2003 Inter-Society Officers Workshop Summary

Sponsored by the Puget Sound Engineering Council (PSEC)

Redmond Library on September 13, 2003

Steve Snelling was in charge of the event held on Saturday, September 13, 2003 at the Redmond Library (large meeting room #1). Neal Jacques provided soft drinks and some snack food.

There were four 30-minute Discussion Table sessions led by David Schwegel, John Thorpe, Stan Dyck, and Steve Snelling. The discussion topics were Communication, Membership, Education, and Programs.

There was a facilitator for each topic to guide the discussions and to write up the notes from the discussions. The participants were officers from a number of PSEC member engineering societies, which were given the opportunity to tell what their organizations did on each topic, hear what the other organizations did, and participate in some general discussions at each table.

There were 13 engineering society officers from 8 different engineering societies. Each person was able to participate in up to three of the table discussions. There were very good discussions and exchanges of information between the various engineering society officers that attended.

Communication

Facilitator: Stan Dyck, IEEE, PSEC Webmaster
Societies participating in discussions: SAE, IIS, ASM Intl., ASHRAE, SME, IIE, IEEE

Web Sites:

  • All the societies listed here have web sites. Most are pretty static but many have upgrade plans.
  • Most societies store event information on their web sites and use their newsletters to point to event information on the site.
  • Not all the societies have full time webmasters. All sites are maintained by volunteers.
  • IIE has job postings listed on their web site.
  • An example was cited of a Canadian engineering society that posts events listings for all the local societies. It was suggested that this would be a good use of the PSEC web site.

E-Mail Notices:

  • All of the societies represented use email notices to varying degrees but they are hampered by member lists that don't contain up to date email addresses and members that don't have access to email.
  • IIS has an email listserv. This is an email subscription service that allows members get announcements on a more ad-hoc basis. Since it is by subscription, only the society members that want to receive these announcements get them. The listserv used by IIS is a "moderator only" format meaning that only a designated person can make announcements, but it can be extended to more of a discussion type forum where subscribed members can post messages that are broadcast to the rest of the group.

Newsletters:

  • Monthly newsletters are pretty common. Some do both a postal and email version, others just do email. The cost of producing and mailing paper-based newsletters was cited as the reason that electronic distribution is preferred.
  • Newsletters are mainly program announcements, but some put in job postings and even technical articles.
  • The ASM International society does a post card that shows the entire events calendar. This has worked out well.

Types of Communication:

  • Most societies have technical sessions on a monthly basis with summers off.

Membership

Facilitator: David M. Schwegel - ASCE
Participating Societies: WSPE - Mt. Rainier, SAE, ASCE, SME, IIE, ASM, ASHRAE

Membership Benefits:

  • Books and related technical publications.
  • Professional Development Seminars.
  • SAE - Get a free subscription to a journal of your choice.
  • Opportunities to meet engineers in other organizations through joint meetings and joint memberships.
  • Job Leads, Networking Opportunities.
  • Engineering Handbooks and attendance at up to two national conferences per year.
  • Meet key decision makers in your industry and become one yourself.

Enhancing Active Membership:

  • IIE doesn't charge for most events (some may already be covered by membership dues).
  • High Profile Speakers - PSEC: Patricia Galloway at 2003 Awards Banquet; ASHRAE: Homeland Security Guidelines Presentation. SWE has high profile speakers and charges big for attendance, yet attendance is exceptional. The same can be said for WTS (a prospective PSEC organization). ASHRAE keeps a distinguished speakers list.
  • Consistent meeting locations.
  • Presentations that are easily understood by the general audience and not too technical in nature may have a larger draw.
  • ASHRAE was charging $40 for dinner meetings. Changed meeting location to a less expensive restaurant and now attendees are complaining about the food quality.
  • North Seattle Community College is a great meeting location.
  • SAE provides a list of activities and corresponding technical experts.
  • SAE recommends having frequent award winners and giving each award winner a speaking opportunity.
  • Combine the management and administrative functions of your organization.

General Comments:

  • Active society membership is dropping at the local and national level with the weak economy. ASHRAE's attendance has dropped from 90 to 45. ASM's national meeting attendance has dropped from 5500 to 3000.
  • Encouraging attendance at meetings and functions among dues payers is a common challenge. SAE has 600-700 members, but meeting attendance is 60-80. ASCE has 2300 members, but meeting attendance is 50-70.
  • WSPE-Mt. Rainier has interesting meeting topics and a mentorship program. Most of the attendees are retired and come for the networking rather than the meeting topic.

Education

Facilitator:Steve Snelling - IIE
Societies participating in discussions: ASCE, SAE, WSPE- Mt. Rainier, ASM Intl., ASHRAE, and IIE

Programs for K-12 students:

  • ASCE has the Popsicle Stick Bridge Building contest that is run by their Young Member group with some help from college students. Each high school may support two 5- person teams. The contest is held during the PSEC Engineers Fair in Bellevue.
  • SAE at the National level sponsors the "World in Motion" program. Locally, Boeing has been sponsoring and providing many of the volunteer engineers.
  • All three local WSPE chapters are heavily involved in supporting the Math Counts program at the local competition level. This is also part of a National program and competition.
  • WSPE-Mt. Rainer chapter has been in charge of the South Engineers Fair at the Auburn Super Mall the last four years.
  • ASM Intl. has a high school level student chapter.
  • ASM Intl. and IIE have both participated in PSEC coordinated high school Career Guidance Day events by providing speakers.
  • ASHRAE has had a high school Mentoring program in the past, but it is not active now. But they encourage their members to go into high schools as Mentors.
  • Most local engineering societies have a booth at the PSEC main Engineers Fair in Bellevue.

College Programs or Activities:

  • ASCE holds an "Ask an Engineer" panel of four civil engineers for Seattle U. and U.W. Also a resume & job search workshop.
  • SAE provides support to several colleges: Western Washington, U.W. and WSU with programs like the SAE racecar competition, which is a National competition.
  • WSPE - Mt. Rainer chapter offers student scholarships in a competition for student chapter members of WSPE.
  • ASM Intl. sponsors several student chapters at the various local universities. U.W. Materials Science department runs an annual Materials Camp during the summer. Much of the money comes from the National ASM Intl. organization.
  • ASM Intl. offers student scholarships as part of a competition.
  • IIE works with the U.W. student chapter providing professional engineers for Mock Interview nights and Industry Panels. They also make a cash donation to the student chapter.
  • IIE serves on the IE-Visiting Committee of industry advisors to the IE department and also provides judges for the IE Senior Design Project competition. The IIE chapter along with some IIE members provide cash awards for the competition.
  • ASHRAE works with several local student chapters at U.W., Bellingham Technical, North Seattle Community College, and St. Martin's College. They also provide several scholarships. The Mt. Baker chapter works with the schools nearest them.
  • Several local engineering societies provide Mentors to both PSEC Mentor Night events at Seattle U. & U.W.

Professional Education:

  • Much of the focus of the ASM Intl. Chapter is on continuous education. Twice a year they have an Education focused seminar and invite all the student chapters to attend.
  • ASM Intl. also offers some Boeing - Ed Wells Initiative training.
  • All of the societies with National programs have a variety of educational opportunities offered in the form of courses, seminars, conferences, books, etc.

Programs

Facilitator:John Thorpe, P.E. - ASHRAE
Societies participating in discussions: ASM Intl., WSPE - Mt. Rainier, ASHRAE, and IIE, and SAE.

Program Topics:

  • Topics include both technical to non technical topics, more technical than non-technical on average.
  • Societies present indicated that they do not offer standing topics every year.
  • Examples of previous and scheduled program events include: a presentation on the futuristic "Space Elevator" (WSPE), LEAN Management Seminar, and a tour Boeing's Human Interface Lab (IIE), a tour of Boeing's F-22 production (SAE), and programs on engineering ethics and sustainable building design (ASHRAE).

Group Organization:

  • Most of the societies represented indicated that their membership is comprised of at least two or more "interest groups", which at times contributes to the challenge of maintaining a consistent attendance at meetings, assuming that the attendance more or less correlates to the programs.

Meeting Formats/Scheduling:

  • Meeting formats range from "sit down" classroom sessions to organized site tours. For the societies that conducted tours, there was general agreement that the tour topics tended to be more popular.
  • Those societies that arrange for site tours have found that the attendance mix differs substantially from the classroom sessions. Participants remarked that they see members and guests at tour events that do not usually see in typically "sit down" presentations.
  • There was general agreement that most societies face a major challenge of providing programs of interest to what in most cases is a broad and often diverse membership, e.g., programs of interest to strictly engineering type topics do not tend to draw attendees from the more technically/trade based membership, and visa versa.
  • Two societies (ASHRAE and ASMI) typically publish their list of programs for the next year (i.e., 2003-2004) in the late summer/early fall. SAE and IIE usually organize their programs month to month. ASMI typically sends a postcard mailing to the membership that contains the program list for the year. ASHRAE publishes the list of programs in their newsletter and on their website.
  • At least one society has two hours of program sessions per monthly meeting (ASHRAE). Other societies typically have one hour programs.
  • Most of the societies present indicated they have regular meeting dates established on a monthly basis, and have more or less regular meeting locations. Two of the societies (ASMI and ASHRAE) indicated that they had recently changed their normal meeting location. During the normal program year (September-May) ASMI meets on second Tuesday of every month from 5:30-8:00PM. ASHRAE normally meets on the second Wednesday after the first Monday of the month, with the exception of February and June (social events). WSPE-Mt. Rainier has regular meetings on the third Thursday of the month (2 hour duration with technical program). IIE and SAE do not have regular monthly schedules for meetings at this time, meetings are typically 2 hours with technical program, and meetings with tours vary in duration.
  • Several societies indicated interest is reviving the PSEC program listing of member societies' program notification.

Joint Meetings:

  • All societies present indicated that they have standing invitations to their student chapters to attend their meetings. ASMI indicated that they typically schedule three joint meetings per year with their University of Washington (UW) student chapter (Note: an ASMI UW student chapter officer was present at the ISOW).
  • Most of the societies indicated they had scheduled joint meetings with other societies or industry related organizations, e.g., ASMI holds joint meetings with AWS on a periodic basis, ASHRAE has an annual meeting with the local chapter of a national sheet metal contractors association, and WSPE has met with ISA (Instrument Society of America).