pIEEEdmont potentialpIEEEdmont potentialArticles:
Chairman : Meeting Schedule
Change!! : Next Meeting : Special
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the Editor : ICC Spring Meeting : Senior Members : Officers
Mark Stokes
The first thing I would like to say here is congratulations to Jennifer van der Horst for her third place standing in the Student Paper Contest at the recent SoutheastCon in Kentucky! Great job Jennifer!
It has come to my attention that there have been a few layoffs in our area. The IEEE USA offers services for those whom for one reason or another is between jobs. The IEEE-USA web page offers a number of job seeking services that are free to IEEE members. The Job listing service lists electrical engineering job related positions available all over the world. It enables you to search by location or technical specialty and entry level jobs may be pulled out separately. The list is updated weekly and none of the jobs listed require any fees for applying. The job listing service can be found on the IEEE-USA's web page or more specifically at: http://www.ieeeusa.org/EMPLOYMENT/jobs.html Of course, this service is also useful for job comparison. Compare your job to the ones available in your area. See what you are potentially worth to other employers. I know I wish I had known of this service when I graduated!
Related to this service is the IEEE-USA's résumé referral service. This service is like the flip side of the Job Listing Service. Started this year, the service allows members to post their résumé for potential employers. The service is free to active members and is confidential. Members may even exclude companies from being able to see their résumé's to avoid a negative reaction from their current employer. Continued…
Mark Stokes
Since you are all engineers, I know you'll like the challenge and experience of trying something new. The Ramada has decided to change the way their meeting rooms are being managed. Continued…
April 22, 1999
Steven Bobo
All members and their spouses (/significant others) are invited to attend this months meeting. Our speaker will be S. Lynn Martin, C.P.A.. Lynn is a Senior Manager of Personal Financial Planning with KPMG Peat Marwick, LLP in Greenville, SC. She will speak on individual financial planning, including tax saving ideas.
This meeting will be held at the Ramada Inn on Hwy 123 in Clemson on Thursday, April 22, 1999. Dinner will be served:
6:30-6:45 Social time
6:45-7:30 Dinner
7:30-9:00 Presentation
The cost will vary according to your food tastes. For reservations please contact one of the officers by Tuesday, April 20, 1999.
Steven Bobo
The Piedmont Section of IEEE is sponsoring its second annual student social on Saturday April 24, 1999. Perennial powers Clemson and Georgia Tech will do battle in baseball at 7:00pm at Tiger Field in Clemson. Beginning at 4:00 PM the Piedmont Section will host a tailgate party for the Clemson students to meet members of the Piedmont Section of IEEE in a social setting.
Lewis Fitch
[Editor's note: this is the first in what I hope to be an interesting column on the life
and works of the IEEE in members' lives. The goal of this column is merely to tell an
interesting story of how the IEEE has helped you (in any way). The first will be from out
esteemed colleague Lewis Fitch. Please submit a story directly to me @ m.stokes@ieee.org]
Back in the days before credit cards were universal and indispensable, I didn't have one. One gas card was all I needed. My wife and I took the kids to New York to do some of the tourist things, and booked into an cut-rate hotel (cut rate for NY, that is). The sign on the desk said, "To pay your bill with a check, get the manager's approval 24 hrs. in advance." That seemed pretty straightforward to me, so a day and a half before checking out I approached the manager, only to be informed that he wouldn't approve it under any circumstances. Needless to say, this put a hitch in my vacation plans. Going through my wallet I found my AAA card. Called them. "AAA will only cash one check, not to exceed $25 per day", I was told. Since the bill was over $350, that was less than maximum help. Several cards down in the wallet was my IEEE card. Well, I figured, maybe they can give me some advice. I called and was asked for my membership number. The secretary said, "You've been a member since before we even became IEEE. What can we do for you?" (IRE and AIEE amalgamated in the 60's). When I explained my problem they just asked how much I wanted to write the check for and said they'd have the cash for me as soon as I could show up at the office. I was also told that if I'd had that problem with one of the hotels that they normally dealt with for conventions, etc., they would have read the manager the riot act. We don't normally think of the organization in that light, but the goal of being of service (even odd ones) to members is part of what it's about.
Message from the Chairman cont.
Your listing in the résumé service is active for one year (renewable) and an update to your information is automatically requested after six months. The service is offered through Resume-Link, Inc. and costs the potential employer a nominal fee to access its contents. Members may cancel their listing at any time and the information submitted is available for use by employers within 48 hours. If you are interested in the Résumé Referral Service, point your browser to: http://www.ieeeusa.org/EMPLOYMENT/resume.html
Or go to the IEEE-USA's home page and click on "Employment Services" http://www.ieeeusa.org
Instead of making food enough for twenty, they have decided to have the restaurant attached (brand new) make meals on an individual basis. This is good news for the section since this means the section doesn't have to buy meals for people who don't eat them. However, this means that we can't eat during the meeting.
We will meet at 6:45 in the restaurant section (they will have a room there for us to eat together). After ordering and eating, we will all go to the meeting room for our program at 7:30. The meeting itself will still be no charge for those who would rather eat somewhere else. If you have any questions or comments, please be sure to attend this month's meeting. There will be a discussion of our options. If you are unable to attend the meeting and still have questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me and I will do my best to answer and represent your views to the decision making process. If you have your comments in before the meeting on Thursday, I can print them and voice them before the group.
The event will be held under the oak tree in the parking lot in front of the McFadden building. The McFadden building is at the corner of Hwy 93 and Perimeter Road across from Little John Coliseum. We will have the Piedmont section banner displayed. The cost will be $5.00 for members and free for students. We will have hamburgers, cokes and chips. Please advise one of the section officers by Wednesday, April 21 if you plan to attend.
Mark Stokes
In a recent executive committee meeting, it was suggested that since our biggest expense, as a section, was the monthly mailings of the pIEEEdmont potential, we needed to come up with ways to avoid the constant mailings. The favored suggestion was that since the newsletter is published on the web each month (and I am getting much better at publishing it there), that every other month the next meeting (two months after) could be announced also. This would allow us to only have to print the newsletter every other month. The IEEE only requires us to notify each member of each meeting. I will still offer the full email newsletter to each of our members via email (since this is basically a no-cost solution).
For those members who don't want to receive a copy of the newsletter via email, I apologize for not removing your names from the email list. However, in the very near future, I will be starting a majordomo list for our section. Initially I would like to put all the email addresses into the list and let you the members remove yourself from the list. I will discuss this in more depth in the next newsletter. I invite your feedback on these two new policies.
The IEEE Insulated Conductor Committee (ICC) of PES will hold its 99 Spring meeting May 23-26, 1999 at the Hilton Hotel & Towers in Charlotte, NC. We invite all IEEE members to joint us. The meetings are the best way to keep up with most recent developments in power engineering transmission and distribution technology and application. It is also a good place to networking. For graduating student members, you may meet someone there who would find you a perfect job. To encourage student members to attend the meeting, ICC has waived the registration fee for IEEE student members. Please check out the ICC web site http://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/pes/icc/ for more information. Or send me an email at y.wen@ieee.org
An update for senior members can be found at: http://www.ieee.org/organizations/rab/md/mar99smupdt.html
Use this space to reach over 400 IEEE members in the Piedmont section.
The Piedmont Potential is offering space for sale. Please contact Mark Stokes.
CHAIRMAN Mark Stokes (864) 647-2065 m.stokes@ieee.org
VICE-CHAIRMAN Steven Bobo(864) 882-2414 ext. 348 s.l.bobo@ieee.org
SECRETARY/TREASURER Wayne Cockrell 404-885-5419 j.w.cockrell@ieee.org
MEMBERSHIP DEVELOPMENT Allen Thomas (864) 228-4322 a.thomas@ieee.org
PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES Nick Pasquerilla (864) 882-2414 ext.271 n.pasquerilla@ieee.org
STUDENT ACTIVITIES Dr. John Komo (864) 656-5916 john.komo@ces.clemson.edu
EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES Lee Stogner (864) 281-8276 l.stogner@ieee.org
NEWSLETTER EDITOR Mark Stokes (864) 647-2065 m.stokes@ieee.org
AWARDS Dr. Randy Collins (864)656-5920 randy.collins@ces.clemson.edu
The Piedmont section of the IEEE is still offering sections of its newsletter for advertising space. If you are interested in supporting this effort, please contact one of the officers listed above.
-Mark