Western North Carolina Section Report, April, 2008 Section Officers: Chair: James Corr Vice chair: Perry Sprawls Secretary: James Erickson Treasurer: Fred Orland Section Committees: Public Relations Chair: Perry Sprawls Professional Activities PACE Chair: Fred Orland Membership Development Chair: Jim Corr Student Activities Chair: Jim Corr Webmaster: James Erickson The WNC Section continues to be very successful and active. Student Activities: 1. Engineering Career Round Table meetings at WCU and UNCA. Programs are being modified and incorporated into the course requirements 2. Preliminary and Final Student Project Design Reviews continue to be conducted by members of the WNC Section review team. 3. Student branches have been very active and growing. Elections are being held in April on both Campuses 4. Section members participated in a Science and Engineering Student Career Fest, during which they maintained a table and spoke to students about the advantages of IEEE membership. Professional Activities: 1. A new Power Engineering/Industrial Applications Societies Chapter has been formed within the WNC Section. 2. Continued development of the WNC Local Consultants Network (LCN) affinity group. A great new WNC-LCN website has been posted. We are continuing to develop relationships with the various WNC area economic development and small business enhancement activities and organizations. 3. The Section continues to hold plant tours, technical and professional section meetings, social meetings and annual recognition banquet on a monthly basis. 4. Hosted E-Week Joint Engineering Banquet, along with five other area Engineering Societies, featuring Grayson Randall speaking on the DARPA Urban Challenge. 5. Attended R3 EXCOM meetings in Birmingham in October. 6. Section Chair will attend the R3 EXCOM meeting at SouthEastCon in Huntsville, Al in April 2008. 7. Section Chair is planning to attend the Sections Congress in Quebec City, in Sept. 2008 Our Challenges: 1. Increasing IEEE section membership, especially the student chapters with the new EE programs at WCU and increasing enrollment in Mechatronics program at UNCA. 2. Develop at least one new Society Chapter to increase the technical content of our Section and our Section meetings. 3. Increasing meeting attendance and volunteerism among the section membership. Needs: Continued IEEE support to provide packaged technical tutorials for presentation at the section level. Submitted by, James L. Corr Senior Member IEEE Chair WNC Section jimcorr @ ieee.org