Statements from IEEE Candidates

Each year we solicit comments from candidates for the IEEE offices of President-elect, TAB Vice President-elect, and if a contest, Division IV Director-elect. The following candidates have submitted statements for NPSS Newsletter readers to help you in the election process. Many thanks to all of them!

Michael R. Lightner
(S'71-M'78-SM'90-F'98)
2005 President-Elect Candidate
Visit http://ece.colorado.edu/~lightner/IEEE/

IEEE, the largest and most diverse technical organization in the world, has been the integrating thread of my professional activities for 34 years: a source of colleagues, technical information, opportunities to present results, to help participate in defining different research fields and ultimately providing the possibility of participating in leading different activities within the IEEE.
The strength of IEEE lies in its diversity, incredible volunteers and staff, global membership, and the international reach of its products and services.
However, the IEEE, and indeed, all professional and not-for-profit organizations are facing challenges. Volunteerism is decreasing. The economic climate is challenging the use of discretionary funds for memberships and donations. The open access movement and the availability of technical information through employers, national consortia, and various web resources are challenging professional organization membership as required for accessing technical information. Finally, the diversity and rapidly changing nature of many technical activities challenges the nature of focused member organizations.
My goal is to take the tremendous organization that the IEEE is, and together with volunteers, members and staff, develop appropriate responses to current and future challenges so that the IEEE remains the integrating thread of our professional lives for generations to come.
To accomplish this goal I am proposing five initial actions:

• Reduce the current membership dues and introduce a menu of member service and benefit options.
• Introduce a new membership category of Distinguished Member for outstanding contributions to the IEEE.
• Increase the range of technical areas explicitly supported by the IEEE and IEEE societies.
• Develop an initiative process that allows Societies to access their reserves for innovative projects.
• Develop the research tool of choice for the technical professionals in our fields.

We are challenging the ability of members throughout the world to participate in the IEEE with our dues and fees structure. Further, member benefits and services are not seen as globally responsive. We must reduce the basic cost to approximately $60 USD and have a menu of options that provide members meaningful and valuable choices at reasonable prices.
Our volunteers are the lifeblood of the IEEE. Some of them give 2-3 months of time per year to the IEEE and are instrumental in evolving the Institute. We, at best, offer a few of them service awards. We need to acknowledge long-term, significant contributions to the IEEE with a new member grade of Distinguished Member. Unlike Fellow, this grade is for contributions to the IEEE, not the profession.
Our profession is changing rapidly and engineering projects are often highly inter/multidisciplinary. We should be open to a wide variety of technical professionals as full members of the IEEE. While we are not a general engineering organization, each of our fields evolves and partners with related fields. Professionals in these areas should be explicitly welcome in the IEEE. Chemists, physicists, mathematicians, physicians, IT workers, biologists, economists, lawyers, various engineering disciplines all use and contribute to our conferences and technical literature - they should be openly welcome as full members.
The IEEE Societies and the technical material and conferences they produce generate 75% of the revenue of the IEEE. Yet with our current fiscal models, the Societies have to compete to access the surplus they are generating. At the same time the Societies are being asked to pay more and more infrastructure costs for the activities of the Institute. This situation is untenable. We must develop an appropriate mechanism that protects the IEEE as a whole and allows the Societies to access their reserves for innovative projects. The Societies have been the leaders in developing new services and we must support this activity.
Our online publications, with the flagship IEL, are the envy of non-profit technical organizations around the world. We have been exceptionally successful in partnerships with academia, industry and government organizations and many of our members can access all our technical material online. We have also developed new member products and have launched a small business product. However, this success is being challenged by large for-profit companies, by the open access movement and by access to technical material on the web. To maintain our leadership position and continue to provide service to professionals worldwide we must look beyond our current papers online and develop the premier information research tool for technical professionals in our areas.
This is a time of challenge. I have significant background in Societies, TAB, Publications, the Board, experience in aspects of Regional activities and in academic leadership positions. My IEEE experience has led to identifying specific areas of concern and specific responses. My history is one of working well with diverse groups to identify and creatively solve complex problems. I would be honored to work with you to create the IEEE of tomorrow, based on the proud tradition and accomplishments of the IEEE we know and love. Thank you for your consideration.
Michael Lightner can be reached at the University of Colorado, College of Engineering and Applied Science, 570 UCB, Boulder, CO 80309-0570; Phone: +1 303 492-5180; E-mail: lightner@boulder.colorado.edu.

Levant Onural
(IEEE SM)
2005 President-elect Candidate
Visit http://www.ee.bilkent.edu.tr/~onural/President-elect2005/index/

Dear IEEE NPSS Member,
I am sure we all know the important and effective role the IEEE plays in advancement of science and technology. Mainly as a consequence of our high quality technical publications and conferences, and our success in properly archiving and distributing our publications and conference proceedings, we can all be proud of our collective success in turning the 20th century into a century of wealth and prosperity; surely, more will follow in the 21st. The contributions of electrical and electronics engineers (in its broad sense), through innovation, changed the society at-large many times in a revolutionary manner; electrification, telephony, radio and TV, internet, mobile phones and medical diagnostic tools are a few examples which are well recognized and appreciated by the public. Sophistication and efficiency of these end results are essentially based on publicly not-so-well-known complicated scientific and technical work that are well recognized by engineers.
Innovations usually do not occur in isolation. Instead many revolutionary ideas are inspired while sharing others' findings and ideas. In other words, scientific and technical advancement, which we as the society owe a lot, is essentially the consequence of availability and easy access to archived technical information, and, the availability of opportunities for interactive exchange of ideas and results. In other words, publications and conferences.
Adding to this observation that IEEE is the largest technical content publisher in broader EE field (about 100 transactions), and the main technical conference organizer (about 1000 per year, where 300 of them are large conferences), it is easy to see the role of IEEE in making the essence of the modern society world-wide.
Obviously, the IEEE Technical Societies are the main entities which, through their hard work and proper organizational structures, create the technical content whose importance is already stressed above.
NPSS, as being one of the oldest whose roots go back to 1947, has a prestigious place in making IEEE so important and effective.
Naturally, IEEE could not have achieved its current success if there were no strong leaders with motivation and vision. As the world changes faster than ever, IEEE is also experiencing challenges. Indeed, challenges of different nature arise almost every day. Therefore, the need for the right leadership is now higher than ever.
I strongly believe that I have the right qualifications to further advance the IEEE and prepare it for even larger roles for fostering science and technology for the benefit of public, worldwide.
I know IEEE members, and their needs very well; I had the pleasure of meeting thousands of IEEE members and enjoyed it very much.
There is no doubt in my mind that the members of IEEE are much more sophisticated engineers compared to those who are not, on the average.
Being an IEEE member for 23 years, and an active volunteer for 15 years, I served IEEE in many different positions. I served as a member of the Board of Directors for three years, as the Secretary of IEEE in 2003. I served as a Region Director, Section Chair, and as either a chair or a member of many committees. I am a member of two societies (CAS and SP), general co-chair of ICASSP'2000 (the largest signal processing conference), and currently I am an associate editor of IEEE Tr. on CSVT.
So, I can easily claim that I am among the very few people who knows IEEE well.
Looking back to my professional life, and IEEE activities, I can easily see that I like to lead.
There are many examples that prove that I am well motivated, and I have the right skills and vision to lead successfully. For example, I was the founding chair of an IEEE Section (1989). I initiated many new activities in IEEE that are now routinely continued. In my research life, my recent leadership success is organizing a multinational team of 150 researchers from 19 institutions to conduct a well-planned 3DTV research, covering all its aspects; the project is funded by EC at a level of about USD7.5M and will start on 1 Sept 2004.
My IEEE records show that I can make a difference. In the past, especially when I served on the IEEE BoD (2001-2003), I contributed to the following policy changes:

• "Balanced budget" policy to keep central IEEE spending at better controlled levels to reduce the burden on Society finances.
• "Adopting sound investment policies" as expected from a not-for-profit scientific, technical and educational member-driven association.
• "Adopting a series of policy changes" to empower the IEEE Board of Directors to be more nimble and powerful to control and direct IEEE staff and staff-based operations.
• I was a supporting board member when the Board decided to implement Xplore.
• I reviewed numerous IEEE governing documents, and proposed many changes for the benefit of members. A recent example is a proposed major overhaul of the IEEE Constitution which will also be on the ballot this year.

My primary policies, if I am elected, will be targeted primarily to the following:

• I will make it easier for our members to get involved in IEEE volunteer activities.
• I will take action for more affordable IEEE services for our members.
• I am fully committed to ease the operations of IEEE Societies and their volunteers.
• I will strive for a more effective IEEE which is consulted by governments as they modify their technology, science and educational policies.
• I will promote a major overhaul of IEEE major board structure.
• I will promote a more decentralized IEEE.
• I am in favor of publicity efforts to boost the public visibility of IEEE.
• Having good links with IEEE volunteers world-wide, and knowing the international environment that IEEE operates very well, I believe my presidency will have a significant impact for a better and more prestigious IEEE.

Please visit my election web site for more information.
I am kindly asking your support during the upcoming IEEE elections. Thank you.
Levant Onural can be reached at the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Bilkent University, TR-06800 Bilkent, Ankara, Turkey; Phone: +90 312 266-4307; Fax: +90 312 266-4192; E-mail: l.onural@ieee.org or onural@bilkent.edu.tr.

James M. Tien
(IEEE 1982 SM; 1991 F)
2005 President-elect Candidate
Visit http://www.rpi.edu/~tienj/IEEE/tien.htm

Let me begin by saying that I appreciate this opportunity to provide you, the IEEE NPSS members, with a statement of my candidacy. It is also with great honor and humility that I address you as a candidate for the position of 2005 President-Elect.
To get to the point - why should you cast a vote for Jim Tien? The answer is because I have the global vision and the necessary qualifications to address the unprecedented challenges currently confronting our members and our profession - we can address them through creative and collaborative actions.
My vision for the IEEE is based on the same reasons why I became a member in 1974 and why I started volunteering in 1983. I consider IEEE to be my "Global Resource of Choice" for scientific, educational and professional products and services. This vision is consistent with IEEE's stated vision, which is "To Advance Global Prosperity."
I feel that I have the qualifications to continue to help IEEE achieve this global and noble vision, as I have tried to do so in all my volunteer activities, including in my recent position as VP of Publication Services and Products Board (PSPB) and in my current position as VP of Educational Activities Board (EAB). I am:

• culturally sensitive, having resided in Regions 1 (MA, NJ, NY), 9 (Brasil) and 10 (China);
• technically involved, having been active in 4 Societies (Computers; Control Systems; Robotics & Automation; Systems, Man, & Cybernetics); and
• professionally involved, having been active on 4 of IEEE's 7 Major Boards - TAB (10 years), PSPB (7 years), BoD (4 years), EAB (3 years).

I possess:

• a strong educational background, with BEE (RPI'66), MS (MIT'67), and PhD (MIT'72) degrees;
• extensive industrial experience, having worked at Bell Laboratories, the Rand Corporation, and currently at Structured Decisions Corporation, a company that I co-founded in 1974; and
• extensive academic experience, being on RPI's faculty since 1977.

Additionally, I have

• extensive leadership experience, at IEEE, in industry, and at RPI where I have been a Department Chair since 1985 and twice the Dean of Engineering; and
• demonstrated excellence, having been recognized with a number of IEEE (Fellow, J. G. Wohl Outstanding Career Award, Third Millennium Medal, Major Educational Innovation Award) and other technical awards, including Fellow of INFORMS and AAAS and election to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE).

In regard to challenges that are confronting the IEEE, it should be noted that since 2000, the IEEE-related industries - including computers, electronics, and telecommunications - have experienced an extended economic downturn, resulting in lay-offs and obsolescence. As a learned society, the IEEE must lead the way to overcome these and related challenges. We face

• technical challenges, including maintaining our distinctive recognition of excellence;
• financial challenges, including meeting the competition posed by aggressive commercial publishers, by free pre-print and post-print web sites, and by cost-conscious academic publishers;
• member challenges, including enhancing and equalizing IEEE's member services; and
  
• professional challenges, including partnering with industry to ensure the quantity, quality and diversity of the engineering "pipeline."

Now, in order to be "the global resource of choice" for scientific, educational and professional products and services, we must assiduously enhance our member benefits and advance the stature of our profession. We must ensure IEEE's technical excellence, while maintaining the Institute's financial viability, enhancing membership advantage, and meeting our professional needs. We can do it - through a synergistic partnership among all our constituents, including our "nonmember volunteers," our nonmember institutions, our member volunteers, and our talented staff.
To be brief, let me just provide three example actions that I would like the IEEE BoD to address. First, our Membership Development Committee should consider providing a cafeteria of benefits and a fixed number of Member Benefit Credits to each IEEE member (thus allowing members to optimize their membership advantage by annually self-customizing their benefits). Second, our BoD should strategize and advance the IEEE globally while allowing our regional and technical units (including the IEEE-USA) to act locally in support of their members' careers (thus advancing IEEE's global value while enhancing IEEE´s local membership advantage). Indeed, IEEE should, on behalf of our profession, develop and promulgate global policies that pertain to those technical fields within our scope of interest. Third, our Educational Activities Board should continue to help our technical units put the best of their conference tutorials and short courses into IEEE's Xplore-Enabled Learning Library, XELL (thus meeting the continuing educational needs of both industry and our own members). Moreover, XELL modules would allow for the awarding of continuing education units and the establishment of another revenue stream for the IEEE.
Finally, I'd like to close with a plea - I Humbly Ask Not Only For Your Vote, But Also For Your Involvement: Together, We Can Advance IEEE's Global Value.
James Tien can be reached at the Department of Decision Sciences and Engineering Systems, Department of Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York 12180-3590; Phone: +1 518-276-6486; E-mail: tienj@rpi.edu.

Celia L. Desmond
TAB Vice President-elect Candidate
(IEEE SM )
Visit http://ewh.ieee.org/reg/7/candidates/desmond/index.html

TAB is an organization of Society Presidents and Division Directors that creates an environment in which each Society can be most effective in providing products and services to Society members. In particular, Societies need a framework to support the processes that develop and deliver the intellectual property that is the core of IEEE's reputation and mission.
I have served TAB previously as President of a large and vibrant Society, as a member of the Board of Governors of a small Society, and as Division III Director. I have also served IEEE as a member of the Board of Directors, both as Region 7 Director, a position that is also President of IEEE Canada, and as Division III Director, in addition to committee service as Chair of both the Transnational Committee and the IEEE Audit Committee. This has given me a good grounding in the issues that face IEEE and a strong desire to serve our members. I understand and am committed to addressing our critical needs.
Today TAB needs a unifying, cooperative atmosphere amongst the Society Presidents and Division Directors, to provide the environment in which we can maintain the highest quality products, and foster progressive member services. As VP TAB, I will apply my background in organizational culture to maintain and improve the professional, collegial atmosphere within TAB, and also amongst other IEEE operational units. I will build a culture of interworking to strengthen the processes for sustaining, developing, and distributing TAB products and services.
Outside North America, IEEE membership is growing quickly, aided strongly by Society efforts. I encourage a truly global culture, which will allow IEEE to expand our vision to identify and fulfill the needs of our members throughout the world. While expanding our focus to ensure that members in all countries are served, we must also maintain the current level of service provided to the North American members, long our dominant member base. Both the current and the new members are critical to the network of professionals that is a core value of IEEE.
I am committed to supporting IEEE's positive financial trend, and improving service to our members. TAB needs dedicated members to determine and create the most effective structure to meet the goals of this large, complex body. I offer you understanding of the organization, knowledge of the processes, experience with governance, energy, commitment to TAB and IEEE, and vision for improved Society effectiveness.
See Celia's web site for biographical and additional material.
Celia Desmond can be reached at 1508 Adamson St., Mississauga, Ontario, L5C 1B5 Canada; Phone: +1 905 277-4542; Fax: +1 905 277-5911; E-mail: c.desmond@comsoc.org .

Philip T. Krein
TAB Vice President-elect Candidate
(IEEE M, SM)
Visit http://energy.ece.uiuc

The IEEE Technical Activities Board is the umbrella for all IEEE technical societies and councils. IEEE volunteers and members in the societies and councils create most of the technical information and activities for which the IEEE is known. These include almost all conferences and publications. Technical activities, through societies and councils but also chapters, are in many ways the lifeblood of IEEE. The technical society organization of IEEE has been a strength. Each society has dedicated experts who volunteer and lead activities because of this structure. The IEEE is able to hold strength in many key specialty areas thanks to this arrangement. In the future, it is not in our best interest to add narrower specialties. Members and readers are more likely to work across disciplines, and the specialty-based structure that has grown up over the years does not reflect the way engineers work and learn.

Vision for TAB
In my opinion, TAB should be a forum for technical cooperation, collaboration, and evolution. For example, how can we adapt our activities and structures as quickly as the evolution of the technologies we champion? How can we create vibrant technical interaction that helps our members in the best possible way? At the same time, we must give new leaders the opportunity to innovate, perhaps through a framework for workshops or one-time events. We can also work toward the best possible chapter activities. TAB, through its constituent bodies, needs to seek out and nurture new technical topics. We should work to lead student-oriented technical activities to convey our excitement. We should provide a positive technology voice for the public.
I believe that our technical activities should meet essential needs of an engineer's career. We must find the best ways to nurture excellence and creativity of our members and volunteers. My focus for TAB will involve the following:

• Encourage each group - societies, technical committees, conference committees, and TAB itself - to have a far-reaching vision. We want to generate excitement about the future.
• Encourage our groups to adapt quickly. We need to move as rapidly as does our technology.
• Develop and enhance activities to best support members' technical needs, ranging from short courses and design tutorials to research publications and conferences.
• Work to make technical publications more affordable and more powerful. We need to encourage each article to be clear, thoughtful, and useful to readers.
• Strive to make technical information more accessible.
• Set high standards for services that TAB manages. Services should earn status as our "provider of choice."
• Encourage collegiality, and ensure that our organizational structure provides an excellent and supportive environment for volunteerism and technical exchange.

TAB Oversight of Services
With respect to IEEE services, TAB is a primary user or oversight body for a large portion of IEEE operations. We should set high expectations and work to ensure that operations achieve the highest possible quality. IEEE services in publishing, conference management, and other areas should earn a status as the suppliers of choice by virtue of their quality and added value. Committees that oversee services should partner with staff toward such a vision.
The Vice-President, Technical Activities chairs TAB during a one-year term and also serves on the IEEE Board of Directors. I want to work to be sure TAB meets the needs and addresses the technical interests of all IEEE members. We need to follow a long-term vision and work to create a flexible framework to help our volunteers lead.

IEEE Finances
At present, IEEE is just emerging from a difficult financial situation. The present IEEE structure has a somewhat loose coupling between revenue-producing activities and expense-producing activities. Many IEEE-wide costs, such as those associated with meeting operations and administration, are borne in a central operation. Today, the technical societies represent most of the revenue. The structural issues are a challenge in setting budget plans, especially for long-term financial planning. The issues continue to have strong impact on TAB. In my opinion, three changes are needed: A tighter coupling between expenses and revenues must be established. Each society should expect to contribute its share for investment in IEEE development of electronic publishing and other IEEE-wide services, but other IEEE operating groups should have an active budgeting process that makes better connection with revenues.

• A longer-range financial picture is needed. Investment returns should use a moving-average window in the range of five to ten years, so that short-term market fluctuations are not amplified into fast changes in the overall IEEE financial picture.
  
• There must be an unyielding focus on value: provide the highest possible value of IEEE membership to our members and to the engineering communities we serve. The value focus means that costs should be held as low as is possible, but at the same time, there must be investment in future enhancements to services and information exchange.

Education:
B.S. (electrical engineering), A.B. (economics and business) 1978, Lafayette College
M.S. (electrical engineering) 1980, Ph.D. (electrical engineering) 1982, University of Illinois

Areas of Interest:

• Analysis, control, and design approaches for power electronic systems
  
• Modeling and control of electrical machinery
  
• Applications of electrostatics
  
• Portable and spacecraft power
  
• Electric and hybrid vehicle systems

Additional Information:
Prof. Krein joined the University of Illinois faculty in 1987. He was in industry prior to that time.
He introduced the modern power electronics curriculum, and developed classroom and laboratory courses. For ten years he was a Faculty Advisor to the University's Advanced Electric Vehicle Program, and has worked with large student teams on hybrid and solar cars.
From 1997-98, he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom.
He is a Past President of the IEEE Power Electronics Society and now serves as IEEE Division II Director. He serves as the Editor of the new IEEE Power Electronics Letters publication, introduced in 2003. He is the Long-Range Planning Chair for the international http://www.energychallenge.org student competition.
Philip Krein can be reached at the University of Illinois, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, 341 Everitt Laboratory, 1406 W. Green St., Urbana, Illinois 61801 USA; Phone: +1 217 333-4732; Fax: +1 217 333-1162; E-mail: krein@ece.uiuc.edu.