President's Column
(December 2002)

All Good Things Must Come
to an End (For Me)

December marks my last month as IEEE-USA president and the end of an exceptional year for me and for IEEE-USA. We had more successes than ever in areas such as public-policy, public outreach, and communications regarding threats to the long term viability of the U.S. engineering workforce.

To find summaries of these and other successful initiatives, you can visit our Web site at www.ieeeusa.org, see our two-page photo spread in this month's IEEE Spectrum, or go to our unemployment assistance page at www.ieeeusa.org/careers/help/index.html. However, as we celebrate our accomplishments for 2002, we are surprisingly faced with a potential threat to our organizational standing within the IEEE. There's more about that at the end of this communication.

Please join me in my thanks to our IEEE-USA volunteers and staff for building on our past to produce this year's many accomplishments. Though we may have been at the right time and place, we owe a heavy debt to Vice President of Technology Policy Ralph Wyndrum, the Technology Policy Committee chairs and Committee members for their dedicated work. I also appreciate what these volunteers did to focus on key issues rather than taking a shotgun approach. Further, changes to our procedures that shortened the time between the development of a position paper and its approval by our Board greatly improved our ability to influence legislation.

We can cite the following successes in our mandate to develop beneficial technology policy: proposed a "forseeability" bar to patent claims based on the "doctrine of equivalents" that was substantially adopted by the U.S. Supreme Court; supported successful amendments to the Homeland Security Act of 2002; helped champion successful passage of the Cybersecurity R&D Act; completed a successful multiyear advocacy effort culminating in congressional passage of the National Science Foundation Reauthorization Act, which authorizes doubling of NSF budget by 2007; and sponsored two IEEE-USA Congressional Fellowships, as well as established a new Engineering and Diplomacy Fellowship program at the State Department.

Vice Presidents Bob Adams, John Steadman and Lee Stogner worked steadily with various committee chairs, volunteers and staff members to make IEEE-USA an organization that better serves its members, while providing more training and resources to help members plan lifelong learning and experiences that will strengthen career options. All of this is being done in a time when employers seem to be driven more by cost savings than by long-term growth through innovation and focus on quality.

The vice presidents' endeavors on behalf of unemployed members have just begun to gain momentum. Since September, I and other volunteers have participated in at least four major workshops that directly or indirectly focused on the U.S. technical workforce and security issues related to having a viable U.S. technical workforce. IEEE-USA sent three letters to Congress on these issues; distributed leaflets on Capitol Hill describing how engineering was becoming a temporary career with disposable professionals; and announced sponsorship of an early 2003 workshop on the technical workforce and its relationship to our nation's security.

In addition, we're nearing completion of career-policy statements that cite industry's desire for low-cost labor rather than experienced citizen engineers; advocate rollback of the number of H-1B guest-worker visas; require vigorous efforts to verify the degree credentials of engineers, computer scientists, and others who may still be entering our nation as temporary workers; and emphasize the need for better workforce supply, demand and unemployment data.

In the final days of this year, we're also expediting development of programs that will help get 2003 off to an exciting start. One of these is the idea of member Charles Rubenstein with the co-operation of the Technical Activities Board. IEEE-USA is reproducing three IEEE distinguished lecture presentations as a lifelong learning program resource for U.S. members, sections and chapters. As president, I had funds for special projects and, since these funds were not needed for other projects, I and others are doing a brute-force-engineering-approach to launch a new project called faces of innovationTM. Find out more at www.ieeeusa.org/faces.

For next year, we need to fine tune our process and accomplish even more. You can be the grease-on-the-wheels and make 2003 even better. Bite the bullet, get involved, and become a member of our growing team of volunteers.

As our successes increase, we face great challenges for the future. I understand that one of these could be an agenda discussion item for the February 2003 IEEE Board meeting involving a proposal to remove IEEE-USA's president from the IEEE Board and the IEEE Executive Committee (ExCom), and implement a major downgrading of the position of IEEE-USA within the structure of the IEEE.

If this discussion item is brought forward, why should the president of IEEE-USA, who is elected directly to serve approximately two-thirds of IEEE members, be removed from the IEEE Board and ExCom? Why should this happen, especially when Directors for Divisions I-X, who cumulatively only serve approximately two-thirds of the IEEE's members, have the same number of positions on the IEEE Board as the Regional Directors, who serve 100 percent of the IEEE's members? If the IEEE-USA president is removed, why should the vice president of the Technical Activities Board (TAB), who also serves only two-thirds of the IEEE's members, remain on the IEEE Board and ExCom? 

If the IEEE leadership considers new governance policies, I understand that another scenario could involve removing IEEE-USA from the governing bodies of the IEEE and make IEEE-USA an organizational unit of the Regional Activities Board (RAB). If you want to hear an even funnier proposition, consider one idea that designates IEEE-USA as a committee that reports to the IEEE Board. Give me a break. You need to be aware of these scenarios, and let others within the 2003 IEEE Board of Directors know that you would be against any changes to our standing within the IEEE.

Let those who are supposed to serve you as leaders of technical societies and regions know that their obligations on the IEEE Board are to the entirety of the IEEE, not just their special areas of interest. Let them know that IEEE-USA is a valid unit of the IEEE and that the professional issues of engineers include both technical and career issues. Let them know that the whole engineer needs to be served, not just part of the engineer.

Further, let them know that, except for the IEEE's president-elect, more members elect the president-elect of IEEE-USA and the vice-president-elect of TAB than any other members of the IEEE Board and ExCom. Why is the person in one position worthy of serving on the IEEE Board and ExCom while the other isn't? In fact, why would the IEEE-USA president not be worthy of serving on both while the vice president of RAB, who is indirectly elected by Region Directors, and the IEEE secretary and treasurer who are indirectly elected by the Region and Division Directors, are considered worthy of serving on both?

You might also consider asking IEEE Board members if they have attended one of IEEE-USA's sponsored activities, policy committee meetings or national policy summits/workshops? (Note that the Directors of Regions 1 - 6 who reside in the U.S. should reply with unanimous "yes's.) Do they understand IEEE-USA and what it does to serve U.S. members and to develop programs that can be emulated in other IEEE geographical areas?

While this last letter focuses primarily on pending governance issues regarding IEEE-USA's standing within the IEEE and the successes of our policy priorities for 2002, we continue to make progress in many other areas and have much to anticipate. This includes addressing professional issues that make our careers more viable; providing more tools to assist unemployed and under-employed engineers to better position themselves for finding new employment; and improving member communication resources, public relations and precollege initiatives.

I wish there were time to tell you more, but I've already taken too much of your time during this busy holiday season. I hope that your new year will be better than 2002, and that you'll work with 2003 IEEE-USA President Jim Leonard and all future presidents so that they, too, will have much good news to report at the end of their presidencies. Remember, you can be the grease-on-the-wheels and make 2003 the best year ever. Bite the bullet, get involved, and become a member of our growing team of volunteers.

I thank you again for this marvelous opportunity to serve and wish you and yours a great 2003.

Note to Editors: Please feel free to adapt this IEEE-USA President's Column for use in your local IEEE print and electronic publications. For more information, please contact Chris McManes at c.mcmanes@ieee.org.