. Now we have a tool that publishes meeting notice information in a searchable database, manages meeting reservations, and automatically generates the L-31 report. There is even an option to attach documents, so all attendees can receive a copy of the agenda with their reservation. vTools is truly a revolutionary development, the best thing that has happened to IEEE since self-adhesive stamps.
Did you know that approximately half of our IEEE volunteers are not IEEE members? They are members of our families. Joe Lillie, IEEE Vice President for Member and Geographic Activities, pointed this out at the 2008 Sections Congress in Quebec City.
In recognition of their collective contributions, and to tap into that vast resource, I have appointed Betsy Gibbon to the position of IEEE Family Liaison for the Northern Virginia Section. Her mission will be to help the Section engage and support the family members whose support and assistance is invaluable to our member volunteers. Betsy is a partner with her husband Jerry in J&BG Consultants, and she has an impressive portfolio of IEEE volunteer experience which includes support of the past three GLOBECOM conferences.
Her dedication reminds me of some other famous IEEE spouses. Katie Dentler, the First Lady of Region 2 for the past two years, designed and ordered blue thermal vests with an IEEE logo for Region 2 committee members at the Sections Congress. Joe Lillie's wife Debbie is the only member of the Lillie family who is not an IEEE member. They have traveled extensively in support of his IEEE volunteer roles, which include five years on the IEEE Board of Directors.
The 1997 IEEE President, Dr. Charles Alexander, often spoke about traveling for IEEE accompanied by his wife.
My late husband Jay was my silent partner in the IEEE Beaumont (Texas) Section, and he accompanied me to the 1996 Sections Congress.
My first IEEE volunteer position was Newsletter Editor for the Beaumont Section. Each month, I spent four days writing articles and meeting announcements for the Bayou Circuit News, laying out the issue in WordPerfect, having it printed, producing mailing labels, then folding, stamping, and labeling the newsletters and delivering them to the post office.
I could not have done all this without help from my family. On mailing day, all available IEEE volunteers were drafted - children, mother-in-law, anyone who came around. Often, my children stamped and labeled the newsletters in the car on the way to the post office. One evening, faced with a tight deadline, I met Jay at the front door with this grim pronouncement: "You have to stuff all these letters in these envelopes right now while I print mailing labels." "What if I say no?" he teased. "You have to. You just have to." Our family did not eat dinner that night.
The newsletter postcard was soon invented to reduce the workload two out of every three months. My son Robert, who at age four was the only child home with me all day, was tasked with putting stamps on the postcards. Yuck! Thank goodness we now have self adhesive stamps and modern technology tools.
Outside of my family, two individuals whose steadfast support was invaluable to my volunteer efforts were my Section Chair, Dr. Wendell Bean, whom I succeeded as Chair, and our Area Chair, Bob Scolli.
This year, I am very fortunate to have the help and support of their counterparts, our Past Chair Syed Ahmed, and Murty Polavarapu, who at this writing is Region 2 South Area Chair. We have a strong team of volunteers, many of whom are listed on the Scanner Chapters page.
I invite each of you to join us in inspiring, enabling, empowering, and engaging one another as we make 2009 our best year yet.
Monica A. Mallini, P.E.
Chair, IEEE Northern Virginia Section
m.a.mallini@ieee.org
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