Chair's Corner
Willie Fitzpatrick, Section Chair

Hello Everyone!! On October 6, 2007, the Tennessee Valley BEST (Boosting Engineering, Science, and Technology) held an exciting and all around great Game Day at Calhoun Community College. Many thanks to Jim Covington, Wayne Kendrick, Keith Jadus, Bob Robinson, and Courtney Spivey in supporting Game Day as well as giving a portion of their valuable time in completing the assembly of the returnable kits, distributing the kits, participating in Mall Day, assembling the troubleshooting equipment, the tie breakers, performing compliance checks, and serving in various roles, including scorekeeper for Game Day. I hope you had as much fun as I did and are hooked on BEST!  If you interested in serving as a volunteer for next year’s event, please contact me at willie.fitzpatrick@ieee.org.  See Wayne Kendrick’s article for more information on Tennessee Valley BEST 2007 Game Day.  We are still looking for volunteers to serve as Engineering mentors, judges, etc. for the Alabama Regional Future City Competition 2008. Please contact Sonya Hutchinson for more information on the Future City competition or you may access the information provided on the Future City link provided.  We appreciate all help that you can give Sonya in recruiting candidate 7th and 8th grade student teams across Alabama, along with teachers and engineers to mentor and nurture those teams. You may also contact me if you are interested in serving as a mentor for the 2008 competition. Please also read Cheryl Guilbeau's Education Task Force article for additional opportunities to supply your technical expertise to our school systems.

As you may have seen in the Huntsville news media, the IEEE Computer Society membership elected Susan K. (Kathy) Land as 2008 President-Elect. Kathy works for Mitre Corp. in Huntsville and she has held increasing significant Computer Society leadership roles for the past several years, including 1st Vice President this year. After next year's tenure as Computer Society President-Elect, Kathy will serve as 2009 Computer Society President. She will address the Huntsville IEEE Computer Society at November's meeting, covering plans for her upcoming role in this top leadership position and ways that the Society can best contribute to the software engineering profession. Read the accompanying Computer Society article for more details.

Please see the links for important meeting dates for the Huntsville Section Executive Committee, our Technical Society Chapters, and the Graduates of the Last Decade (GOLD) affinity group.  We encourage all graduating students to please remember to continue your IEEE membership benefits as you begin your careers. You are automatically a member of GOLD. Feel free to come by any of our meetings to find out more.  The SoutheastCon 2008 Committee meets the second Tuesday of each month. Please contact Eric Grigorian if you are interested in getting involved. We need lots of volunteers from members in the professional and student chapters.

Please visit the UAH Professional Development link in our announcement section for access to the latest information on continuing education opportunities at UAH.  Also make a special note that our November ExCom will be held at Alabama A&M University on November 7, 2007 in the Engineering and Technology building, Dean’s Conference Room, R-229 (second floor). As usual Lunch will be held from 11:15 A.M. until 11:45 A.M. with the business meeting beginning at 11:45 A.M. and over by 12:45 P.M. We will provide lunch for this meeting. Please contact Courtney Spivey if you plan to attend so we can get a headcount on the number of attendees for planning purposes.  Additional information on parking and directions will be provided via e-mail

Willie J. Fitzpatrick, PhD
Chair, IEEE Huntsville Section