The ballot members will receive in September will offer three candidates for Division IX director: George F. McClure, John Vig, and Glen N. Williams. Their principal societies are, respectively, VTS, UFFC, and OE.

George McClure, a past VTS president and current elected board member, observes that the last time VTS had a member of its board on the IEEE Board of Directors was in 1989-1990. That was Art Goldsmith, but because of a different arrangement of societies in divisions at that time, he represented the Engineering Management Society rather than VTS. George's current VTS assignments include the conference board, long-range planning committee, publicity and public relations, and assisting in member recruiting and retention, as well as in strengthening chapter relations, a priority recommendation from the 1999 Sections Congress.

He chaired two VT annual conferences, in 1977 and 1990, both in Orlando. For the 1999 Sections Congress George gave a presentation on the benefits to employers of their members' IEEE participation. This presentation is available at the IEEE website under the URL https://www.ieee.org/organizations/rab/sc/Presentations-html/Green_Track/mccluree/sld001.htm

A past editor of the "IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology," George currently serves as editor of technology policy for IEEE-USA. In 1999 he received the highest award bestowed by IEEE-USA, for distinguished contributions to engineering professionalism. He was co-editor of "Land-Mobile Communications Engineering," sponsored by VTS and published by IEEE Press.

A Life Fellow of IEEE, and recipient of both IEEE's Third Millennium Medal and Centennial Medal, George retired from Martin Marietta Corporation after more than 30 years in systems engineering and program management in aerospace and communications-electronics. The development of mobile military communications systems there led to commercial mobile telephone applications for which George received two patent awards.

His view is that technical societies should focus their activities to provide the greatest benefit to the members. This includes, besides the purely technical information dissemination role in publications and conferences, promoting a broader choice of education opportunities, expanded Newsletter content, and better chapter linkage and support. Working with other boards, such as Education Activities, and with other committees such as the RAB/TAB Section-Chapter Support Committee, societies can assist in the development of member mid-career education opportunities and strengthen their relations with their chapters.

Current problems he sees that must be addressed include the increased levy on society assets by IEEE to finance growing administrative costs. In some cases, the trendline indicates that societies will be totally stripped of assets in five or six years unless steps are taken to reverse the trend. Funds removed from societies are not available to fund benefits to members in publications, technical conferences, chapter development and support, and continuing education opportunities. George believes that problem-solving to reduce the levies will work to allow societies more autonomy in serving their members. Healthy growing societies translate into a healthy IEEE as well, making the resolution of the financial problems the first priority.

George McClure has been nominated to serve on the IEEE Audit Committee, contingent on his election as Division IX director, so will be well-positioned to begin his budget problem-solving.