IEEE Mississippi Section Report - January 2006

The Mississippi Section held nine section meetings in 2005. The January
20thth meeting was dinner and a plant tour of Time Warner Cable in Jackson
Mississippi.

The E-Week luncheon held on February 24th in Vicksburg, Mississippi had an
attendance of just fewer than 200 people, with four corporate sponsors.
Lawrence H. Roth, Deputy Executive Director A. S. C. E., was the main
guest speaker. Other E-Week activities included IEEE members visiting
local junior high and high schools in both Vicksburg and the greater
Jackson Mississippi area promoting engineering as a career path.

The March 17th meeting was dinner section meeting and a plant tour of
Natchez Electric, a large industrial electric motor repair facility in
Jackson Mississippi.

On April 28th we were honored to have a demonstration by the 2005
SoutheastCon winning robotics team from Mississippi State University. This
meeting was of special interest to one of our Life Members Mr. Orris
Hicks. His granddaughter, Ashley Hicks, was on the winning team.

In May we had a dinner section meeting and a plant tour of SmartSynch, an
international provider of wireless data solutions for the utility
industry, in Jackson Mississippi.

On September the 22nd we along with everyone in the south east tried to
get back to normal with the hurricanes and held a dinner section meeting
and a plant tour explaining non-fuel engineering oils at the Ergon
Refinery, in Vicksburg Mississippi.

Our October 27th meeting was a dinner section meeting and a tour of the
Entergy storm response facilities in Jackson, Mississippi.

The November meeting was a professional ethics training meeting held in
Jackson. Also at this meeting new officers were elected for 2006. See the
list of officers below.

We finished 2005 with a celebration of the service provided our
organization by Marvin E. Richardson who passed away in 2005. A social
dinner meeting was held on December 15 to honor Mr. Richardson who held
various offices including Section Chair during his career. Mr. Richardson
was a loyal supporter of our section till his health failed him. He was
always willing to help and provide insight.

As 2006 starts we are in the process of setting up our meeting schedule
and will work diligently to keep our general membership meeting on the
third Thursday of each month. We are looking at ways to involve membership
that are not in the central part of the state. Discussions are under way
with members in other areas to see if they will accept responsibility for
one monthly program during the year. We have in the works a joint meeting
with the MSU Student Branch to present to them the plaque and portrait of
Mr. Richardson.

Our January 19 is the first meeting and will be in Crystal Springs, MS. We
will tour the Kuhlman Electric's medium power transformer plant.

The February meeting will be a joint meeting with multiple engineering
societies as we celebrate E-week in Vicksburg. The program will be on the
"new" New Orleans levees.
 
The following are the current elected officers for 2006:
David Schoggen - Chair            Joe Savage - Treasurer
Gerald Brown - Vice Chair         Ron Ogan - Secretary
 
The Mississippi Section of IEEE has an active web site and all meetings
and attendance rosters are posted: http:ewh.ieee.org/r3/mississippi.
 
Respectfully Submitted by:

David C. Schoggen, P.E.  
IEEE Mississippi Section, Chair