IEEE OAKLAND EAST BAY SECTION
Meeting Minutes
November 5, 2002
I. Start Time: 6:00pm at Chevron’s Bishop Ranch Facility (BR-1, Room 1130)
II. Warm-up Time: 10 minutes for greetings and pizza
III. Roll Call
Doug Snow (DS) / Annie Kong (AK) / William DeHope (WD)Joe Mauger (JM) / Rosanna Lerma (RL) / Diep Nguyen (DN)
Eric Wong (EW) / Jeff Kalbanijan (JK) / Gregg Boltz for D. Eng
Danh Lai (DL) / J Hungerford for KShah / Ken Oo (KO)
Jeff Solano (JS)
Diep’s guests: SCV/CPMT's Paul Wesling and Laura Hickerson, ETA
IV. Approve Previous Minutes (September 9 & October 1)
Both sets of MInutes were approved.
V. Chapter Reports
A. Communications Society:
1. October Technical Meeting: "Ethernet in the First Mile" was presented by Howard Frazier of Dominet Systems on October 17 at ChevronTexaco BR1 facility. 46 people signed up for the meeting.
2. November Technical Meeting: " Is OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing) the Answer to High-Speed Wireless LAN?" will be presented by Gerald Sage on November 14 at ChevronTexaco BR1 facility.
3. Chapter Election for 2003 Excom: Election will take place on November 14 at the general meeting.
4. December Technical Meeting: There will be no technical meeting scheduled this month.
5. Half-Day Seminar: "Wireless Communication Everywhere - Opportunities and Pitfalls" will be presented by a panel of four speakers on December 7 at De Vry University Fremont campus. Student Branch has been approved and established at De Vry. They will be working with us in coordinating this seminar logistics.
6. ComSoc Excom Meeting: The last meeting for this year's Excom will be held on December 11, 2003.
B. Computer Society:
No report.
C. Engineering Management Society:
No report.
D. Industrial Application Society:
In David Eng's absence, Chapter Vice Chair, Gregg Boltz, represented IAS.
1. On October 24, our chapter held a tour of the Calpine-Delta Energy Center Facility in Pittsburg, CA. The tour was well attended and we had slightly over 30 people which was the Calpine limit. Many commented that it was a great way to personally see up close a modern combined-cycle generating plant.
2. On November 21, our chapter will have a tour of the Master Substation at SLAC. This substation is mainly SF6 gas insulated. It is also unusual because it has both 230 kV and 60 kV transmission lines feeding it, which SLAC then steps down to 12 kV for their system use. The state of the art equipment that is used to tie together these two electrical systems having different phase angles, will all be part of the tour. We think electrical engineers will again enjoy the opportunity to see some unusal equipment up close. This November meeting will complete our "learning journey" of field trips for this year.
3. We will not have a formal meeting in December, same as previous years.
E. Power Engineering Society:
No report.
F. Nuclear and Plasma Science Society:
No report. This chapter needs another meeting this calendar year.
G. Solid State Circuits Society:
No report.
VI. Officer Reports
A. Chairman:
Annie attended the Region meeting in Hawaii in his place and Bill attended the Sections Congress in Washington DC. They will report.
B. UCB Student Chapter:
No report
C. CSUF Student Chapter:
Rosanna reported the Chapter is active. Kelly Smith and a carload of CSUF students trekked to DeAnza college for a joint mtg with AEE. Topic was Earth, Wind and Fire. (Geothermal, Wind, and Solar energy sources.) Talk was well received and the CSUF crowd provided much enthusiastic questions and feedback.
D. Vice Chairman:
Bill noted that Ramesh said Annie did attend the Hawaii meeting. No report yet.
E. Secretary:
Again requesting archive material for the Section, esp. old minutes. These appear to be lost for years before 2000.
Report on Sections Congress: It offered many ideas for Section and Chapter growth. Naturally, they all take manpower to implement. PACE figured prominently in many of these. Encouragement given to contact key companies to promote IEEE membership of engineering staff there and to start up new local Chapters. Attended a talk where an enterprising Section is using sales engineers to provide technical short courses at low price to members and as money-maker for Section. They reported that professionalism has been high; classes have not degraded into sales pitches. These courses and their promotion are on about a 2-year self-sustaining cycle. Bill noted that many Sections have more technical meetings and less business meetings than we do. (Even Sections like Baltimore with several active Chapters.)
Bill will upload received Sections Congress material to the OEB web site and provide a link to the national site.
F. Treasurer:
No report.
G. PACE:
· CSUF involvement in AEE joint meeting.
· Rosanna is active in the CityTech Forum—on line forum with 4th-5th grade teachers asking questions about real-life applications of science and engineering. Will try to recruit help for this good program.
· Be-a-mentor—Rosanna mentoring 4 kids. Needs more volunteers. Great program. (Bill was once involved this program before fingerprinting was required.)
· Needing help on the Teacher In Service program. Sent an email to superintendent of San Ramon school district but has received no response. Requests us to provide contacts and involvement with local schools. We have received $1000 of national support money for this--we need to follow through.
H. Membership
No report.
I. Section Directors:
Jim Hungerford commented on Wescon. ECI needs Wescon volunteers. Big push for Wescon connection with SCV, and OEB. Particularly wants involvement with our uniquely strong chapters, ie CommSoc and NPSS. 60% of Council proceeds has historically been from Wescon. 20% goes to Region. 322 booths this past year. Hoping for 450 booths next year with 50 booths of SOHO (Small Office/Home Office) emphasis like SPIE-Photonics, which are "vertical conferences" (technically specialized). Wescon is a horizontal conference, which some feel might be coming back into vogue.
Tech talk sessions will be revitalized. ETA is reducing staff; the tech talks session organization will be out-sourced. Courses will include some "soft"/mgmt skills training. But also bringing in European and Asian expert speakers to appeal to even the most astute engineers. Bill suggested targeting the technician audience such as by obtaining the mailing lists for EE Times or a similar publication.
VII. Old Business:
Nothing to report. Doug to follow-up on ByLaw change approval progress and request a copy from Marilyn of what's now on file. Bill is concerned this is different from what is on our web site. Discrepancies may exist in the quorum requirements and the nomination process.
Bill to renew communications with Solid State Ckts Society.
VIII. New Business:
Paul Wesling, from SCV/CPMT, described their business arrangement with ETA of providing training courses and our possible future involvement.
Courses are primarily management-based. Classes benefit IEEE members and local companies. Believes they're offered at an attractive price--2/3 cost of going rate--~$400/day. ~$75 discount for IEEE members. Esp. useful for small to midsize employers who do not have HR training departments like big companies.
ETA tries to build relationships with companies—ie “partners”—who get the IEEE member rates. Next level “up” is Host company—e.g. Apple and Loral, additional $25/ member discount in exchange for providing class location. Added security is making this more difficult.
Typical hands-on class—10 people, breakeven at 7.
Lecture class (tend to be lower enrolment cost) –13 people, breakeven at 10.
$1000/day paid to speakers; ~$2500 costs of advertising and other ETA expenses. Such expenses are "managed" by CPMT--they see a balance sheet. Excess income divided between ETA and CPMT--this has been very lucrative for CPMT. Seldom lose money; they can always cancel a course if enough folks aren't registering.
Laura distributed brochures for ETA’s Fall session. (There is another session in the Spring.) Of the 15 courses, the IEEE logo was next to 9 of them, indicating the ones from which CPMT gets a cut. (The ETA logo appeared once in the brochure; the IEEE logo appeared 12 times.)
SCV/CPMT has obtained (somehow) OEB's SAMIEEE database and has provided it to ETA to target mailing in OEB from about Pleasanton on south. They want our support to enlist OEB companies to be Host Partners and offer classes on our side of bay. (Classes are currently in Silicon Valley, Austin, and San Diego.)
CPMT wants $2000 buy-in from OEB to get a piece of the action. SCV's EMS has a similar arrangement. Last year, EMS efforts generated $4000 in course surpluses; 1/2 to 2/3 that flowed through to the EMS chapter, the rest stayed with CPMT. OEB’s cut would be similar. This year expected to be less due to the economy.
Said they’ve offered such courses for 30 years. CPMT once teamed with UC Santa Cruz Extension for courses like they now do with ETA. But last 15 it has become big business--a 60 k$/half-year operation for CPMT.
After the presentation, the group briefly discussed the ethics of this operation, the relation of ETA to IEEE, and the use of the IEEE name. It was pragmatically noted that they’re already operating in OEB anyway so we might as well get a share of the action even if it is highly tilted toward SCV/CPMT. Decision was tabled until Diep can be present and offer his input.
IX. Meeting Adjourned at: 8:00 pm
Next Meeting Date: December 3, 2002
Place: Chevron’s Bishop Ranch Facility (BR-1, Room 1130) or restaurant TBA for the Holidays
Time: TBA
Minutes submitted by Secretary Bill DeHope