Region H held its annual conference this year in Minneapolis at the University of Minnesota – MSP. Our East Central Iowa chapter is in Region H along with 18 other professional sections and 44 collegiate sections across the Midwest. Six members from ECI attended the conference and represented our section in the business meeting.
The conference started on Friday with a CEU on Project Management and Chaos Theory. Becky Reck attended the session and said it was informative and interesting. The speaker, Dr. Robert Monson, was engaging and presented a great new way of incorporating chaos theory into project planning to actually create reasonable milestones and timelines that are actually achievable without sandbagging.
On Saturday, five different breakout sessions with multiple tracks were offered on topics such as negotiation, green energy, stress relief, etiquette, section management, and engineering the Mall of America and Metrodome. The stress relief session was quite interesting. Laurie Phillips presented on the EFT technology of “psychological acupressure.” Both SWE ECI members in the session found it quite helpful for reducing stress; a common problem for us female engineers! All members found the sessions engaging and informative in their own ways.
Also on Saturday, the professional sections held a business meeting where the candidates for region executive and senate positions introduced themselves. Voting for these positions will begin in October. Rebecca Reck our section representative will make most of the selections for our section, so please be sure to talk to her if you have an opinion. Also watch out for the society ballot to vote for our section representative to the senate among other society level positions.
There were multiple networking opportunities during evening activities on Friday and Saturday and during meals. Members of the section enjoyed spending time with members from the other Iowa sections, professors from St. Ambrose in the quad cities looking to start a collegiate section, University of Iowa students, and other members from across the region. All of the meals were included with conference registration and quite good. The speakers including the keynote speaker, Dr. Donna Staarup Bossman, were all informative and entertaining, speaking to the “Engineer Your World, conference theme.
Overall, our section had a wonderful time at the conference and hope to send even more members next year to Houghton, Michigan. Michigan Tech hosts Region H 2014 from February 14-16!
On Saturday, five different breakout sessions with multiple tracks were offered on topics such as negotiation, green energy, stress relief, etiquette, section management, and engineering the Mall of America and Metrodome. The stress relief session was quite interesting. Laurie Phillips presented on the EFT technology of “psychological acupressure.” Both SWE ECI members in the session found it quite helpful for reducing stress; a common problem for us female engineers! All members found the sessions engaging and informative in their own ways.
Also on Saturday, the professional sections held a business meeting where the candidates for region executive and senate positions introduced themselves. Voting for these positions will begin in October. Rebecca Reck our section representative will make most of the selections for our section, so please be sure to talk to her if you have an opinion. Also watch out for the society ballot to vote for our section representative to the senate among other society level positions.
There were multiple networking opportunities during evening activities on Friday and Saturday and during meals. Members of the section enjoyed spending time with members from the other Iowa sections, professors from St. Ambrose in the quad cities looking to start a collegiate section, University of Iowa students, and other members from across the region. All of the meals were included with conference registration and quite good. The speakers including the keynote speaker, Dr. Donna Staarup Bossman, were all informative and entertaining, speaking to the “Engineer Your World, conference theme.
Overall, our section had a wonderful time at the conference and hope to send even more members next year to Houghton, Michigan. Michigan Tech hosts Region H 2014 from February 14-16!
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