Dan Hoolihan, President EMC Society, (left) spoke at the
April meeting of the EMC
Chapter in Sweden. The meeting was held at ETL SEMKO in Stockholm. Things got
“exciting” following the meeting when the inventor of the first ESD gun, Lars-Olov
Johansson (center), presented a few of his “toys” to Dan and fellow chapter
member
Dag Bjorklof. President Hoolihan actively supports EMC chapter activity whenever
possible during business travel for his company,
TUV Product Service.
The first half of 1999 is already over and that means, among other things, that I am three-quarters of the way through my two-year presidential term for the EMC Society. I would like to take this opportunity to talk about our EMC Society Chapters that are scattered around the world.
To begin with, you should know that there are approximately 300 Sections within the IEEE and about 350,000 members woldwide in the IEEE. There are about 1200 chapters of Technical Societies or, as you mathematical wizards have already figured out, about 4 chapters per section. The EMC Society has 46 Chapters on the books; that represents about 4% of the total of 1200 chapters.
The 46 EMCS chapters are split in the following manner; 29 in the United States and 17 in Regions 7 -10 (outside the United States). There are 3 chapters in Canada (Region 7), 8 chapters in Region 8 (Europe and Middle East), no chapters in Region 9, and 6 Chapters in Region 10 (Pacific Rim countries).
So much for the statistics. The point of this message is that not all the Chapters are as healthy as we would like to see them. The minimum requirement to maintain a Chapter is to have two meetings a year and submit an appropriate report to the Section on those two meetings. In addition, most Societies (EMC included) like to be copied on the chapter reports so that they can be reviewed by the Membership Vice-President and his chapter coordinator. We have a number of Chapters that are either not making that minimum requirement or are barely making the minimum requirement.
The Board of Directors of the EMC Society has instituted programs over the years to help the local Chapters. These programs include the Distinguished Lecturer Program, the Angel program, and special incentives to Board members to visit local chapters. We still don’t see the level of activity in a number of chapters that we would like to see, despite these board incentives, so we are asking for ideas from the members.
What would you like to see to stimulate local chapters of the EMC Society? What do local chapters need to grow strong? How can the Board nurture chapters? Send your ideas to me at d.hoolihan@ieee.org or FAX 651-638-0285.
Over the past few years, I have had the pleasure of visiting a number of chapters and participating in local meetings; this includes Portland (twice), Seattle, Phoenix, San Diego (twice), Los Angeles, Central Texas, Chicago, Rocky Mountain, Santa Clara Valley, and Sweden. (I, of course, also remain active in my own local chapter here in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul - Minnesota). It is always interesting to meet the grass-root members of our EMC Society and to participate in their local programs.
Regardless of your Chapter’s level of activity, I hope to see you all in Seattle the first week of August for the Annual IEEE International Symposium on EMC. The local organizing committee has been working diligently for months on the Symposium and they are promising us a great symposium plus sunny skies the entire week we are in Seattle!