As I updated you in February, the IEEE Houston Section EXCOM will be sending representatives to the following two IEEE sponsored events in the month of March:  1) the 2005 Careers Workforce Congressional “Fly-In” March 8 - 9 in Washington, D.C.; and 2) the PACE (The Professional Activities Committees for Engineers) 2005 Leadership Workshop in Tucson, Az. March 11 - 13.  Mr. Polo Gutierrez, Houston Section Secretary, will be our Houston Section Executive Committee (EXCOM) representative in support of the IEEE-USA Career and Workforce Policy Committee which has decided to target Texas as part of their March 2005 Careers Workforce Congressional “Fly-In”. This effort is to bring IEEE-USA's message on H-1B visas, offshoring and other employment issues to Congress.  For more information on the Fly-In, please visit the following web address: http://www.ieeeusa.org/policy/Careerflyin/default.asp.  And, Scott Ballew – Houston Section Chairman,  Gil Dolor – Houston Section Past Chair, and Donald Dunn - Region 5 South Area Chair and Houston Section Treasurer will be attending the IEEE PACE (The Professional Activities Committees for Engineers) 2005 Leadership Workshop in Tucson, Az. March 11^th thru 13^th.  To learn more about this workshop, please visit the following web address: http://www.ieeeusa.org/calendar/conferences/2005workshop/default.asp   I look forward to updating you as to the happenings and results of both of these IEEE sponsored events in my April Chairman’s message.

In addition, the Region 5 Technical and Leadership Conference will be held in Denver, Colorado April 7 – 10, 2005.  Your EXCOM will be attending this very important annual event.  This annual conference is a very enjoyable experience, because you find out what the happenings are in IEEE Regional and National.  And, I always find it very interesting at this Conference to hear what the other Sections are doing to add value to their membership, and how our Section can learn from that.  I will report to you the results of the R5 Conference in May.

As we should all know by now, the Houston Section has a worldwide renowned Continuing Education Seminar with presentations every month.  I wanted to inform you that there are 2 seminars in March and they are as follows: 1) March 15-16 “Field Testing of Large Power Transformers” with Randy Slaybaugh (Substation Services, Inc.) presenting and 2) March 29-30 Protective Relay 4-SEL with David Costello (SEL) presenting.  Please see the IEEE Houston Section Website for full details.

As a reminder to all of you, the Houston Section will be manning a booth at the the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) May 2 - 5, 2005 promoting IEEE.  We have had a couple of people volunteer to help us man these booths and promote IEEE.  This is a great opportunity to meet engineers from other companies and network.  We still need more volunteers.  If you are interested in volunteering, contact one of your EXCOM members.

As always, the EXCOM and I look forward to your feedback and comments.  If you have suggestions and/or are interested in becoming active within the section or a local society chapter, contact one of us.  Your active participation and feedback is most welcome and very beneficial in ensuring that the programs and content of IEEE brings the most value.