March 2009 From The Chair

Few things in this life are for certain. Unfortunately for electrical engineers, power distribution is not one of them. However we can mitigate the risk we face by having a back-up power source. So in March we will have Rob Robins of Bay Diesel come talk to us of providing back-up power systems for facilities and plants that we may have design cognizance over. This topic has a wide appeal to all of us, because I cannot think of an area of electrical engineering that is not dependent on power. So understanding the current factors of back-up power generation and understanding how those factors affect our everyday professional lives is important to us all.
I want to thank Dr. Reddy for his presentation in February on RFID technology. We learned that the airplane industry utilizes RFID tags for maintenance monitoring. While bar-coding has improved monitoring of inventory greatly, RFID tags are the next step. How many of us have stood in a grocery line while the clerk struggles to get the bar code off an item we are buying. In fact, one on my dogs has a RFID tag implanted in her, so you can say that I have a high tech wiener dog.
So far I only have one volunteer for the 5oth anniversary planning committee. I am still looking for a few more volunteers. I want to thank Dr. Ibrahim for volunteering. On a similar note, Janet Rochester has offered to represent the section at the IEEE-USA meeting in Philadelphia in August. I would like for us all to support Janet in providing a good history of the section. So if anyone has some section history, including any personal accomplishments , that they would like to share, please provide them to any officer of the section. This is good because I am thinking that we want a good historical accounting for when our section anniversary occurs in 2011. Thank you Janet .
I will be representing the section for the SoutheastCon in Atlanta this upcoming month. I will provide some feedback to the section as to what is presented at the Region 3 meeting that occurs during that time. So stay tune for additional information.
I am looking forward to meeting everyone in March.
Regards,
James Bolitho
2009 Chair
Hampton Roads Section

jbolitho@ieee.org