PACE Patter
IEEE-USA HOLDS PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES CONFERENCE
The IEEE-USA Professional Activities Conference was held over Labor Day
Weekend in St. Petersburg, FL., when approximately 280 IEEE volunteers gave
up their holiday to become better educated about issues of concern to the
members. A broad range of subjects was covered in six concurrent tracks
and six plenary sessions. The plenarys covered such topics as precollege
education; "Professional Vitality: The Making of the Complete Engineer,"
"The Stake of Industry, Government, Academia and the IEEE in Fostering
Federal Support for Research & Development," US Engineering Labor Markets:
Deja Vu All Over Again," "Career Strategies," and "Surviving and Thriving
in the Corporate Jungle."
One of the topical tracks was "Service, Image, Outreach." This had six
sessions with twelve presentations from Total Quality Management to Science
for All Children. A second track on "Government and Industry Relations"
had six sessions with six presentations covering such issues as a
Technology Perspective on the Role of Government in Restructuring the
Electric Power Industry to A Guide to Effective Meetings With Legislators.
A third track of six sessions on "Professional Vitality" covered topics
from Software Engineering and Licensure to US Competitiveness and the
Workforce. The fourth track was PACE Leadership Training in five sessions
covering Planning Your PACE Program to an actual Mini M-PAC(Member
Professional Awareness Conference).
Tracks 5 and 6 were designed with the Young Professional in mind. (Young in
this case does not apply to chronological age, but to length of time as a
professional.) These are also know as Graduates of the Last Decade(GOLD).
"Surviving and Thriving in the Corporate Jungle," and "Career Strategies"
covered twelve topics such as financial planning, leadership training, job
market tips and trends, and steering your career toward personal goals.
All sessions, including the student paper competition and the section
poster competition, were open to all attendees from GOLD to life members
regardless of the track. The goal of the Professional Activities
Conference is for the attendees to take information back to the sections
and share it for the benefit of all members. You can help by letting your
PACE chair know what you are concerned about. Ask him about the
conference. The conference proceedings are available from the IEEE Service
Center, 1-800-678-IEEE, IEEE Catalog No. UH 2972-0-0-1-0. For further
information about the conference, or professional activities contact:
Daniel W. Jackson, (540) 774-0484; e-mail .