The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.

IEEE Baltimore Section

https://www.ewh.ieee.org/r2/baltimore/

Attendees

X Jeff Friedhoffer – Chair

   Hoosam Bandukwalla – Vice Chair

X Brian Sequeira – Secretary

X Boris Gramatikov – Treasurer

X Vil Arafiles

X Robert Berkovits – Chair EMC

    Thad Welch – Communications

X Carole Carey – ESB and Publications

X Ron Aloysius  – Newsletter Editor

X John Dentler – Area Chair Maryland

    Bill Dixon – PACE & Chair AES

X David Sherman – EMB

X Neville Jacobs – Student Activities

    Tina Kohler – WIE

    Christopher Nemarich – Program Director

X Garth McKenzie – Chair Computer Society

X Matt Riggs – ESB

    Tom Patton – Awards

    Jim Ryan – PES Chair

    Leonard Bathgate IAS Treasurer & Publications

    Mel Hotz – Chairman of the Maryland State of Licensed Professional Engineers

   Walt Willing – Chair Reliability

   Wole Akpose – GOLD

Jeff Friedhoffer chaired the meeting, which was called to order at 6:40 pm.

Carole Carey invited Matt Riggs, Director of Membership/Marketing for the Engineering Society of Baltimore (ESB) to describe the benefits of membership in the ESB. Mr. Riggs gave the Section a 10-minute brief and provided a number of folders that contained Membership Information, Newletter (Quick's), Description of the Garrett-Jacobs Mansion, Flyers on upcoming Networking and Trade Show events, and registration forms.

The salient points emphasized by Mr. Riggs were

•  Member access to Mansion and its dining facilities

•  Complimentary room rentals to members to host business meetings. In response to questions Mr. Riggs clarified that benefits extended to specific members of the organization and not to an organization as a whole. More specifically, IEEE's membership to ESB extended to the Chapter Chair, Jeffrey Friedhoffer and another designated member, in this case, Carole Carey, one of whom would have to be present for a Chapter to enjoy this benefit. Chapters who want to hold meetings at ESB's facilities must work through Jeffrey Friedhoffer or Carole Carey.

•  Lower cost menu available to members

•  Cost of membership included a $500 initiation fee plus $$660/year..

•  The facilities have been improved to include Internet Access and a Distance Learning Center run by the Filmore Group. The Distance Learning Center has 14 terminals with video and satellite links for world-wide web-casting.

Carole Carey arranged for this presentation in response to questions about the value of continuing Section membership in ESB. In ensuing discussions following Mr. Riggs presentation, Neville Jacobs pointed to the strong sponsorship by ESB through its public outreach of events at the Baltimore Museum of Industry.

Motion to continue membership in ESB was moved by John Dentler, seconded by Carole Carey, and passed unanimously.

Executive Reports

Section Chair (Jeffrey Friedhoffer)

•  Held discussions with Tracy Hawkins and Ken Freelain regarding Centenary celebrations that commemorate 100 years of flight. Ken Freelain wants speakers to present talks on the History of Electronics in Flight.

•  Section has been approached to nominate the old Westinghouse facility as one of the sites that developed the radar that detected Japanese aircraft at Pearl Harbor. This is in connection with the 75^th anniversary of that event.

•  Chris Niemarich has not yet begun work on putting together a document that commemorates the 100^th year of Baltimore Section. Chris needs records that the membership can share.

Treasurer (Boris Gramatikov)

•  Received rebate from IEEE HQ in the amount of $20,758.50.

•  SunTrust has asked if Section would consider a money market account. Boris to look into it, but is disinclined to do so because the incentives are less than marginal.

•  Problems with closing of EMC & AES accounts. Need to present evidence of destroyed checks. Boris to send Bill Dixon a note.

•  University of Maryland wants to advertise in the Section Newsletter.

•  Chapters that want additional funds must attend a Section meeting and present their request.

Secretary (Brian Sequeira)

•  Minutes of the June meeting were posted on Section website one week prior to the Labor Day weekend.

•  Provided an update of the Section/Chapter's Officer's list to IEEE HQ and received acknowledgement from HQ (Lauren Leaston) for the same.

•  Conducted a mid-year audit of meetings held by society chapters and found that the online reporting started this year has some troubles that fall in two categories: (1) Meetings reported to IEEE HQ not copied to Section, (2) Meetings reported to Section but not to IEEE HQ. (3) Meetings held but not reported to either HQ or section. All these cases lead to problems of reconciliation of Section, Chapter and HQ records. To date COMSOC and EMB reports are in good order. Will pursue matter with other chapters/ affinity groups during the coming month.

Awards & Recognition (Tom Patton)

None

Membership Development (Vil Arafiles)

• The Membership Development Committee nominates the following slate of candidates to the following Section Officer positions:

Chair – Jeffrey A. Friedhoffer

Vice-Chair – Hermann B. Sequeira

Secretary – Boris Gramatikov

Treasurer – Roberto Cuellar

Continuing Education – John Dentler

Programs – Chris Nemarich

Awards & Recognition – Thomas Patton

Student Activities – Neville Jacobs

Professional Activities – Carole Carey (Co-chair)

– Hoosamuddin Bandukwalla (Co-chair)

Audits and By-laws – Joseph Pollitt

Membership development – Vil Arafiles

Action: Invite write-in nominations from section membership and present list of nominees for consideration. Close nominations on September 19 and present list to Leonard Bathgate for production and distribution of ballots.

•  Satish Agarwal requested Section nominate him as a candidate for Region 2 Director.

Action: Vil to obtain information regarding the nomination and also about which other sections are nominating Satish.

Student Activities (Neville Jacobs)

After a quiet summer, we start the year with 37 kits at John Dentler's office, 5 kits at the Museum of Industry and 20 deficient kits at Neville's home. Neville will work on the deficient kits to bring them up to par. This is the best start compared to previous years.

Automation kits; Neville has 13 2-leg kits and 3 4-leg kits (4 2-leg kits were shipped to New Mexico, 3 were sent to Beth Tfiloh HS, plus 2 4-leg kits). With just 1 or 2 parts short, all of the kits have been prepared and boxed by Peter Anderson, so no kitting needs to be done by our committee.

As a result of some cost reductions we have been able to reach break-even point. We paid Peter Anderson $1820.40 for 20 2-leg kits and 5 4-leg kits, and the cost of printing manuals is about $200. We expect to recover $1850 from the sale of these kits. This is markedly better than the 30% subsidy that the Section was providing when this project began.

Nylon parts: We received another set of nylon parts #3 and #4 from China. Item #4 was worse than any samples we received before, and they cannot be re-worked. Have talked to Kelvin and they are working the problem. We must get this resolved before our next order.

Our challenge this year is contacting schools and getting them interested in the project. There is a new person at the Museum of Industry and the lack on continuity may affect turnout this year. We did not make adequate use of teachers who attended the robot training last year at UM Eastern Shore. Perhaps we should contact them this year.

Another challenge is to get a cadre of mentors to handle e-mails and visit schools when necessary. We need to train them as well. Need some new people to add to the experienced core group.

A third consideration is whether we want to work the PR line, both through IEEE and local communications. We have a good product and it meets a need. Who can we mobilize to work on this? Perhaps Student and GOLD members can help.

Since our last meeting we received a check in the amount of $313.80 from New Mexico for 4 automation kits plus shipping. Expenses since last June have been $64.64 for shipping kits to NM, stamps, etc, and $455.80 for printing the Basic Robot Manual for a total of $520.44. Neville requests reimbursement for this amount.

WIE (Tina Kohler)

None

Region (John Dentler)

•  Region 2 will not hold Fall meeting because of budgetary considerations but will have a meeting in winter

•  Draft by-laws not approved by all sections. Some sections submitted late revisions.

•  Dissolution of the National Capital Chapter triggered initiative to get Baltimore and Washington as a merged entity.

GOLD (Wole Akpose) presented by Jeff Friedhoffer

•  Held another meeting in late August

• Neville Jacobs reiterated request for GOLD members to get involved with Robot Challenge.

Professional Activities (Carole Carey)

•  See earlier reference to presentation by Matt Riggs.

•  Need proposal regarding exhibit on History of Electronics in Aviation. Brian Sequeira to provide Carole Carey with draft proposal.

Chapter Chair Reports

PES (Jim Ryan)

None

EMC (Robert Berkovits)

•  Held two meetings thus far: one jointly with EMB and the other at which Vil Arafiles was speaker

•  Talk to be held on September 25 on Nanotechnology, plastics, and your investments by Arthur J. Epstein.

EMB (David Sherman)

•  Held annual Student Fair at Johns Hopkins University. 58 students signed up to receive EMB newsletters.

•  Chapter Chairman's talk scheduled on September 25 on Deep Brain Electrical Stimulation and Epilepsy: New Experimental Results By David Sherman.

•  Another talk by Nora Zietz from JHU Enterprise Development Office scheduled on October 16. This initiative was reported September 1 in the Baltimore Sun.

•  Possible joint meeting with COMSOC in November.

COMSOC (Jeffrey Friedhoffer)

• None

Annapolis Subsection (David Boyd)

• None
  

Student Chapters

    See report under EMB. Jeff got response from UMBC and JHU about who the student chapter officers are. Jeff will set up meeting with student chapters between now and end of October.

Action Items

New Business

(Presented by Bob Berkovits) Bob Brook wants to begin an initiative that addresses Social Implications of Technology. Bob Berkovits has spoken to Mel Hotz who supports the idea and recommends that this initiative be a vehicle for getting engineers involved with legislation that addresses technological matters such as cell phones.

IEEE is one of the sponsors of Engineer's week (previously PES was sponsor).

Motion to adjourn proposed by John Dentler, seconded by Brian Sequeira, and unanimously carried. The meeting adjourned at 8:43 pm.