The opinions expressed on this website are the opinions of the author and not necessarily the opinions of the IEEE.

My IEEE Activities

I was a participant in the 2005 Conferences Strategy Sessions and helped develop the “way ahead” for IEEE Conferences. IEEE was the financial sponsor of 448 Conferences in 2006, and I am the person who initiated the now-annual Panel of Conference Organizers (POCO), first held in July 2006 in Montreal, QE, Canada, July 2007 in Vancouver, BC, Canada and July 2008 in Seattle. This 2-day activity provides IEEE Conference organizers, Society/Council Conference Vice-Presidents, and Region Conference Chairs with all the basic information they need in the performance of their jobs. In 2005 Conferences, including the conference proceedings, was the largest revenue source for IEEE, and yet we did very little to improve Conference operations. This has now changed as we now provide a superb venue for conference organizers to gain the understanding they need to out on quality events.

We must remember that Conferences are indeed one of the most important faces of IEEE since a conference involves direct interaction on a personal basis, as opposed to our excellent publications that are basically impersonal. It is important that we make our conferences of consistently high quality, not just in technical content but also organizationally, with quality venues, careful planning and flawless execution.

Our conferences can also generate surplus for the IEEE sponsors, and our POCO tells organizers how to put on a quality event while still watching the budget.

I also initiated the formal tie-in between Conference Publications Committee and Conferences Committee, on the basis that conference publications don’t even exist unless there is a source conference.

I further initiated the action to make Conferences Committee a permanent, voting member of the IEEE Product Services & Publications Board (PSPB), since Conferences are a major source of IEEE revenue and have not ever had a voice at this level.

As Chairman of the AUTOTESTCON Board of Directors, I wrote the comprehensive Operations Manual to provide detailed information to all AUTOTESTCON Chairs to make their jobs easier.