January, 2004 Signal

Volume 13, Number 1 IEEE SIOUXLAND SECTION NEWSLETTER January, 2004
http://www.siouxland.org

6:00 Dinner, Chicken Cordon Bleu, cost: $10.00 ($5.00 for IEEE Student members).

RESERVATIONS REQUIRED: Reservations required for the dinner.
Please e-mail d.deboer@ieee.org before 4 PM Thursday, January 22.
You will receive reservation confirmation via return e-mail.

DIRECTIONS: Sioux Center is located on US Highway 75 about 50 miles north of Sioux City. In Sioux Center Highway 75 is called Main Avenue. From Main Avenue turn east onto 7^thStreet. Go about one-third mile to the marked entrance to Dordt College and park in the obvious parking lot. The Student Center is the large building directly south of the parking lot. In the student center building, walk upstairs to the top floor and look for signs for the boardroom which is strait ahead of the stairway on the south side of the building.

INCLEMENT WEATHER: This meeting will be held regardless of weather if our speaker is present. If the meeting needs to be cancelled due to bad weather a cancellation notice will be posted on the Section’s web page before 3 PM on Monday, January 26. Use your own judgement regarding driving since the conditions outside Sioux Center may be unknown to those organizing this meeting.

January 26 – Dinner & Lecture: Trends in Electricity Grid Operations and Regulation @ Dordt College in Sioux Center, IA

April – Annual Soft-skills Workshop: Negotiations @ Sioux Falls, SD (look for more detail to come soon)

October – Tour: EROS Data Center (tentative) @ EROS Facilities near Sioux Falls, SD

New Officers for 2004

The following members were nominated by the previous IEEE Siouxland Executive Committee and were elected by acclamation of the membership for the positions listed below.

Jeff White, Chair

Jeff previously served as Vice Chair from July of 2002 to December of 2003. He organized the leadership development workshop held by our section in May of 2003 and has been active in the effort to revitalize our section. Jeff is an engineer at Interstates Control Systems in Sioux Center, Iowa. Jeff is taking over the position from Douglas De Boer. (See comments below from the incoming and outgoing chairs)

Steve Wolterstorff, Vice Chair

Steve previously served as Newsletter Editor/Webmaster from July of 2002 to December of 2003 and prior to that as Webmaster since the inception of the web site in 1996. Steve has also been active in the revitalization effort for our section and has attended "Sections Congress" on behalf of the Siouxland Section. Steve is a computer scientist at Missouri River Energy Services in Sioux Falls.

Robert Fourney, Secretary/Treasurer

Bob is a professor in the Electrical Engineering Department at South Dakota State University (SDSU) at Brookings. He is taking over the position of Secretary/Treasurer from Steve Hietpas, who is also with SDSU.

Brian Matherly, Member-at-Large

Josh Rich, Member-at-Large

John Weber, Electronic Communications Coordinator

John is a transmission engineer at Missouri River Energy Services in Sioux Falls.

I hope all our members enjoyed a safe and happy holiday season. I’d like to begin by saying that it has been my pleasure serving the section as Vice Chair over the past 1-1/2 years, and I look forward to serving as the Chair this upcoming year. I am excited to continue the progress of revitalizing this section. We have made great strides and I hope we are able to find additional ways in which we can serve your needs – as this will be the key to the revitalization process.

As we begin the year we start with a new group of officers who will be very instrumental in the development of the section. Before I discuss some of the plans we have, I would like to thank Doug DeBoer for his service as the Chair the past 1-1/2 years. It has been a pleasure working with Doug during this time. The revitalization we have experienced could not have happened without the leadership Doug provided and we owe him a great deal of gratitude for his efforts.

We currently have several activities planned for the upcoming year. We are starting on a high note with the dinner meeting at Dordt College in Sioux Center, IA with guest speaker Brian Glover. Brian will discuss the topic “Trends in Electricity Grid Operations and Regulation”. This should be an interesting topic that will be beneficial to many of the members. Please see the details about this meeting elsewhere in this newsletter. I hope to see you at this meeting.

I am finalizing plans for a workshop to be held in late March or early April. This will be a full-day “Negotiations Training” workshop held at the Convention Center in Sioux Falls, SD. Details concerning this workshop will be published in a newsletter in the very near future. The section will subsidize this workshop so that we can provide it to you for a reduced rate of $150 per member. I am also working with the national IEEE to offer Continuing Education Units (CEUs) for this workshop. This workshop will be limited to 25 participants, and although I hope we do not have to turn any members away, it would be a nice to have this problem for a change.

Plans are also in the works for a joint meeting with Center for Power System Studies (CPSS) in September at South Dakota State University in Brookings, SD. We are currently planning for a tour of the EROS facility near Sioux Falls in October. In addition, I would like to pursue one additional meeting sometime this year (likely in the fall/winter) with another guest speaker and would consider any suggestions from you for such a meeting. Please consider this an invitation for the section to serve your needs and I would welcome your ideas.

We also have several other activities that will be going on behind the scenes this year. We are planning to reactivate the Power Engineering Society Chapter. This process will involve developing by-laws and the appointment of a chair for this chapter. Having this chapter will be very beneficial to this section by providing additional funding from the national IEEE and giving access to distinguished lecturers. Please let me know if you have an interest in serving as chair. Brian Matherly will be directing efforts in the establishment of a Graduates of the Last Decade (GOLD) affinity group – more information on this will be published as it develops. Finally, Josh Rich will be researching the possibility of the section sponsoring a local viewing of the Faraday lecture this spring to local high school students.

I believe these activities will prove to be valuable service to you. In order for this to happen however, we need your participation. Please feel free to share this information with other engineers in the area, and let me know of any comments or concerns you may have with the operation of the Siouxland Section.

Welcome to a new year of IEEE Siouxland activities and benefits for our members. As you may recall, I became chair of our section in July of 2002 after our section had been defunct for some time. It has been gratifying to see our section revitalize itself to be of even greater service to our members than it had been in the 1990’s. Of course we still have a ways to go yet too.

I’m most proud that we were able to offer the Leadership Development Workshop last May (see http://www.siouxland.org/leadership_development_workshop and the May 2003 newsletter). The annual workshop is a clear demonstration of how IEEE membership provides career development opportunities of direct value to our local members and engineering industries. Some companies sent engineers to our last workshop and covered expenses for their employees. It is my understanding that these companies found the event very worthwhile and are interested in sending engineers to this year’s workshop again. If you are in an engineering management role, please contact our Chair, Jeff White, to find out how this year’s workshop can be worthwhile to your company. If you hosted such a workshop at your company, you would have to pay the full cost. We combine a big subsidy from our section with economy of scale (we gather about 20 engineers from various companies) and are able to provide a development opportunity that would be prohibitively expensive for many of our members and local industries otherwise.

IEEE has also been able to provide some really excellent training opportunities for our officers. Steve Wolterstorff and I attended Sections Congress 2002 in Washington DC. I would say that about one-half of the meetings there were tightly related to IEEE operations and management, but the other half of the meetings were generally applicable in any organizational management context—my career and my employer benefited at IEEE’s expense. These were top-notch meetings in a capital city venue. The regular management meetings of IEEE and our section also provide valuable experience that can prepare one for greater career opportunities. “Serving” on our Siouxland Executive Committee has required some hours of work, but the rewards have been plentiful. Like the good Calvinist that I am, I feel guilty for learning so much and having as much fun as I did in an experience that is called “serving.”

Now I get the chance to look back on all the good things that happened on my watch in 2003 and it is satisfying. Workshop. . . new bylaws. . . new officers who are already thinking of new ideas. . . friendships and networks outside of my employer of course. . . and mostly importantly, a Siouxland Section that once more nurtures our electrical engineering careers. Rest assured, I’ll continue attending our Siouxland Section meetings whenever I can!

Minutes of the IEEE Siouxland Section Executive Committee Meeting held December 12, 2003 in Sioux Falls can be found along with past issues of the Siouxland Signal at: www.siouxland.org/newsletts.htm

Please send comments or items to include in the newsletter to the Electronics Communications Coordinator (John Weber /PO Box 88920/ Missouri River Energy Services / Sioux Falls, SD 57109 / Telephone 605-330-6979, e-mail johnw@mrenergy.com). Make address corrections online at http://www.ieee.org/update or call them at (800)-678-IEEE.