March 2002

It was with considerable interest that I read the excellent lead off article in the Winter 2002 Chapter Chatter column. I was part of the team that participated in the Greek Island Survey in the early 1960's as a young EMC (actually, it was called RFI at that time) Electrical Engineer. I also feel very much like Joe Fischer; to this day, I consider it to be one of my biggest adventures as an EMC Engineer. I even put together a movie film of the trip since we didn't have video at that time. Some of the additional EE's that made the trip were: Don Stafford (deceased) who was part of Joe's team, James Senn, who was the overall Team Leader, Noel Damon, and a great guy by the name of Charlie Ketteman (deceased) who was our senior engineer at the time (past 50)! As Joe pointed out, Genistron was the company we all worked for, and Janet O'Neil's father, the late Fred Nichols (a terrific boss) was President of Genistron at that time. Thanks for the opportunity to revisit this adventure. [See photos]

Steve Dyrnes, PE
Dyrnes Engineering, Portland, Oregon
Past Chair, Seattle EMC Chapter
Member of Oregon EMC Chapter

P.S. I would like to communicate with any of the team members that are still around. My E-mail is sdyrnes@aol.com

April 2002

This letter addresses Division IV Director Peter Staecker's report in the last issue of our Newsletter. Though his report is not easily read, please read it. Please read it more than once.* If our headquarters bureaucracy gets bailed out of this latest financial crisis, I worry about the long-term survival of IEEE. I know this is just a letter so I can't expect the editor to give me equal space, but let me just make the following points:

1) Look at Peter's first sentence: Fiscal matters continue to dominate the activity horizon in Piscataway... What an endorsement for the value of a truly free and (when appropriate) adversarial press. Have you seen much coverage of this in Spectrum, or in The Institute? I compliment Peter in helping our Newsletter to have perhaps the best coverage of this terribly important issue. I just wish he would take the extra time to make it more readable, especially for our English as second language members. As to additional coverage, I would first note that, of my three most recent attempts to communicate with you via our Newsletter, two of those attempts were never published. If you who would like to see this spiked material, send me an e-mail at EMC4D@aol.com and I'll send both letters to you. One of them addressed democracy and possible progress towards direct election of our Society president, the key item in my campaign platform for my current term. The other addressed this, the on-going financial crisis in the IEEE and its impact on our Society. I presented a motion to address an editorial review policy which you can read about in this issue's Board of Directors Activities article.

2) As a direct result of this crisis's impact on our Society's financial health, nearly a year ago our EMCS BoD voted to form an AdHoc committee. The committee's charter was to investigate whether our best future may be in separating from the IEEE. I was appointed chair of this committee. This vote was in my opinion the most intensely fought and passionately voted issue that I can recall in my fifteen-year involvement with the EMCS BoD. I believe the vote was 11 to 10 in favor. Well, with such a close vote, at the very next meeting, when it was noticed that two of the key supporters were absent, a motion was made, and passed, which basically froze all activity of the committee. By the February EMCS BoD meeting, it was clear to me that passions were just too high and support too weak as to what this committee should do, and as to whether it should even exist. My original plan was to interview headquarters managers, get their views and the real data as to their growth rates and customer control connectivity. At one point I was ordered not to do this. I did not want to truly pursue leaving IEEE but to use that club to get headquarters' management attention and responsiveness. Others on the committee truly wanted to separate from IEEE. Some felt that the existing organizational relationships were hopelessly flawed, and incapable of fostering a customer-client relationship which would constrain headquarters growth and waste. I submitted my resignation, hoping someone else might step forward. But passions have subsided. Some members who count on corporate support for their IEEE activities may be having trouble explaining this rebellion to their employers. But let me make these facts clear: IEEE members pay Institute dues. Society members pay Society dues. Though these two simple statements exist within an otherwise very complicated organization (IEEE), they have, over the years, fostered an entrepreneurial attitude within many Societies. This has very much benefited the Institute and more importantly the engineers themselves. Yes, Societies are required to utilize IEEE, Piscataway for specific support services. But, they have paid and continue to pay the Institute a direct fee for these services. This current financial crisis is a direct result of Headquarters making very optimistic assumptions about the investment returns from Institute Reserves (much or most of which are Society reserves) and using these rosy estimates to enable headquarters to grow its increasingly complex business (see Peter's article). These Society reserves are, in our case (and in many cases), a direct result of Society volunteer activity, mainly in the area of Symposium sponsorship. This is not properly Institute income. At those times when the IEEE Piscataway folks (Conference Management Services-CMS) help us in running Symposia, we pay them fairly based on an open competitive process (sometimes even when they are not the low bidder).

The Institute is not inclined to raise Institute dues because they worry that it won't raise additional money, but will lose membership. To them the easy solution is to raid Society Reserves. What's Peter's good news? Headquarters is contrite. In some real ways they have reduced costs. Have they also just changed some of the ways they'll take our money? (By taking it before it's accrued to our investment reserves instead of after? Read his article... you decide.) But two hard questions: How long will Society volunteers work as unpaid servants of the Headquarters bureaucracy? Will this bailout foster prudent business practices at the Institute level? This is not the first Institute financial crisis. When will the next one be? That's what all the big words and overly complicated formulas that Peter describes in his report tend to mask.

Dick Ford, NCE
EMCS BoD Member
EMC4D@aol.com

*The summary of Peter's verbal report to the EMCS BoD on page 48 of the last issue gives an overview and perhaps more concise picture of the crisis. But the reader will have great difficulty finding a clear detailed description of the traditional business relationship between Societies, Sections and the headquarters bureaucracy. This complex relationship, in my opinion, is at the heart of the crisis and is what allowed such a debt to be incurred without timely reaction.

EMC