The November 12^th meeting was held at the ADTRAN Mark C. Smith Conference Center. This was a joint meeting with the local IEEE AES Society Chapter. The presentation was provided by the IEEE EMC Society President Elya Joffe who was in town for the EMC Society Board of Director’s meeting. A meal was catered for the event and was provided by the local Chapter and the IEEE EMC Society board. The presentation drew record attendance with a total of 135 from across many of the IEEE Societies within the Section. We want to thank the EMC Society Board members who took time out of their busy schedules to attend our meeting.

To help promote the IEEE and encourage membership a desktop display provided information to all those attending the meeting. The meeting started off with some general business. The meeting schedule was announced for 2010 and we have the schedule filled with meals sponsors. The announcement of the 2010 officers was made. As part of the business meeting the chapter was introduced to the new officers voted in for 2010. The new officers are: Chair – Jack McFadden (Wyle), Vice-Chair – Lon Brolliar (Phase IV), Treasurer – Tom Perry (Jacobs/Sverdup), Secretary – Jeff Whitmire (ADTRAN), Member At Large – David Cavanaugh (Benchmark), Member At Large – Vaughan Carlson (Value Eng). We want to congratulate the new officers who have agreed to step forward this year. Three of our new officers have not served in leadership positions with the chapter before this term. This is really exciting as we develop new leadership within the chapter! We also extend our gratitude to the outgoing officers for 2009. The 2009 officers were Chair – Doug Parker (ADTRAN), Vice-Chair – Jeff Whitmire (ADTRAN), Treasurer – Jim Stone (UL), Secretary – Jack McFadden (Wyle), Member at Large – Paul Stover (ADTRAN) and Member at Large – Hansel Cornutt (retired). We also want to thank our meeting meal sponsors. Their support is part of the total success for the chapter.

Doug Parker presented the enlightening and entertaining introduction to our speaker, Mr. Elya Joffe. We had not realized that Mr. Joffe was so well acquainted with Mr. Maxwell and that his new book had reached such national recognition. After graciously acknowledging the introduction, Mr. Joffe’s presented “Who’s Afraid of Maxwell’s Equations? A Practical Approach”.

The presentation was very informative and well received. Even with his arrival from Israel earlier in the day, Mr. Joffe was able to inject excitement into the presentation and involve the audience. He was able to effectively dispel some of the magic around the basis of electromagnetic theory. The explanations were presented in ways that all the practicing (and retired) engineers in the audience obtained a new perspective on some parts of the theory. He held the audience to the end as he completed the journey through the material. There were much lively interaction with the audience after the presentation with many comments and questions.

We want to thank Mr. Joffe for providing this presentation to the chapter. We are not sure if he keeps an a little pink battery powered bunny in his pocket or what, but between the travel, board meetings and presentation, his energy level never seemed to change.

It has been an exciting 2009 and we look forward to the events planned for 2010!

To see everything going on with the Huntsville Chapter, check out our IEEE EMC Huntsville Chapter website.