Oregon Section ExCom

Agenda:

- Agenda approval
- Approval of last month's meeting minutes
- New Business
- Science Fair signup
- Milestones update
- Rising Stars presentation
- Report out from R4/R6 meeting
- Officer and Chapter Reports

Highlights:
The two Milestones projects are moving along. Amritesh and Diwakar provided a conference review for the Rising Stars 2025 conference. David provided a report out on the combined Region 4 / Region 6 Meeting.

Attendees:

Eric Hall, Jose Garcia, David Silver, Ed Epp, Daniel Goodrich, Xiao Fu, Richard Dorrance, Rick Smith, Diwakar Agrawal, Ed Perkins, Heidi, Sohrab Aftabjahani, Amritesh, Michael Bates

Minutes:
Meeting was called to order at 6:30pm.

Agenda approved
Last months minutes small modification: "Intel is changing the matching funds that it will provide." and strike the amount.
Last month's meeting minutes approved

New Business
Science Fair - Three folks have signed up to support. Dan, David, Heidi. Sign up for "Special Award category". Let Dan know if you are volunteering. IEEE provided $500 to each Science Fair, both the Oregon one and the SW Washington one.

Milestones - Willamette Falls is moving along. USB one is approved as well, Richard has made the request for support to CTO of Intel but has not heard back. The Milestones program has a technology focus not a people focus.

Rising Stars 2025 Conference:
Amritesh and Diwakar attended the Rising Stars 2025 conference in Las Vegas Nevada and provided a report out.

They had a very wonderful experience. Had an enjoyable time talking with folks. The IEEE executives were very supportive.

A lot of amazing speakers that were part of the agenda through all three days. Sessions included the Young Professionals Workshop, a Job Search Workshop, a Financial Planning workshop, several sessions on managing your engineering career and several informative Panel sessions.

Amritesh: Long time attendee. Great meeting the different speakers, meet new folks, and reconnect with folks.

Potential Speakers for Oregon Section that were identified include:
- Michael Andrews / Carolyn Andrews who were the Conference Organizers and were very interested in a soft-skills session and help with with interpersonal skills.
- John McDonald who is an IEEE Fellow
- Ed Tiedemann who is a SVP at Qualcomm
- Kathleen A. Kramer who is the IEEE CEO
- Joy Dow who is a Wealth Management Advisor
- Industry folks such as YC Wang from Digikey, Joe Dossantos from Workday AI, and Falguni from Expedia.

The suggestion is to have webinars or Distinguished Speaker series with these folks. Perhaps have another social with guest speaker. We won't limit to just the Young Professionals group. Reach beyond Oregon Section as well. Let's try to make at least three of these.

Sohrab: Is conference meeting materials available? No. Was most interested in the cybersecurity talk.

Report out for Region 4 / Region 6 Meeting:
- David went through a slide show of photos. Slide show link
- Congrats to Ed Epp on his award!
- Lots of great training was provided.
- There were a lot of great networking opportunities with the other Section Chairs. Some other sections have a lot of activities. Let's try to get a few more going.

Officer Reports
Vice Chair: Nothing to report. Plans to talk with Ed when he is better.
Treasurer: $158k in account. Have spent about $1500 so far and know some travel items are coming in. Things are good.
Secretary: Nothing to report

Chapter Reports:
Ed Perkins: When are chapter reports due? 10 February was the due date.

Young Professionals: (Amritesh) - YP Social is being planned at Top Golf in March. Received $800 from the Global YP group. April have a virtual event lecture on Chips Act. Idea to have a half day workshop on Chips Act at Intel for students. Ask about Community College students, those that are part of the Microelectronics Technology program.

RAS Society Chapter (Ed Epp) - Regional competition was held on Saturday. Benson HS has two teams that participated. Ed focuses on underserved students and his team is interested in continuing even though they were knocked out of the competition. They are doing some autonomous work using Apple tags. Ed has reached out to the PSU RAS Student chapter to propose an event.

Nano Society Chapter (Ed Perkins) - Held an event at PSU at the Physics department. Had an attendance of about 20 folks.
EPS Chapter is floundering and does not have a lot of officers at this time.
Sustech - Planning is going well. Over 150 paper submitted. Reviews are on-going. Will be held in Santa Ana California in April.

WIE (Heidi) - Top Golf event. STEM curriculum and STEM kits will have an in-person event. New member has come to Oregon and has reached out and is interested in volunteering, will get her invited to future events, starting from March. David has the STEM kits and can deliver.

Solid State Circuits Society Chapter (Richard Dorrance) - Going to flagship conference next week and will be receiving the best distinguished lecture program with a certificate and $1000. Feb 25 - Next Distinguished Lecture, want folks to attend in person. Working to get more lectures throughout the year. Looking for volunteers for pre-college events as well.

PACE (Rick Smith) - Continue to provide support to Sustech. PSU Student chapter has reached out for an overview of the Section. AR: We should build out a deck for such talks. Contact area folks as well to see if they have material.

Computer Society Chapter (Sohrab) - Traveling to a conference. Heterogeneous Integration Roadmap Chairing Cybersecurity working group.

Signal Processing Society Chapter (Xiao Fu) - Nothing going on now. Monthly seminar to restart in March.

Oregon Section ExCom

Agenda:
- New business
- Financial reporting is due for all chapters - reminder
- Any officer problems within the Chapters?
- How did the vTools Voting go for everyone?
- Discuss sending rep to IEEE-USA's annual Congressional Visits Day (CVD) April 8-9, 2025 in Washington, DC.
- Discuss Business for upcoming R6 meeting
- Science Fair
- Milestones
- Officer and Society Chapter Reports
- PSU Student Branch Report

Highlights:
- New folks are transitioning into roles at Section and Chapter level
- Congrats to Ed Epp for the Region 6 Outstanding IEEE Member Award for Outstanding Educator, Mentor or Facilitator in the area of STEM award
- Congrats to Richard Dorrance for the 2024 IEEE SSCS Chapter with Best Distinguished Lecturer Program Award
- PSU Student Branch officers attended
- Next meeting 11 February and will be held virtually
- May is the next in-person ExCom planned. Intention is to have the meeting at PSU so that students may attend.

Action Items Captured:
- Please let David know as he can help with issues that Chapters may be facing.
- Identify whether someone wants to participate in the Congressional Visit day in April.
- Those in new roles, please work with the former office holder on any transition activities needed.
- Please provide ideas on what kind of gifts to give science fair students and please help judge at the Science Fair, if possible.
- Get an appropriate room reserved at PSU for the May ExCom meeting

Attendees:
David Silver, Jose Garcia, Daniel Goodrich, Eric Hall, Alex Higgins, Mohammad Alshaiji, Richard Dorrance, Rick Smith, Diwakar Agrawal, Tatyana Dhaliwal, Ed Epp, Sohrab Aftabjahani

Minutes:
Meeting was called to order at 6:30pm.

New Business:
Rick - Fund raising - Matching funds from Intel for RAS activities. Intel is limiting the matching funds that it will provide per year per employee. Encourage Intel employees to put in their hours to get additional matching funds to offset just a few that had put in a lot of hours. Log the hours on a timely basis. It is not a main source of income for the Section, but it does help with providing robot kits and other things for activities.

Chapter problems - please let David know as he can help with some of the issues. Please be aware that Feb 10 is the reporting deadline for chapters. “High performing chapter" is at risk if reporting is not done timely.

Vtools voting. How did it go?
- Rick - there was not enough position statements to be found.
- Richard- Emails need to be clearer as to what the election is for. It was not very straightforward.
- Daniel- Some folks could not do certain activities.

Congressional Visits Day will be held 8-9 April 2025.
- There is an application process.
- It is a bit political with some prepared talking to do.

 IEEE Region 4 and Region 6 Joint Meeting will be held in San Francisco on 25 January 2025.
 - Ed will be attending to receive the Region 6 Outstanding IEEE Member Award for Outstanding Educator, Mentor or Facilitator in the area of STEM award.
 - David will also be attending.
 - Any business to raise to R6? Daniel- how to promote new membership? Diwakar says that he even has trouble providing a value add to Intel employees as to why to join IEEE. Sohrab- discounts to conferences. Richard- some employers already provide access to papers and pay for membership and conferences. Tatyana- member of honor societies can get hiring incentives at the federal government. Sohrab-being the part of a community is also important. Can we get a list of points of benefits, for different levels of their careers? IEEE likely already has some of these materials.

NWSE fair - The state fair will be held Friday 11 April 2025 at Portland State University.
- Richard can help organize but cannot help as he is lecturing on Fridays.
- IEEE gives several awards. Overall one. WIE award as well.
- Please consider to attend and help out.
- What kind of gifts to give science fair students? What do high schoolers want?

Milestones There are these all over the country but there's not yet one in Oregon. Goes through the IEEE History Center.
- The Willamette Falls milestone is progressing. We’ve budgeted for the plaque, are finalizing the plaque language, and will be seeking approval from ODOT and Oregon City.  Dan is leading the effort.
- There is also a milestone planned for Intel to recognize the USB development, although it has stalled. Dan G. will contact the milestone coordinator about its status, and may ask some Intel folks to help get it moving forward. Has to be 24/7 accessible.

Mailers- To send gifts to guest speakers. Richard and Sohrab took a few. They are wireless chargers for phones. Sustainability conference may also want some.

Officer and Society Chapter Reports:
Vice Chair - need to get inputs from Ed.
Treasurer - We are in good shape financially. Can help with student branches, as needed.
Secretary - Had a good handoff from previous secretary who also has said that he is available for further assistance as needed.

PACE
- Working on IEEE SusTech 2025 conference that will be held April 20-23, 2025 in LA.
- Best to get ahold of Rick via phone, text or call is fine. He is dividing his time between homes at the coast and Hillsboro.

Solid-State Circuits Society
- The chapter will receive the 2024 IEEE SSCS Chapter with Best Distinguished Lecturer Program Award and will be recognized at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference, ISSCC 2025, the societies flagship conference, which is February 16-20, as well as published in the Spring issue of IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine, and on the Society website and e-newsletter. This award recognizes a chapter that has consistently organized IEEE SSCS Distinguished Lectures (DL) and have invited a diverse roster of SSCS DL’s to visit their Chapter.
- Feb 25 is the tentative date for the next lecture and will get the event into vtools when the details finalize.

Robotics and Automation Society
- FIRST robotics challenge team at Benson HS. Created a girls build team with a kit and funds from Intel. Girls were deeply engaged and took ownership of their work. May not have enough time with the team as some teams meet daily and for longer.
- ROS2 (robotic operating system) is being built. There is a presentation available for the architecture. Perhaps this can be shared at the student branches?

Senior Member Elevation Coordination
- Diwakar can help organize. Good role modeling when officers are senior members as well so folks should work on the CV and materials.

Computer Society
- Had a talk on Halloween that was rescheduled to 5 December.
- Had a secretary but he went to India and not sure what is going on.
- Plan for at least one talk per quarter.

Power & Energy Society
- Brand new chair. Did a handoff with past chair.
- Have a speaker set up for February, but needs final confirmation. Will get event set up.
- Plan for meeting every third Tuesday.
- Daughter’s school Columbia Adventist in Battleground WA will have a career fair at some time and would like volunteers.

PSU student branch
- Have a student chapter plan for the year and planning for one a month. Next meeting this Friday.
- Resume event for the upcoming PSU hiring fair.
- Trying to get everyone under the same banner. Trying to get more graduate students involved as well as there are quite a few part time students. Please make sure that student events are in vTools.
- Alex- the student chapter needs to be reconstituted as an umbrella group for different technical chapters.
- Mohammed- would like to have guest speakers from industry. Daniel can provide a BPA tour in Vancouver-Up to 35 folks on a tour. How can students get more involved in technical societies. Tatyana-Corp of Engineers has a visit program at the Hydroelectric design center. Bonneville power may also have dam tours.
- Alex- it’s hard to get students involved in things.
- David- there used to be a newsletter that went out, especially to the students.
- Diwakar- IEEE has a lot of resources for students. Resume building and the like.
- Daniel- There is a role for student liaison. Someone to oversee all of the student branches.
- David- Proposal: Have an Excom meeting in May at PSU. Alex can get us a room.
- Ed- would like the contact for the student RAS chapter. Ed has robotics tutorials and whatnot that may be interesting to students. Alex can help get space to just a workshop.
- Networking and soft skills are also something that we can help students with.

Attendees: Diwakar, Dan, Ed Epp, Richard, David, Ed Perkins, Naznin, Sean Murphy, Jose, Heidi, Rick, Sohrab

Minutes for Sept ’24 approved

Highlights

• Ed Perkins: Follow up on the cost of bringing a move truck
• Ed Perkins: look for mechanism to offer NEDME general admission to the section
• All: David will send out the budget by email. Please review and provide feedback before Nov Excom
• Election: progressing well. Final slate being reviewed. Dan will follow up with a couple of applicants
• Approved $900 on behalf of computer society for Sohrab to travel for open source conference.

Chapter report

• Area meeting
• Global humanitarian Technology conference (GHTC) – Ed Perkins will be attending and reporting back (23-25^th Oct - Philadelphia)
• Rising Stars – 3 people [Naznin, Amritesh?, Diwakar]
  • Michael is not going
• Ed Epp nominated for R6 education support award
• Winter social finalized, gifts finalized - Dec 7
• Move trucks – IEEE has move trucks for disaster relief – possibly display at some schools [Ed Perkins will follow up on the cost]
• https://wie.ieee.org/grants-scholarships/frances-b-hugle/ - If anyone know a candidate female student, pass on the information about the scholarship.

Vice Chair report

• NEDME – Diwakar to include in section email (Hillsboro)
  • Ed Perkins (free), Rick Smith, Sohrab are interested in going. Ed/David will figure out a mechanism to reimburse general admission ($40)
  • Ed will looking the mechanism to offer to the section
• Sustech – marching ahead
• Region awards nominations are open (Ed will send info to Diwakar to add in section email)

Treasurer report

• Working on the budget
• With 2 months left we are over $4k (instead of 17k), higher than earlier interest.
• David will send the budget by email. Request to all is to review before Nov Excom and provide feedback to David if any item is missing.
• Winter social annual awards dinner – Lake Oswego grill. Dec 7 at 7pm. – Mark the calendar. David will send out the vtools link for headcount.

Secretary report

• Diwakar is out for vacation for Nov Excom. Dan will run the meeting.

Sohrab requested money for travel to a “open source conference”. Computer society has the money to cover the expense but no officers. Hence requesting approval from Excom. Motion is to cover up to $900 for travel expenses to open compute conference with computer society funds. Sohrab will dispense his learnings to the section via setting a webinar after the conference. Motion approved.

WIE international conference update - Naznin

Heidi

• Nov 8 National Stem day – Setup daily challenges in schools. Money ($500) has already been allocated.
• IEEE stem summit 23-25^th – Diwakar to add to the section mailing list.

Election update (Michael)

• Committee: Michael (Chair), John Prohodsky
• Election for chair, vice chair, secretary, treasurer.
• Current nominees (motion to approve the slate – approved)
  • David – chair
  • Jose - vice chair
  • Dan – treasurer
  • Naznin – secretary
  • Joseph hall – secretary
  • 3 other people – contingent

Attendees: Dan, Ed Epp, Richard D, Xiao, David Silver, Dave Durocher, Ed Perkins, Naznin, Sean Murphy, Jose, Michael Bates, Rick S, Sohrab

Minutes for Oct ’24 approved

Highlights

• 2025 Budget approved
• Elections process is on schedule
• Rick Smith and Ed Perkins attended NEDME; we should continue to help sponsor the event in 2025
• Get information to Daniel Goodrich to update Chapter officer names, or do it yourself.  Note:   As of 12/3/2024, Nine Chapters' officer terms have been updated.  Dan is keeping a spreadsheet to update progress.
• Next meeting is Winter Awards Ceremony December 7th, be sure to register when it becomes available on vTools.

Chapter report

• SSC Richard has plans for 3 distinguished lecturers
• Nano:  Ed reported a distinguished lecturer spoke on the CHIPS act today, nine attendees.

Attendees: Diwakar, Dan, Ed Epp, Rick, Richard, David, Michael, Ed Perkins

Elections

Election committee: Michael (Chair), John Prohodsky.

Action Dan: Ask region for the resource for Michael for election help.

Election for chair, vice chair, secretary, treasurer.

Current nominees

David - chair

Jose - vice chair

Dan - treasurer

Naznin - secretary

Chair report

• Summer social was a great success
• Winter awards formal: Lake Oswego grill in Lake Oswego
• Area meeting – Sat 21.
• Funded PICMET ice cream social. Voting by email.
• Naznin attended WIE meeting in Tri city area – presentation next meeting
• Milestone – Making progress. Will be in Oregon city

Vice Chair report

• Sustech in LA next year

Treasurer report

• Start preparing the budget for next year. Draft for November meeting.
• Seed money for section congress $3000 for 2026
• $750 for PICMET

New Business – No new business

Solid state circuit (Richard) – In person talk, georgia tech, a social. Coming up in Oct – 2 distinguished lectures.

Nano (ED) – speaker for Nov 12

PACE (Rick) – Will help with Social events, senior member activities.

RAS (Ed Epp) -