Section News
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Posted 07/19/08 by Webmaster
The IEEE New Orleans Section
will have the New Orleans Section's 75th Anniversary
celebration at the University of New Orleans Alumni Center,
Ballroom, the 21 of August of 2008, from 6:00 to 9:00 PM. Mr. John
Meredith will make a presentation on the history of the section and
present the section with the IEEE Commemorative Banner. Please click
here for more
information about the meeting.
"Partners Night" Meeting will be held
Wednesday June 18 at Ralph's On The Park. For more
information about the meeting click
here.
The Department of Biomedical Engineering at Tulane
University, and the New Orleans Chapter of the IEEE Engineering in
Medicine and Biology Society, invite all IEEE members to the
seminars to be held at Tulane University. For more information on
these seminars click
here.
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Section Chair’s Message
March
2008
New Orleans, LA |
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“In all human
affairs there are efforts, and there are results,
and the strength of the effort is the measure of the
result.”
Fellow IEEE New Orleans Section
Members:
Thank you for electing me to serve as your
Chairman, I am humbled and grateful. I pledge to put
the interests of the section ahead of my own, to
listen and respond to the concerns of the members,
and to work hard to grow the section over the next
year.
It has been said that the best leaders are
those who surround themselves with people who are
smarter than they, and I would like to thank those
smarter than me who graciously accepted positions on
the ExComm, Charlie Scheffler, Lance Priez, Henry
Suthon, the Directors as well as the Society and
Group leaders. I also speak for all of the members
when I thank each of you for devoting your unique
talents to improving the section on our behalf.
The previous ExComm worked hard, and we greatly
appreciate the time and effort they dedicated to the
section. Their work is now done, however, and the
gavel has been passed. The most productive way to
begin a new administration is to recognize the
positive and learn from -– but not dwell on -- the
negative. One can “clutch the past so tightly to
your chest that it leaves your arms too full to
embrace the present.” We certainly don’t want to
miss a single day of opportunity to enjoy our
membership in the IEEE, and to improve the section.
For our personal benefit, and for the good of the
section, I encourage you look forward with high hope
for an exciting year for the section.
I
accept the position of Chairman with great
enthusiasm and expectation for a productive year. I
ask each of you to support my enthusiasm with
encouragement, positive ideas and professionalism,
and I invite you to join my enthusiasm with a goal
toward teamwork, camaraderie, and great success.
Sincerely,
Stephen D. Bourg
Vision without action is a daydream.
Action
without vision is a nightmare.
-- Japanese Proverb -- |
The
"Engineers
Week Meeting" will be held on February 20th, 2008 with the
Louisiana Engineering Society. More information about the meeting
can be found
here.
New Orleans Section Election Results
A special Thanks to our Teller’s Committee: Dean
Ruiz and John Wilson! The Teller’s committee reports the following
results of our election for Section Officers and Directors:
| Chair |
Stephen
Bourg |
|
Director |
Brent
Brookerd |
| Vice
Chair |
Charles
Scheffler |
|
Director |
George
Mahl |
|
Secretary |
Henry
Suthon |
|
Director |
Larry
Ringel |
|
Treasurer |
Lance
Priez |
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Please join me in congratulating our new Officers
and Directors for 2008! The New Orleans Section is in good hands,
and our future looks bright.
Richard W. Miller
Past Chair – New Orleans Section
A joint
New Orleans
Section/Com Soc Society Meeting will be held this Thursday
January 31, 2008. Additional information about the meeting is
included in the
Section
Bits.
The November Section Bits can be found
here. Additional information
about the November Section meeting is included in the Bits.
The IEEE New Orleans Section and the UNO IEEE Student Branch will
host a Cookout at the Lakefront behind the University of New Orleans
campus (behind Privateer Place). Join is for BBQ and Drinks!
The October Section Bits can be found
here. Additional information
about the October Section meeting is included in the Bits.
Posted 09/20/07 by Webmaster
Pictures of the
September
Life Members Meeting
have been uploaded.
IEEE Section Meeting/Bogy Boogaerts Annual Manufacturers’ Night
Shrimp & Crab Boil this Thursday, September 13. More information
about the September Section Meeting can be found in the
Section Bits.
The June Section Bits can be found
here. Additional information
about the June Section meeting is included in the Bits.
Pictures of the
Computer Society/Section and
Life Member Group Meetings have been uploaded.
LIFE MEMBER GROUP MEETING
A Life Member Group Meeting will be held
at Keith Young’s
Steak House, 165 HWY 21, Madisonville, LA on Thursday, May 31,
2007 at 12:00 Noon. All Section Life Members are invited to
attend. For reservations and information please contact the
Chairman, Don Preston.
There will be a joint Computer Society/Section Meeting on May 30,
2007. The special issue of the Section Bits can be found
here. Additional information
about this meeting is included in the Bits.
The May Section Bits can be found
here. Additional information about the
May Section meeting is included in the Bits.
The
March Section Bits can be found
here. Additional information about the
March Section meeting, consisting of a Student Paper Presentation
and a Robotics Demonstration, is included in the Bits.
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Section Chair’s Message
March
2007
New Orleans,
LA
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Dear Section
members:
Our February Section Meeting was a great
success and we had an excellent turn out – about half of the
attendees were IEEE Members, Guests, or UNO Students, as we
jointly participated with other Engineering Societies and
organizations at the annual Engineers’ Week Banquet at UNO. On
March 15 we will be back on the UNO campus for the Student Paper
Presentations and a Robotics Demonstration, prior to the April
Region 5 Conference in Arkansas. Please make every effort to
attend this meeting and show your support for the Student
members of our Section. Our Students will be off to the Region 5
Conference in Fayetteville, AK on April 20-22 – complete with
Robotics, Design, & Paper Contests and an SPAC. As I mentioned
in the February Bits, I am extremely happy to announce that the
Section will offer TWO Short Courses (Power related, CEU’s for
the April meeting & PDH’s for the May meeting) – one on April
11-12 & one on May 24. Please see Short Course Flyer in the
March Bits for additional details.
Also, in February our Graduates of the Last
Decade (GOLD) Affinity Group held a joint social meeting with
our newly formed Life Member (LM) Group to visit and view one of
the Carnival parades. I would like to thank all who helped with
the preparations for this meeting, and a SPECIAL THANKS to Tom
and Jill Slack for providing the venue and helping hosting the
event. All attendees had a GREAT time!
Your Section ExCom looks forward to seeing
you at our upcoming events. Thanks and take care.
As always, details
and information on Section activities may be found on our
Section web pages at
http://www.ieee-neworleans.org.
Richard W. Miller
Chair, New Orleans Section of the
IEEE
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The
February Section Bits can be found
here. Information about the
February Section meeting can be found
here.
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Section Chair’s Message
February
2007
New Orleans,
LA
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Dear Section
members:
Your Section ExCom is excited about our
Program and Meetings scheduled for 2007. As noted above, for our
February Section Meeting we will jointly participate with other
Engineering Societies and organizations at the annual Engineers
Week Banquet on February 28 at UNO. On March 15 we will be back
on the UNO campus for the Student Paper presentations, prior to
the April Region 5 Conference. Please make every effort to
attend this meeting and show your support for the Student
members of our Section. We will have an April Section meeting,
possibly joint with one of the Chapters (ComSoc, Computer, EMBS,
PES). Our Students will be off to the Region 5 Conference in
Fayetteville, AK on April 20-22 – complete with Robotics,
Design, & Paper Contests and an SPAC. Also, I am extremely happy
to announce that the Section will offer TWO Short Courses (Power
related, CEU’s) – one in April & one in May. A May Section
meeting (again possibly joint with one of the Chapters), will be
followed by our annual June Section Partner’s Night meeting.
Last year, our Graduates of the Last Decade
(GOLD) Affinity Group held two meetings. In addition, the
Section started working on the formation of a Life Member (LM)
Group. We received official word that the formation of the LM
Group was approved in January! Congratulations, and thanks to
all who made this happen. The first meeting of the LM Group will
be a joint February social event with our GOLD Affinity Group.
As you can see our Section continues to
come back from all the Katrina related events of the past
eighteen months. We have a strong program scheduled for our
membership, and your Section ExCom looks forward to seeing you
at our upcoming events. Thanks and take care.
Richard W. Miller
Chair, New Orleans Section of the
IEEE
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The New Orleans Section of the IEEE has
recently created a Life Members Affinity Group. For
information on the Section Life Members Group meetings and
activities please contact the Group Chairman, Donald Preston, at
d.preston@ieee.org or call 504-466-4235.
This year's Tulane Engineering Forum has been scheduled:
7th Annual
Tulane Engineering Forum
“Engineering in a Coastal Environment: Rebuilding and Protection”
May 11, 2007
8:30 a.m. –
5:00 p.m.
New Orleans
Hilton Riverside Hotel
8 PDH credits,
including 1 Ethics PDH
500+ engineers
expected to attend
Complete
Forum and registration information available at
http://tef.tulane.edu
The
December Section
Bits, with information about Past Chair's Night, can be found
here. Information about the
Joint Communications/Computer Society meeting can be found
here.
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Section Chair’s Message
December
2006
New Orleans,
LA
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Dear Section
Members:
Please join us for an evening of fellowship to
honor our Past Chairs of the IEEE, and predecessor organizations
– IRE and AIEE, New Orleans Section at Cannon’s Restaurant, 4141
St. Charles Ave. in New Orleans. This is our opportunity to
express our Thanks for the dedication and hard work that each of
our Chairs have given to our organization.
I would also like to thank those folks who have
helped support our Section so far this year – whether
volunteering on some project, attending Section meetings, or
somehow helping as best as you can. There are those among our
membership that have continued to serve the Section, while
rebuilding their businesses and personal lives. Others, while on
work assignments – near and afar, have also continued to
contribute their time and efforts to maintain the viability of
the Section. A big Thank You to all!
By the time we meet on December 20, the New
Orleans Section will have complied with all meeting
requirements, with the exception of one waiver; supported our
Student members in attending the Region 5 Conference;
participated as members of the IEEE PES T and D Conference &
Exposition, along with members of the Dallas Section, to host
the most successful such event ever – even with moving the
Conference from New Orleans (originally scheduled for October,
2005) to Dallas (May, 2006); participating on the Local
Committee scheduled to host the Industry Applications Society (IAS)
Annual Meeting in New Orleans in September, 2007; and
participating as members of the Organizing Committee preparing
to host GLOBECOM 2008 in New Orleans.
The above is just a glimpse of the achievements
of our Section this past year. You, our members, and the ExCom,
have worked hard – through many hardships- to keep our Section
viable and moving forward. Each of you should be proud of you
individual and collective efforts – on behalf of yourselves and
our Section.
Again, Thank you and take care.
Richard W. Miller
Chair, New Orleans Section of the
IEEE
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The
September Section
Bits can be found
here. Also, updated
information about the Manufacturers’ Night has been posted
here.
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Section Chair’s Message
September
2006
New Orleans,
LA
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Dear Section
members:
Once again it is
time for the best attended Section meeting of the year:
Manufacturers’ Night. This social event will start at 6:00 PM
on Thursday, 21 September, 2006 at the VFW Hall Malta Room, 3314
Richland Ave., in Metairie. I sincerely hope that you and your
co-workers attend. My special thanks to Rowland James, Lance
Priez, and Tom Slack for their contributions to make this a
successful event. There is still time for you or your company to
become a sponsor. The following levels are available:
Regular
Sponsorship at the $50 level (2 tickets)
Senior Sponsorship
at the $100 level (4 tickets)
Patron Sponsorship
at the $200 level (6 tickets and advertising)
Please contact
Rowland James:
rjames@entergy.com or Richard
W. Miller:
r.w.miller@ieee.org for further
information about Manufacturers’ Night.
I would like to
thank those folks who have helped support our Section so far
this year – whether volunteering on some project, attending
Section meetings, or somehow helping as best as you can. Those
members and families that we have not seen in a while – I wish
all well and hope to see you soon. You are not forgotten, and
the door is always open.
The New Orleans
Section ExCom is working hard to keep your Section well and
viable. Our organization is certainly worth the effort being
expended, and we hope that each of you are as proud to be a part
of the Section as we are.
Thanks and take
care.
Richard W. Miller
Chair, New Orleans
Section of the IEEE |
The July Section
Bits can be found
here.
The June Section
Bits can be found
here. Also, updated
information about the June Section meeting has been posted
here.
The May Section
Bits can be found
here. Also, updated
information about the May Section meeting has been posted
here.
Information about the May Joint Section
Meeting with the Computer Society can be found
here.
A copy of the march section bits is
posted
here.
Information on this month's Joint Section Meeting
with the Communications Society can be found
here.
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Section Chair’s Message
February
2006
New Orleans,
LA
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Dear Section
members:
Our first Section meeting of the year was a
great success. I would like to extend a special thanks to those
who attended and also to those worked so hard to organize and
host our meeting. Mr. Shelby Grosz provided an excellent
presentation on a very timely topic – Entergy’s Hurricane
Katrina restoration initiative in the CBD. I hope that this
event will be the norm for 2006.
Our February Section Meeting will be held
on February 22 during National Engineers Week (Feb. 19-25). It
will be a joint meeting with the New Orleans Chapter of the
Louisiana Engineering Society. All other local engineering
societies and organizations have also been invited. The meeting
will be held at the Plimsoll Club in the World Trade Center.
A lot has happened to us individually and
collectively since last year’s Engineers Week. Much change has
occurred. This is probably a good time to assure our membership
that your ExCom remains committed to maintaining a viable
Section that includes meetings addressing timely topics, support
for both our professional and student members, and continued
efforts to secure and host Conferences in New Orleans.
A final, unsettling, observation during
Engineers Week concerns the demise of the majority of the Tulane
School of Engineering. This action certainly surprised many of
us, and is not what one would expect from an administration that
claims to be involved in the rebuilding of New Orleans. What a
tragic decision! If you have a moment, please consider sending a
letter of protest to Tulane concerning the decision to dismantle
their Engineering School. Your ExCom has already done so.
As always, details
and information on Section activities may be found on our
Section web pages at
http://www.ieee-neworleans.org.
Richard W. Miller
Chair, New Orleans Section of the
IEEE |
A copy of the February Section Bits can
be viewed
here (PDF link). More
information on this month's Section Meeting can be found
here.
Also, check out the 2006 Org Chart
here (PDF link).
A copy of the January Section Bits can
be viewed
here (PDF link). More
information on this month's Section Meeting can be found
here.
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Section Chair’s Message
January
2006
New Orleans,
LA
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Dear Section
members:
I appreciate the
opportunity to serve as the New Orleans Section Chair for 2006.
A group of very experienced and dedicated persons will also
serve on the ExCom of the Section. One of my primary objectives
for 2006 is to maintain the viability of our Section, and
continue to provide meaningful programs and support for our
membership – even in the face of the many challenges placed
before us as an organization because of the impacts of
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
I would especially
like to thank Dr. Edit Bourgeois for her exemplary leadership as
Section Chair last year, as she continued to serve our Section
membership even while dealing with personal losses as a result
of Katrina. Others on the ExCom also continued to serve our
membership under similar circumstances. And, to those of our
Section membership who were impacted by the storm, I wish for a
swift recovery for all.
I want to assure
each of you that your ExCom stands ready to serve our New
Orleans Section membership in the coming year. In closing, I
hope that 2006 will provide each of us time for renewal and
personal growth, and for those involved storm recovery efforts –
that closure comes quickly. Peace be with you.
Richard W. Miller
Chair, New Orleans Section of the
IEEE
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An engineer's Christmas decorations (video
link).
Some Christmas humor for all engineers
here (PDF Link).
Section Elections were held during Past
Chair's night and below is a summary of the results.
The Officers nominated by the
Nominations committee were all voted in, as follows:
Chair: Richard Miller
Vice Chair: Rowland James
Secretary: Paul Cassingham
Treasurer: Ani Chitambar
There were two nominations from the floor for Directors, for a total
of 5 names running for 3 positions:
Henry Suthon, Steve Bourg, George Mahl, Charles Scheffler, and Tom
Slack.
The following three will serve as directors for 2006: Tom Slack
(12 votes), George Mahl (11 votes), and Steven Bourg
(10 votes).
Thank you very much to all the
candidates for participating and congratulations to the newly
elected officers!
In case you missed Past Chair's night,
you can view a copy of Dr. Edit Bourgeois's (the outgoing chair)
address to the members and guests
here.
I would personally like to congratulate
and thank Dr. Bourgeois for her efforts and achievements as Section
Chair of the Executive Committee for the past two terms. Her
leadership has been incredibly valuable to the Section.
As some of you may have heard, Tulane
University's Board of Directors recently voted to eliminate their
College of Engineering and most of their engineering majors as part
of their post-Katrina reorganization. All students that have
not graduated by 2007 will have to continue their academic endeavors
elsewhere. As you can imagine, this has not been received well
by current engineering students, engineering alumni, or the
engineering community in New Orleans. A few engineering
students at Tulane are spearheading an effort to save the college of
engineering. You can learn more about their efforts by
visiting
http://www.savetulaneengineering.org/wordpress/
You can help by signing their petition
at:
http://www.petitiononline.com/savetula/
The Executive Committee of the New
Orleans Section of the IEEE has sent a letter to Dr. Scott Cowen
(President, Tulane University) voicing their opinion. You can
view a copy of the letter here.
Please show your support for our fellow
engineers and sign their petition!
IEEE GOLD (Graduates Of
the Last Decade) is having a
End-of-Year Gathering on 12/22/05. For more
details please visit the
GOLD page.
The
December Section Bits are now
online. You can also view the
Section Bits Archives for back issues.
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Section Chair’s Message
December
2005
New Orleans,
LA
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Dear Section
members:
This is my last
short message to the New Orleans Section members and the
December Executive committee meeting shall be the last meeting I
chair. We are going through tough times and dealing with
special circumstances, but it is the feeling of the Section
Executive Committee that we will recover from the devastation
left by the hurricanes and will once again become a thriving
organization, as will our Cities and our workplaces.
The standard
Section nominations and elections processes occur in September,
October, and November. Clearly, we were not able to follow our
normal process completely this time. However, I am pleased to
announce that the Nominations committee —consisting of our three
most recent Past Chairs: Lance Priez, Rowland James, and Tom
Slack— has been able to come up with an uncontested slate of
candidates, as follows:
Office Name
Chair Richard W.
Miller
Vice-Chair Rowland I.
James
Secretary
Paul H. Cassingham
Treasurer
Ani S. Chitambar
Directors Steven D.
Bourg
Thomas E. Slack,
Jr.
Henry Suthon,
P.E.
We shall elect the
officers by acclamation for a one-year term during our December
Section meeting. Please join me in thanking our experienced
volunteers for agreeing to serve. All of them have served in
the ExCom in various positions and I’m certain that they will
successfully lead the Section during 2006.
Once again, I urge
you to get involved with the New Orleans Section. There are
committee positions that we are eager to fill. Please contact
section-chair@ieee-neworleans.org to let us know that you
are interested.
The December
Section meeting, a social event, will be held at Trey Yuen in
Mandeville on Thursday 15 December. Details are given
here. As usual, our Past Section Chairs, as well as
Chairs of the IEEE’s predecessor organizations, IRE and AIEE,
are honored at this December event and are invited to attend
free of charge.
In closing, I wish
to thank all members of the 2005 Executive Committee for their
efforts and dedication to the IEEE and the New Orleans Section.
Each member of this core group of volunteers has contributed her
or his time to ensure the success of our organization and
deserve our appreciation.
I hope to see you
on December 15 and wish you the very best for this Holiday
Season and the coming year. As always, details
and information on Section activities may be found on our
Section web pages at
http://www.ieee-neworleans.org.
Edit Kaminsky Bourgeois, Ph.D.
Chair, New Orleans Section of the
IEEE
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The pictures section has been updated
with
2005 Section Congress and
November Section Meeting
images. Enjoy!
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Section Chair’s Message
November
2005
New Orleans,
LA
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Esteemed New
Orleans Section members:
Thanks to the
efforts of several of our Executive Committee (ExCom)
volunteers, we have resumed operations and hope to return to our
normal activities soon.
Our first meeting
in the post-Katrina era will be a joint meeting with the
Computer Chapter. On November 15 we will host Robert Gezelter,
a speaker from the Distinguished Lecturers series. Mr. Gezelter
will present a timely topic that we hope will be of interest to
all of you members and also to non-members from the business
community: Business Survival in the Age of Computing. For
details, please see description elsewhere in the Newsletter.
Notice that the meeting will be held on Tuesday (not Thursday!)
November 15. Thanks to John Malm, Chair of the Computer
Chapter, for making these arrangements. I kindly request you
call or email him as soon as you can so we can get an idea of
how many members are still in the area and interested in
continuing our monthly Section dinner meetings; seating will be
limited.
We have also
planned the December “Past Chairs’ Night”. We will hold this
last meeting of the year on Thursday December 17 at Trey Yuen in
Mandeville. Details will be forthcoming in the next issue of
our electronic Section Bits.
As we all know,
the recent storms and their aftermath have drastically affected
our lives. Several of our ExCom members have, at least
temporarily, relocated to cities in the surrounding areas and
many of us are working at new locations, as I’m sure many of you
are. Right now, we really don’t have a good idea of how many of
our 800 or so Section members are now or will soon be back in
the New Orleans area. Operations will be somewhat slow due to
this but we will try our best to serve our IEEE members; now
more than ever we are in need of volunteers to serve in various
committees and positions in the ExCom. Please contact Tom Slack
at
tslack@bellsouth.net or me at
ejbourge@bellsouth.net if you are interested and have the
time to help.
Unfortunately –and
again due to Katrina– the T&D conference that we were to host at
the Convention Center in October has moved to TX for the Spring
of 2006. We hope that the City of New Orleans and its tourism
industry shall soon be back in full force and events such as
IEEE Conferences will be successfully held here once again.
We have gathered a
few sites where members can look for assistance from the IEEE
(these appear elsewhere in this Newsletter) and hope you take
advantage of them. If you are a displaced member of the New
Orleans Section, we encourage you to get in touch with the local
Section of the City in which you now reside.
As always, details
and information on Section activities may be found on our
Section web pages at
http://www.ieee-neworleans.org. I would like to recognize
Edmundo Toro once again for his efforts keeping our pages
updated.
Edit Kaminsky Bourgeois, Ph.D.
Chair, New Orleans Section of the
IEEE
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Other IEEE
Sections in the Southern U.S. for relocated New Orleans Section
Members |
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For all New Orleans
Section Members that have relocated away from New Orleans, we
encourage you to contact your local (or closest) IEEE section in
order to get involved in their activities and attend their meetings.
For your benefit, I am providing links to all IEEE Sections in
REGION 5 (Southwestern U.S.)
and
REGION 3 (Southeastern U.S.).
We hope to have you back soon.
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IEEE
Resources for Members Affected by Hurricane Katrina |
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You should all have received at least
one email from IEEE (from Gerard A. Alphonse IEEE-USA President, for
example), sent to all members in the areas affected by the recent
storms, offering help and asking what the IEEE may do to assist its
members. Please respond to that email! I read yesterday that they
only received one request. Unfortunately, they are seemingly still
discussing whether to provide individual help and sometimes
forwarding the requests to the Region and/or Sections instead.
The New Orleans Section encourages you
to look at the following web sites:
The IEEE USA Hurricane Response
Website is at
http://www.ieeeusa.org/about/Katrina/
The Hurricane Katrina Virtual
Community is located at
https://www.ieeecommunities.org/ieee.katrina.
If you are displaced and are currently seeking employment, you are
eligible for free web access to CareerStar at
http://www.ieeeusa.org/about/Katrina/careerstar
Q. What is happening to the IEEE
sponsored or co-sponsored conferences scheduled in New
Orleans?
A. Information about reschedule dates
will be posted on the society and individual conference sites. Here
are the conferences linked to their Web links:
IEEE CREATES ONLINE FAQ, COMMUNITY
RELATED TO HURRICANE KATRINA
A frequently-asked-questions page that addresses issues of
concern to members, customers and conference attendees relevant to
Hurricane Katrina is available on the IEEE Web site. The FAQs are
accessible from the
www.ieee.org home page, the myIEEE members-only portal home page
and the IEEE-USA Katrina page at
http://www.ieeeusa.org/about/Katrina/.
The FAQs cover a range
of information about IEEE business and services, including how to
change addresses, the IEEE-USA response to the hurricane and its
aftermath, rescheduled conferences, annual election ballots,
insurance and p |
