Jean Eason, Chair, Region 1: Don Herres, Region 3: David Macchiarolo Region 4: Tarek Lahdhiri, Region 5:Jean Eason, Region 6: Ken Doniger, Peggy Hutcheson, Chuck Elliott, Nigel Bristow, Scott Grayson

Minutes were unanimously approved.

Scott Grayson reported that the ECS deferred publication of the Engineers Guide to Lifelong Employability in 2003. The Committee came in $17.1K ahead of budget but were concerned that they could be at risk of losing their budget line item due to "use it or lose it."  Scott explained that he believes the IEEE-USA BoD understood and appreciated the ECS postponing publication to help IEEE-USA's bottom line.  Scott said he would make sure to remind them if it looks like it could be a problem.

1.  IEEE-USA BoD Material

Scott reported that Mike Buryk contacted him to work with IEEE-USA on Career and Employment products & services.  Scott will follow up with Mike in the coming months to see what Spectrum/IEEE Job Service has in mind. Scott also reported that Tony Durniak, IEEE Staff Executive, Publications did not seem to have any problem with creating a high level link on the job site to our CareerNavigator page.  [Subsequent to the meeting--this has been done. Please visit: www.ieee.org/jobs and click on Career Resources.]

The Committee decided to continue to monitor the JLS and gather the facts (how many listings, ease of use, etc.)  They will not comment on the quality.  Ken Doniger, Tarek Lahdhiri, and David Macchiarolo will serve as the Committee's monitors. They will report their findings back to the committee and Jean Eason will report back to the IEEE-USA President.

Peggy Hutcheson will serve as the Keynote Speaker at the upcoming IEEE-USA Leadership Workshop.  Tarek, Nigel, Jean and Don will all be speakers at the 2004 IEEE-USA Leadership Workshop.  For more details see Workshop Program.

Jean Eason reported that she will have the Engineers Guide updated by August 31, 2004.  She will be updating the book so that the printed material will be "timeless."  The information that may change from year to year will be referenced in the book and can be found on the IEEE-USA Website.

Nigel Bristow explained that he had a website that might be a useful compliment to the book.  He first wanted committee input before we pursued any agreement. [Subsequent to the meeting the information has been emailed out.]

ACTION: Nigel will send out information on how to access his web site by March 16th.

Scott reported that this is a very popular page on the IEEE-USA Website Scott also reported that he has received some very positive feedback.  Members are pleased that everything they are looking for seems to be in one place now.

Region 6: Ken Doniger reported that they were hit the worst in terms of unemployment.  However, it is his sense that things are starting to improve. Some companies are starting to hire consultants.  Ken reported that the Local Sections have been forming Networks for Jobs in Seattle, Portland and San Diego.

Region 5: Jean Eason reported that Region 5 has money to develop programs for employment assistance.  Region 5 may pursue this opportunity.

Region 4:  Tarek Lahdhiri reported that in Chicago, IL, Motorola is number one in the electronics business and they got hit harder than any other in Region 4.  Detroit car industry got hit hard.  Apparently the EEs were not hit as hard as Mechanical Engineers.  Tarek reported that he does not believe the Midwest was hit as hard as the rest of the US.  The Power Industry is very big in the Midwest and did not have as high of a rate of unemployment as in other fields.  Most  companies are not hiring yet.  It is his sense that most are through contract agencies --which is huge in Region 4.  Tarek also stated that the first ones to be fired are the contract employees.  GM  laid off all contract employees. (Between 2001-02, 2,500 were laid off.  Tarek also believes that the IT business is better than anywhere else in the country.

Tarek reported that he has run several MPACs to enhance the skills of employees.  He has run Leadership and Project Management workshops in  Indianapolis, Nebraska,  Sioux Falls, Chicago.  The MPAC on Employment Assistance in Minneapolis had over 100 people.  Tarek has also been providing a brief overview of ECS products. 

Tarek is currently the Region 4 PACE Coordinator as well as the Region 4 Employment & Career Services Coordinator.  He said that this has worked quite nicely since he reports back to both committees. He was also asked to serve as the formal liaison from the PACE Committee to the ECS Committee.

Region 3: David Macchiarolo reported that Region 3 has an employment and career web page located at: http://www.ewh.ieee.org/reg/3/ea/.   SouthEastCon will have Joyce Richman as  its keynote speaker.  She is a local columnist and writes about professional development.

Region 2: No report. Tom Chmielewski, Region 2 Coordinator was not in attendance.

Report 1:  Don Herres reported that Jean Blair is Region 1 Rep to IEEE's Women in Engineering (WIE).  IBM Burlington has been hit hard, Kodak-Rochester major layoffs, Bell Labs--Jersey Coast had 10,000 employees and now has 1,200 employees. Don continues to work with people to set up workshops but there wasn't anyone who was interested. Don will continue to try to sell the workshops.

Scott reported that there were 1,100 users in the virtual community to date.  There are over 900 postings.  He reported that it is often used as a model for other virtual communities within the IEEE.  The community has appeared to assist members and good discussions have emerged as well as suggestions for improvement within IEEE. Scott reported that he monitors the site and forwards postings to the appropriate staff within IEEE.

ACTION:  At the committee's request Scott will sort through the threads and try to create a better structure of topics and folders so it will be easier to navigate. This will commence by April 5, 2004.

Scott reported that all three have been moving targets.  All three keep changing their business model and some were not interested in participating unless they were the sole provider.  Scott also explained that MyJobCoach has partnered with ASME.  He has heard that their members do not utilize it as much as they had hoped.

Peggy Hutcheson shared with the committee that Manchester was recently bought out and is undergoing some business model changes.  She will put the new people in touch with Scott and will see if there is anything that is worth pursuing.

The Committee was committed to continuing to pursue this project.

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On Going Projects For 2004

Publish Guide (Jean)  she will finalize and submit for final edit by August 31.  The Committee will provide input to help Jean determine an appropriate structure for the book and the on line component.  Nigel will send the committee information about how to access his on line service that may compliment the book [COMPLETED].

CAM Plan (Nigel) Committee will give Nigel input by April 10 and hold a Telecon on April 30th.

Regional Direct Contact (All):  The Regional Coordinators will continue to make direct contact with IEEE members and leaders within their regions. On-going

PACE Leadership Awareness (Workshop) (Jean Eason, Peggy, Nigel, and Don Herres) March 19-21, 2004

Outplacement Services Report: (Peggy & Scott) by 4th Quarter

Monitor JLS (Ken Doniger, Tarek Lahdhiri, and David Macchiarollo) On-going

Organize Virtual Community Clean Up (Scott) Start by April 5th then on-going.

Develop Corresponding Members From VC (Scott) On-going

Populate Webpage with Articles (ALL) on the 15th of each month to go live on the 1st of each month.

Promote ECS Services Through PR (Scott) On-going

Write original articles

R1 Outsourcing (March 31), R4 Leadership Workshop (End of May); R3 Region 3 Website (End Sept), Region 6 Description of QRT Articles modules (End of Jul).;  Quality of Worklife-Peggy (end of November);

QRT Leadership

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New Initiatives for 2004

1-Resource Library (Don) will start with Outsourcing, Ken will provide Breadth of other topics) 2nd Quarter and 4th Quarter to complete

2-Regional Web Pages Links (Jean, David) and will talk with Lee about his experience developing Region 3 by End of March

3-Career Vectors Pamphlets-Business Plan End of May (Scott & Nigel)

4-Gap Analysis (Peggy & Scott) Reexamine the plan. Develop a project plan scope.  3rd Quarter

5-Networking: (Jean) Adding another virtual community group. Who would be listed, what would be discussed? End of September

6-Salary Survey: (Don) Review Survey for Possible Data Mining.  Possible topics to Scott by April 30th

OTHERS FUTURE INITIATIVES:

eMentoring; Moonlighting; How to Be a Good Contract Engineer; Entrepreneurs; Products and projects to influence engineer development, How to deal with the exit of Boomers; Promote our services to a non-US audience,  delivery of on-line and CD-ROM workshops.

Committee members will add their name to the MPAC list along with topics that they will be willing to speak about.

The Meeting adjourned at 5:00 p.m.