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President's Message |
Joe Butler – President, EMC Society |
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| EMC Society President Joe Butler enjoyed the company of the Zurich EMC Symposium organizing committee during the Wednesday evening banquet. Shown left to right are Dr. Fred Tesche, Chair of the Technical Program Committee, Dr. Gabriel Meyer, Symposium Chairman, EMCS President Joe Butler, and Dr. Peter Leuthold, outgoing Symposium President. | |
Start thinking about Montreal, Canada and our upcoming International EMC Symposium the week of August 13th. By the time you get this Newsletter (yes it still is a Newsletter but it's looking a lot more like a magazine every issue), it will be time to make plans to join us in Montreal. The committee under Benoît Nadeau has done a great job to date of planning for this event. It should be a rewarding affair for all who attend.
I recently attended the 14th International Zurich Symposium and Technical Exhibition on Electromagnetic Compatibility, held from February 20 to 22, 2001. Although I have attended this event before, this was obviously my first time representing the EMC Society as President. I can't begin to thank the President of EMC Zurich '01, Professor Peter Leuthold, and Dr. Gabriel Meyer, Symposium Chairman, for their and the committee's hospitality during this event. It was made clear to me that the Zurich symposium committee very much appreciated the technical co-sponsorship provided by our Society. As usual, the event was very successful, once again retaining its reputation as one of the premier EMC symposia in the world. Besides the exposition, technical papers and the wonderful social events at this affair, I was also able to attend the conference Advisory Committee meeting. While discussing several aspects of the Zurich symposia dealing with the quality of technical papers, numbers of exhibitors, and participant representation by country, this meeting evolved into thoughts about the need for continuing discussions among the various national and international EMC symposia chairs. It's clear that the number of EMC symposia worldwide is increasing and hence the competition for technical papers and exhibitors inevitably results. With representatives from past or future symposia in Switzerland, Japan, United States, Israel, United Kingdom, Italy, Belgium, Poland, Germany, and Russia in attendance at this meeting, the discussion identified several common denominators, one of which being the request for technical co-sponsorship by the IEEE EMC Society. Since the EMC Society is engaged in dialogue with all of the above on symposia sponsorship issues, it was suggested that the Society start a series of co-operative discussions to minimize potential conflicts in the area of participant and technical paper as well as exhibitor solicitation. One area in particular that was addressed was the issue with the same or very similar technical papers being submitted to multiple symposia. This issue and others are ones on which the EMC Society Board of Directors will have more discussion.
I recognize that the "Call for Nominations" for the EMC Society Board of Directors went out with the last Newsletter with the deadline of May 31, 2001. However, I'd still like to mention the fact that we are seeking to identify individuals worldwide who would be interested in working on a number of Society initiatives. Note that the key word in the last sentence was "working". In that vein, if you are interested in getting involved at the Society/Board of Directors level, we'd like to hear from you. I know many of you have tended to shy away from running for election to the Board of Directors, fearing you do not have the worldwide "name recognition" to get elected. Well to be honest about it, this fear is somewhat real, but a course of action to take to address it would be to first get involved on a committee in areas such as standards, education, membership, or symposia. We are always looking for a few good men or women. We especially need more international representation on several committees. Please consider it as a means of getting more familiar with the Society as well as an avenue for you to meet many more international EMC contacts.
Finally, as you can't help but notice the relatively rapid decline in the high technology marketplace, I hope you're not affected by the increasing number of staff reductions I have been reading about since the first of this year. I doubt that the eventual/inevitable "coming back to earth" of the "dot.com" companies that last year seemed to grow so rapidly in size in both people and capitalization affected many EMC engineers. This is especially true, since many of these companies had not yet developed any products to sell. However, many of the cutbacks earlier this year were in the high technology sector. As I write this column, it would appear that EMC engineers have avoided much of the fallout, but as the slowdown continues, who knows. This is where involvement in your local EMC Chapter meetings can help you. Professional networking has consistently been shown to offer the highest probability for finding a job. Please take advantage of your EMC Society, both at the local level as well as at the international level via our web site, www.emcs.org, or via our international symposium. Looking forward to seeing and hearing from you – call me at 781-939-4267 or e-mail me at j.e.butler@ieee.org . EMC