January From The Chair

Thanks to all who made it to our final 2008 technical meeting at Clark- Nexsen in Norfolk. Bernie Wright of General Electric gave an extremely in depth presentation of the challenges in designing an electrical system that is cost-effectively “layered” (that is, not flat with respect to every panel feeding from the main switchgear) while meeting the new National Electric Code requirements for selective coordination. After a theoretical treatment of selective coordination, including why this is normally NOT a requirement for most buildings, and typical building electrical distribution system design, Bernie demonstrated a General Electric software tool for examining various equipment selections to rapidly determine components and settings necessary to achieve coordination. The tool was able to highlight certain configurations in a hypothetical scenario that would require extremely costly components, permitting minor design changes to eliminate these costs. The tool was specific to GE equipment, as it contains libraries of parameters for various equipment, but is available at no cost. For copies of either Bernie’s presentation or the GE InstaPlan tool, see the IEEE Hampton Roads meeting archive. We are very appreciative of Bernie, both for his time in preparing and presenting the topic as well as making the tool available to IEEE members.
In January we hold the IEEE-HR Student Paper Competition, which Dr. Anton Riedl of Christopher Newport University has graciously agreed to host. If you have not attended this annual event, or are a student considering entering, the competition guidelines can be viewed on the Hampton Roads Web Site. The section provides cash prizes for the top 3 student presentations, and the winners may take their presentation to the IEEE Region 3 competition at SoutheastCon in Atlanta in March (see the Region 3 Web Site for details). The Executive Committee has received several inquiries regarding permitted topics. Without providing specific guidelines for such requests, we remind students that topics should be relative to the electrical and electronics engineers of IEEE… and that we have yet to reject a topic!
We will conduct 2009 IEEE-HR officer elections in January, as we did not receive sufficient nominations at our November meeting. We now have (almost) enough volunteers to fill the 2009 slate, but if you would like to volunteer for a position there is still time and opportunity.
Upcoming meetings:

• IEEE-HR monthly technical meeting February 19th – Design of UHF RFID systems, Dr. C.J. Reddy, EM Software & Systems
• IEEE-HR monthly technical meeting March 19th
• IEEE-HR monthly technical meeting April 16th
• IEEE-HR annual social event in May

The January meeting will begin our Spring 2009 technical program. I hope you found the 2008 program interesting and look forward to this year’s topics. For those who are licensed engineers, the announcement has not been officially made but we expect the APELSCIDLA board to implement the new regulations by March 1st. The good news is that the current IEEE technical meeting format will meet these requirements, and our newsletter provides the necessary documentation to demonstrate meeting content, duration, and speaker qualifications (assuming the topic is relevant to your area of practice). Save the printed newsletter or reference our website’s meeting archive and you will be prepared to answer a board audit. Because an additional item of documentation demonstrating attendance may be part of the board’s March implementation, IEEE-HR will soon begin issuing certificates of attendance after meeting completion. If you have a suggested topic or speaker (or might want to present something yourself) please speak with me or any IEEE officer about this. I look forward to seeing you in January!
Regards,
Kurt J. Clemente, PE
2007 Chair
Hampton Roads Section
kurt.clemente@ieee.org