Our next Section Meeting will be on September 28, 2005 at 6:00PM at the HESS location.  The speaker for the September Section Meeting will be Tony Andrews and he will be presenting on the topic of Power Quality Systems.  Mr. Andrews is presently Application Director with S&C Electric Company. Mr Andrews graduated in 1983 from Arizona State University with a BS in Industrial Technology with a minor in Aeronautical Technology.  Mr. Andrews spent 5 years in US Navy as a Naval Flight Officer flying missions aboard the Grumman E2-C Hawkeye, a carrier based Airborne Early Warning Platform (AEW) from the USS Coral Sea CV-43. Mr. Andrews most recently spent over 8 years with American Power Conversion holding positions as their Global Director for Telephony OEM sales, National Wireless Solutions Business Development Director and Director Strategic Partners. Mr. Andrews also has worked for Acterna, formerly Telecommunications Techniques Corp (TTC) as a Sales Engineer supporting and selling Test and Measurement equipment into the telecommunications industry.

The Houston Section 2005-2006 CED Seminar Schedule will start up again in October with several courses that cover new and exciting topics.  All seminars are held at Summit Electric located at 2929 McKinney Street, Houston, Texas, 77003.  For more details, visit the IEEE Houston Section website http://www.ieee-houston.org/, click on Meetings and Events link and then click on “Continuing Education on Demand (CED) Seminars” to see the latest brochure listing of upcoming classes for 2005-2006.

And, on behalf of the Executive Committee, I want to extend our congratulations to Carolyn E. Schaff, Kejian Lan, and Erzsébet Merényi, members of the Houston Section who were recently elected to the IEEE Senior Member Grade.  Also, congratulations go out to Bjarne Stroustrup (Texas A&M University) for the recent upgrade to IEEE Fellow Member Grade status for contributions to the creation of the C++ programming language and its applications.  You too may be eligible for membership upgrade.  Please contact one of the EXCOM members for more information in upgrading your membership.

Due to Hurricane Rita, our 4^th Annual IEEE-Houston Scholarship Golf Tournament has been rescheduled for Thursday, October 27^th and will be held at Kingwood Country Club (Lake Course) with a 1:00PM shotgun start.  We hope to see you all out there.  We need your support!  Come join us for a wonderful time.  Remember, proceeds from this event will go to providing $1,000 scholarships to Section member. 

Speaking of scholarships, the scholarship committee met earlier this month to review the large number of scholarship applications.  Following the review and ranking process, three (3) extremely deserving individuals were chosen to be the Houston Section’s 2005 Scholarship recipients receiving $1,000 scholarships each, and they are as follows:

• Daniel Wu (Rice University)
• Daniel Johnson (University of Texas)
• Ernst Andreas Leiss (University of Texas)

Congratulations to all of our scholarship winners for 2005!   Your applications were very impressive and we wish you continued success in your future endeavors.  As mentioned, we received many scholarship applications this year.  Thank you all for applying!  With the continued success of the Scholarship Golf Tournament, we look forward to awarding more scholarships in 2006.

Remember the Executive Committee and I look forward to your feedback comments.  If you are interested in getting involved in the local IEEE section, please let us know, as volunteer members are always needed.  We have plenty of opportunities.  I encourage all of you to become more active, and see the rewards and benefits your membership gives you.  It is a great way to network with professionals within the electrical engineering community.  Join us at one of the upcoming meetings; we look forward to meeting you.