This year’s annual IEEE election ballot should have reached you shortly before this Newsletter showed up on your doorstep. There are three races of general interest to all NPSS members; IEEE President-Elect, Technical Activities Board (TAB) Vice President-Elect and Division IV Director-Elect. (Our Society, NPSS, is in Division IV.)
All these positions are ones from which the incumbent can greatly affect, for better or worse, all IEEE members in general and NPSS members in particular. An example of the “for worse” side of things is the current sad state of IEEE finances that our current Division Director, Peter Staecker, has ably described in this and the previous issue of the Newsletter. NPSS is directly affected by this as its and other Societies’ reserves have been heavily taxed to make up the general IEEE deficit over which they have no real control. There are hopeful signs that things are turning around. It’s crucial that these signs become reality.
IEEE election candidates are given only a very limited space in the election brochure to address these and the other important issues facing the organization, its members and the profession. Each year the pages of the NPSS Newsletter are made available to all candidates for these positions in order to allow them to expand upon their brief formal statements. Not all candidates respond to the offer and those that do, do so in different ways. Some make few modifications to their official statement while others go to the effort of producing a completely new statement. By looking at the election brochure you will be able to determine who did what.
All candidates have extensive IEEE experience in a variety of areas. They also have varied and relevant work experience. They are certainly on the ballot for good reasons! I hope that the additional information supplied by the candidates will be able to give you some solid reasons for your choices.
I thank the candidates who responded to the request and wish all of them well.