Qualifications. I have extensive IEEE experience, including being culturally sensitive [having resided in IEEE Regions 1 (MA, NJ, NY), 9 (Brazil) and 10 (China)], technically engaged [active in 4 Societies (Computers; Control Systems; Robotics & Automation; Systems, Man, & Cybernetics)], and professionally involved [member (since 1974); volunteer (since 1983); active on 4 of IEEE’s 7 Major Boards – TAB (10 years), PSPB (7 years), BoD (4 years), EAB (3 years)]. I have a BEE (RPI’66), MS (MIT’67), and PhD (MIT’72) and have worked in industry [Bell Telephone Laboratories; The Rand Corporation; currently, Structured Decisions Corporation (SDC)] and in academia [RPI faculty (since 1977)]. I have demonstrated leadership skills [IEEE VP, PSPB & EAB; VP, SDC; RPI Department Chair (since 1985); RPI Acting Dean of Engineering (1992-1994, 1998-1999)] and demonstrated excellence [IEEE (Fellow, J. G. Wohl Outstanding Career Award, Third Millennium Medal, Major Educational Innovation Award, Norbert Wiener Award) and other technical awards, including Fellow of INFORMS and AAAS and election to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering].

Challenges. Since 2000, the IEEE-related industries (e.g., computers, electronics, telecommunications, etc.) have experienced an extended economic downturn, resulting in lay-offs, obsolescence and commoditization. As a learned society, the IEEE must lead the way to overcome these and related challenges. Technical challenges include: maintaining our distinctive advantage of excellence through peer review of our intellectual property (IP); nurturing an entrepreneurial technical structure that can recognize emerging technologies and act nimbly; and meeting our individual needs, which are clearly different at different stages in our professional career and in different countries and cultures. Financial challenges include: moving to electronic publishing while safeguarding the value of and the net income from our IP; meeting the competition posed by aggressive commercial publishers, by free preprint and postprint web sites, and by cost-conscious academic publishers; and innovating “faster, better and cheaper” ways of packaging, distributing and leveraging our IP. Member challenges include: promoting IEEE’s global networking benefits; enhancing and equalizing IEEE’s member services, especially in regard to the portability of such services; and improving member involvement in both IEEE’s governance and volunteer activities. Member-related, professional challenges include: bridging to industry with attractive products and services that corporations need and value; partnering with industry to ensure the quality and viability of the engineering “pipeline”; and raising the public’s awareness and appreciation for engineering and engineers.

Actions. 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 “non-member volunteers” (who comprise about 60 percent of: our contributing authors, our paper reviewers and our conference attendees); our non-member institutions (which purchase our IP and provide over half of our total revenues); our member volunteers (who define, in a collegial manner, “what” products and services should be produced and marketed); and our talented staff (who, in addition to supporting member volunteers, are charged with “how” to accomplish the goal). As example actions, our Membership Development Committee should consider providing a cafeteria of benefits and a fixed number of Member Benefit Credits (MBCs) to each IEEE member (thus allowing members to optimize their membership advantage by annually self-customizing their benefits); our Board of Directors should strategize and advance the IEEE globally while allowing the regional IEEE 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); and our Educational Activities Board (EAB) should continue to help our technical units put the best of their conference tutorials and short courses into the Thomson-IEEE Expert Now learning library (thus meeting the continuing educational needs, including the awarding of professional development hours, of both industry and our own members, while providing another IP revenue stream).