September 2009 From The Chair

I hope that everyone had a pleasant summer. I just spent a week vacation with my family in the mountains. It was a good time to be with family. I was also able to go to a high school class reunion in Ohio the follow-on weekend.
Our Vice Chair, Greg Hodges, has quite a fall lineup for our technical programs. The September program will be hosted by our newly formed Power and Energy Society (PES) Chapter and will be on the offshore wind power research that is currently underway by the Virginia Coastal Energy Research Consortium. I am excited about this topic. There was a Spectrum article not so long ago on the issues that Germany was having in establishing an offshore wind farms (see July 2009). I think that was a good article in dealing with the issues (political, environmental and even engineering) that might confront us in Virginia in developing our wind farms. We are expecting quite a turnout for this event and have elected to have the meeting at Clark-Nexsen courtesy of our past chair, Kurt Clemente. Thanks again Kurt.
In October, Greg has scheduled a field trip to Muelhbauer in Newport News. This will be a tour of a semiconductor and RFID manufacturing plant. I always liked field trips back in school and this seems like a good opportunity to see for ourselves what it takes to run a plant such as this. This is another excellent technical program that should be interesting to all of our members.
In November, we have decided to move the student paper competition from January to November. I think that this will be in keeping with the student’s schedules as many will be completing senior projects and we are far less intimidating than professors. I want to thank Anton Reidl of Christopher Newport University for volunteering to be Student Activities Chair for our Section.
I believe that the PES Chapter is looking to have a technical program during the month of November for those that have to maintain continuing education credits for the professional engineer requirements.
We presently have the Awards chair position open. I would also like to restructure the Educational Activities program. The Educational Activities program is for a person who will be the focal point for the section’s Educational Activities. If you have any questions about these positions or desire to work in these areas, please contact any member of the Executive Committee. In addition, the Executive Committee is up for elections at the end of this year. If you have any desire to be the Chairman, Vice-Chair, Treasurer or Secretary, please contact our past-Chair, Kurt Clemente, kurt.clemente@ieee.org , who is heading up the Nominations Committee. I would like the nominations in by end of October, so that we can have elections in November. We were late last year in getting the positions filled and almost missed out on the 10% early reporting bonus that IEEE provides to sections.
Thanks again for all that you do for IEEE and I am looking forward to this fall’s technical program. Good job Greg.
Regards,
James Bolitho
2009 Chair
Hampton Roads Section
jbolitho@ieee.org