Western North Carolina section Report October 2005 Section Officers: Chair: Fred Orland V-Chair: Jim Erickson Secretary: Jim Corr Treasurer: Torry Wickwire We have had a successful year so far. Our section was honored by one of our notorious members, Region 3 selected Bob Moog for the "Out Standing Engineer of the Year Award." The sad news is that Bob Moog passed away this last summer. We are having a special Awards Banquet in his honor this November 15. His wife will be presented with Bob's IEEE Award Plaque. Student Activities: Our University Student activities programs have been very effective and we are being requested to repeat them this fall and next year. 1. Engineering Career Round Table meetings at WCU and UNCA. 2. Preliminary and Final Student Project design reviews, section members are the review team. We have been invited to participate in the class scheduling. 3. Student Project idea brainstorming sessions. 4. Student branches have been very active and growing. We have excellent Student Branch Advisors. 5. Participated in the TISP training kickoff program in Atlanta. Working on setting up programs in the local schools programs. 6. IEEE and UNCA sponsored a Pre-college Robotics Workshop sanctioned Sumo-Bot Championship this summer. 14 high school students eagerly participated. Several new projects have been started this year: 1. Our secretary has started a quarterly Newsletter. We have had 3 editions so far. 2. We have initiated a Local Consultant Network. It is in the getting legs stage and seems to be gaining strength. 3. Using the USPS mailing services for non-email members is very cost and labor effective. 4. Our Senior Member Nomination Campaign has been very successful. 5 Section Awards and Recognition Banquet planned for November We have had 7 technical meetings, regular EXCOM meetings, and several project planning work session committee meetings. We have 4 more section meetings and several committee working session planned for October and November and December. Attended: SECon 2005 and Section Congress 2005, and NC Council meetings Officer Election take place in November Our challenges are: 1. Increasing membership, meeting attendance and volunteerism. 2.. Finding good technical programs for section meetings Needs: IEEE to provide packaged technical tutorials for presentation at the section level. These could be fee based. Submitted by: Fred Orland Chair, IEEE Western North Carolina Section Email: fredorland@ieee.org Phone: 828-665-4761 IEEE WNC Section Web Site: www.ewh.ieee.org/r3/wnc/