Editor’s Note

This year’s IEEE annual election ballot contains two races of general interest to all NPSS members – IEEE President Elect and Vice President, Technical Activities.

Both these positions are ones from which the incumbent can affect, for better or worse, affect all IEEE members in general and NPS members in particular. For example, because of the over-optimism of the Board of Directors concerning the stock market built into budgets of a few years ago, Societies, such as ours, have been heavily taxed in order to make up for large deficits. Peter Staecker, our Division Director, has kept us all informed of what steps have been taken to rectify this misjudgement. One can only hope that in the future IEEE will learn to live within its means. Based on the statements of the three candidates for IEEE President Elect it looks as though the hard lesson has been learned.

All three President Elect candidates have run before. Vijay Bhargava in 1996, Luchi Gandía in 1993, and Arthur Winston in the preceding two elections. They have had long-standing and varied responsibilities within many parts of the IEEE.

The TAB Vice President candidates, Benjamin Wah and Ralph Wyndrum Jr., have each held many positions of responsibility within the Society structure of IEEE and have served TAB well in a number of capacities.

It is certainly worth your while to take a careful look at their IEEE activities listed in the election brochure to see how well they match your perception of what the IEEE and TAB now need.

IEEE election candidates are given only a very limited space in the election brochure to address the many important issues facing its members and the profession. Each year the pages of the NPSS Newsletter are made available to all candidates for the positions of direct interest to NPSS members in order to allow the candidates to expand upon their brief formal statements.

This year all candidates responded to my request. I thank them all and wish them all good luck.