Professional Development Comittee News - April 2010

Coming Up!

Positioning Yourself and Your Company for Revenue Growth

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Join us for our upcoming PD event. The current condition of the industry causes many of us to over-focus on short term challenges, making it more difficult to see opportunities. It is vital that our attitude and behaviors maximize the potential that exists today and position us for future growth.

This session will provide specific and applicable concepts to enhance our ability to:

1. Focus on the areas that will maximize our attitude and our business development results.

2. Recommit to current and future goals that will best position ourselves and our firm.

3. Learn a networking tool that will enable us to have better connections.

Dinner will be provided.

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17th Annual Professional Development Spring Seminar Recap:
The 17th Annual Spring Professional Development Seminar was held at the University of St.
Thomas on Saturday, March 13, 2010. This year’s theme was Sustaining Ourselves and Our Skills and the Seminar consisted of sessions covering a variety of professional development topics.
Approximately 65 people attended the event.

The day started with Breakfast and a Keynote presentation by Kaye Smith, University of St.
Thomas Engineering Professor. Her presentation on Work Life Balance – Redefining Success set the tone for an exciting day. A pair of hour-long sessions followed the keynote presentation. Each session featured four topics for the attendees to choose from. The morning session covered
technical topics such as Six Sigma, Engineering Ethics, and Intellectual Property and Patent Law. Intermixed with the technical sessions were a variety of sessions on such topics as Balancing the Demands of Work and Life, a discussion on Diversity of Engineering Functions in Industry, Tooting Your Own Horn, Effective Personal Communications, and a deeper look at the Athena Factor Study.

After the first two sessions, lunch was served for the attendees and speakers, providing time for networking. At the end of lunch, a brief SWE-MN business meeting was held.
The two sessions following lunch were as interesting as the morning sessions. The afternoon
sessions included a presentation about understanding cardiovascular disease, an overview of the fundamental skills of Systems Engineering, an investigation into the 35W Bridge collapse, and a collegiate look at women in engineering and professionalism. The last session of the day featured a unique look at incorporating yoga and mediation into the workday in addition to three
professional sessions delving into the topics of transitioning to management, gauging the maturity of organizational change, and deciding between the workforce and/or grad studies.

After the final session, names were drawn for door prizes and attendees provided feedback on the Spring Seminar by filling out evaluation forms. We hope that those that attended the Seminar learned something new, while having fun at the same time. We especially would like to thank the University of St. Thomas for hosting the event, as well as SWE-MN sponsors for supporting
SWE-MN Professional Development. We also give a HUGE thanks to the volunteers that helped us on the day of the event!

We hope that you will attend the 18th Annual Spring Professional Development Seminar next year! Thank you to all those that attended! Available presentations can be found on the SWE-MN PD site at http://www.swe-mn.org/springseminar2010.html.

Jacalyn and Diana

Email us at pd@swe-mn.org