The IEEE, Kansas City Section

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Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

IEEE-KC  ExCom Meeting

August 12, 2008

Attendees:  John Fessler, Cale Yates, Shannon Blunt, Dick Hodgman, Jorge Marquez, Plamen Doynov, Chris Zugelder, Gabe Fleck, Dave Kasper and Debby Dilks

August Meeting Action Items:

1.      John will check into what we can do about asking the person Bob Ronan wants to nominate for an award to present at a monthly meeting.  John said he would talk with the PES to see if they will ask him to give a presentation.   John Fessler will get in touch with Gary Engmann and see if they can line up Mike Kelly for one of the meeting slots in 2009.  There has been some progress on this item, but still working on it.

2.      Dave Kasper will organize the joint meeting between IEEE and MSPE.  Dave said that this October meeting isn’t nailed down yet with MSPE so we could have Ruth Dyer talk at the October, but Debby said that MSPE is counting on that joint meeting in October so should keep it then. Still working on this.  John Fessler said Dave needed to get with Mark Lamendola to get the October meeting set up.

3.      John will set up when and what Ruth Dyer will be presenting at an IEEE meeting.  Maybe we could have her talk at the February 12 or next October meeting.  Is it appropriate to relate WIE with EMBS?  John said more of her work lately has been political with WIE rather than engineering so she suggested that her husband might be more appropriate to talk.  Not done yet.

4.      John Fessler and Dick Hodgman will negotiate with the hotel for the 2009 year to see if we can change our commitments for either June or July or commit for a certain number of meals for the year instead of monthly. Not Done yet.  They want to leave Dave Kasper the opportunity for changes.

5.      John Fessler will get the letter put together requesting the merger of the ComSoc (Communications Society) and AESS (Aeronautics Electronic System Society) and circulate it for signature approvals.  Not done yet.  Shannon Blunt asked if he needed to do something to get this accepted.

6.      John Fessler will change the Budget Update Agenda Item to read – Treasurer’s Report

7.      John Fessler needs to forward the request to merge PES/IAS to the societies and Mark Lamendola needs to update the IEEE-KC Section Webpage to reflect the PES/IAS merger.

8.      Debby will send Dave the contact information for Beverly Banks at IEEE for membership recruitment. [1]

John Fessler opened the meeting 12:05

Debby read the July Meeting Minutes Action Items, since the minutes were posted on the Communities for review beforehand and Cale moved that the meeting minutes be approved.  Dave Kasper seconded.  July Minutes were approved.

Cale Yates said that on the October 9 meeting he will have Russ Harris a lobbyist for IEEE there and for the CETS event.  Russ may be speaking at the October 9^th meeting.  Dave Kasper entered the discussion at this point and said that the October meeting is set up with the MSPE (Missouri Society of Professional Engineers) and will have more of a general topic since we will be hosting the combined meeting.  John Fessler mentioned that ComSoc has the responsibility for that meeting, but can trade it with them If PACE needs another technical meeting.  John Fessler said Dave needed to get with Mark Lamendola to get it set up.

Agenda items:

1.      Budget update

Jorge summarized the Financial Activity Summaries he sent out to the members before the meeting.  We paid our bills for the R5 conference, but we still have a substantial balance.  Highlights were we received the rebate from IEEE headquarters which was close to $10,000.  Our biggest hit was paying the R5 conference bill which amounted to about $18,000, so we still have about $23,000 or so in our account.  It doesn’t look that bad.  We have about $25,000 overall and last month had about $40,000.

Rather than call this a Budget update on the Agenda, Jorge asked John to change it to a Treasurer’s Report.  John Fessler shared that we will have a few expenses coming up for Sections Congress to be paid in October too.

2.      Chapter of PES/IAS from existing PES has been approved by the R5 Director!

The Power Energy Society (PES) and the Industry Applications Society (IAS) merger has been approved by the Region 5 Director, but after we sent the letter we received word that we need to forward the request to the societies too.  So we need to update our webpage and register the new chapter.  Gary Engmann asked to know how many members are in IAS and Debby ran off a report and it listed 51 members out of the 1,450 members in the KC Society.  So he can send a notice out and advertise meetings to them.  We need to get some more paperwork done and then it should be done by the next meeting hopefully.  Vishwa is overseas right now, but he has been copied on everything, so everything is progressing. Gary Engmann will write the letter for the PES/IAS and John will see how it is goes so he can do the same for the ComSoc/AESS merger.

3.      Proposed creation of joint Chapter of ComSoc/AESS from existing ComSoc, approval still pending.

Dr. Shannon Blunt, Professor from the University of Kansas has initiated the Aeronautics Electronic System Society and is investigating the chance to merge it with the Communications Society.  This merger was already accomplished in New York and India, so it should be easier for us to form a joint chapter.  Shannon received the endorsement from Jim Leonard at Boeing in St. Louis and that helped in getting it accomplished.  Protocol requires that we send a request to chapter maintenance committee and then they send it through the proper channels.  No draft or template available so John will put together a letter composite of the various arguments and evidence for this idea and send it in an e-mail that he will copy Shannon on for ideas.  The previous merger of PES/IAS will provide some ideas of how this will be done.    Shannon will provide the information on who will be serving in the different offices.  We will also need a program description for the October 9 joint meeting of MSPE and IEEE. 

John Fessler mentioned at this point that we received word from Mark Lamendola that Jim McConville, Chair of the Computer Society resigned and Michelle Marshall is the new chair.  John added her to the distribution list and we look forward to her future participation.

4.      CETS booth October 10

Dave Kasper, checked the online site and it is going rather well.  He is trying to find out if IEEE will send someone to help with membership recruitment and sell their IEEE books.  He will have a sign-up sheet for the event at the Thursday meeting.  He also gave an update that we had some correspondence with Brian Wilson.  Debby will send Dave the contact information for Beverly Banks at IEEE for membership recruitment.   She was the contact we had from the Region 5 conference.  There will be no cost to IEEE for the booth and set up.  Since we are one of the sponsors, it is all taken care of.

5.      Sections congress is coming up.

Cale said that Sections Congress is all set and everyone is registered and ok with travel arrangements. Cale will be there Thursday night and wanted to know if they can meet to map out how to do the congress.  Chris Zugelder can meet with Cale on Friday morning and maybe Bill Ritter can meet with him Thursday night.

6.      Miscellaneous

Debby gave an update on the conference.  Even though we sent a check to EDAS they say that they still have not paid, so we are trying to get that resolved. The Hotel has been paid. So only have EDAS to settle and then the audit.

Shannon wanted to make everyone aware, that Jim Leonard in St. Louis was trying to get a student chapter of AESS at KU and get the student members involved in the society.

He added that there is a group at KU that will be proposing to host the Radar conference in 2011 in KC.  The 2004 and 2007 conferences ran a surplus of $100k each time.  So he mentioned that they will probably want some seed money from the Section and some support to pull this off.   Already, they are currently looking and talking with the Westin, Hyatt and Intercontinental hotels.  John said that he was sure that the section will help support it.  Historically the conference has been a government defense radar conference and the last time it was held in Italy.  Now,  it has branched off to be more scientific.  They are studying global warming and weather radar, which encompasses more of the different aspects of radar.  They had 700 attend last year in Rome and last year was the first time it was out of the Midwest.  There is  a lot of interest from the host society and it is international draw.  70% of the attendees are from the US and the other 30% are from all over the world.  The lowest attendance was 260, but generally they have between 350 and 450.  They are also looking at corporate sponsorship.  Garmin is expanding their marine radar for boats so they could be a good sponsor and they are hoping to get Honeywell as local sponsors as well. 

Plamen Doynov added that EMBS will have a booth at the UMKC Welcome Day on August 17^th and that they are trying to activate a student chapter there.

Dave Kasper asked if Chris was able to go forward with his nomination of Matt Hicks for GOLD chair and Chris responded yes.

Cale Yates moved and Plamen Doynov seconded that the meeting adjourn at 12:47 p.m.

Respectfully submitted by,

Debby Dilks

Old Action Items from July 2008 Meeting:

1. John will check into what we can do about asking the person Bob Ronan wants to nominate for an award to present at a monthly meeting.  John said he would talk with the PES to see if they will ask him to give a presentation.   John Fessler will get in touch with Gary Engmann and see if they can line up Mike Kelly for one of the meeting slots in 2009.  There has been some progress on this item, but still working on it.

2. Debby Dilks will send the award criteria to John from what Bob Ronan wanted to use to nominate Mike Kelly.  This hasn’t been done yet.[2]

3. John will set up when and what Ruth Dyer will be presenting at an IEEE meeting.  Maybe we could have her talk at the February 12 or next October meeting.  Is it appropriate to relate WIE with EMBS?  John said more of her work lately has been political with WIE rather than engineering so she suggested that her husband might be more appropriate to talk.  Not done yet.

4. Plamen will initiate communication with Ruth Dyer again and keep us posted.  Done

5. Jorge Marquez will contact Mark Lamendola to see if he knows about the USPE Permit #1047 charges for $251.90 Resolved

6. Debby will update the section when she learns anything more from the Region on the conference expenses. Done

7. Dave Kasper will organize the joint meeting between IEEE and MSPE.  Dave said that this October meeting isn’t nailed down yet with MSPE so we could have Ruth Dyer talk at the October, but Debby said that MSPE is counting on that joint meeting in October so should keep it then. Still working on this. 

8. Debby will bring some of the left over badges from conference to the July meeting. Done

9. Dave Kasper will organize the KC Section’s entry into the CETS for this October.   He is moving forward on this and will have a sign-up sheet at the next meeting in August for volunteers. [3]

10. John Fessler and Dick Hodgman will negotiate with the hotel for the 2009 year to see if we can change our commitments for either June or July or commit for a certain number of meals for the year instead of monthly. Not Done yet.  They want to leave Dave Kasper the opportunity for changes.

11. John Fessler will get the letter put together requesting the merger of the ComSoc and AESS and circulate it for signature approvals.  Not done yet.  Shannon Blunt asked if he needed to do something to get this accepted.

12. Request to merge PES and IAS was postponed until the August meeting.  Done. John used this as an example of what needs to be done for the ComSoc and AESS.

13. Dick Hodgman will submit the roster of 2009 Officers to the membership 48 days before the September meeting. Done.