Alabama Section Report to the
                    IEEE Region 3 Annual Meeting
                              March 29, 2002

The IEEE Alabama Section Executive Committee and Committee Chairs met
on January 7, 2002 and charted a challenging year of activities. The
Montgomery Subsection has also planned activities to serve its
members. One of the strengths of the Alabama Section is its active
technical societies. Excellent programs on state-of-the-art
technologies provide our members with critical information related to
their professions.

Excellent programs are also essential to attract members to our
regular monthly meetings. In January, the topic was "HDTV, APT and
You."  The speaker discussed the technical aspects of High Definition
TV and how the Alabama Public Television network plans to convert to
the new standards. The February topic, "Nuclear Train," was thought-
provoking and elicited numerous questions from the attendees. The
presentation was an overview of private and government activities for
providing storage facilities for nuclear wastes. The March meeting was
Student Night and the program "What Every Graduating Engineer Should
Know" featured three speakers discussing subjects relevant to students
from our Student Branches. We are looking forward to many more
outstanding programs throughout the year.

A number of our members participated in Engineers' Week functions. A
legislative reception in Montgomery allowed us to interact with policy
makers, including Governor Don Siegelman. A program sponsored by the
Engineering Council of Birmingham seeks volunteers to speak to
students in middle and high schools in our area about engineering
contributions to society. A number of our members participated in this
program.

The Alabama Section is looking forward to hosting a Vehicular
Technology Society Conference in Birmingham on May 6 -9, 2002.  The
objective of this international conference is to provide the
opportunity to present technical papers and posters and tutorials that
represent technical innovation and applications associated with an
ever-expanding mobile wireless industry. In addition to the main focus
of wireless voice and data communications, papers addressing
transportation topics are included. For more information, visit our
web site https://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/vtc02spring.

Charles E. Hickman
Chair, Alabama Section