President's Report - June 2010

Incoming President’s Appreciation

I have been really excited with anticipation in the last month since being elected the FY11 President. For me, June will bring transition from the former EC (Executive Council), budget planning, and completing all the award submissions for our section. Officially the new EC is instated July and that is when the new officers and chairs will all be getting together to plan the upcoming year. Thank you to the Lisa for her leadership this past year and to the whole section for the fantastic programs that I will enjoy reviewing in the award applications. Over the past eight years, since joining the Minnesota section, there have been tremendous events that have kept me involved and great leaders who have mentored me as I look forward to the privilege to continue to serve the section.

On June 7th the section will celebrate the accomplishments of our members at the annual Awards Ceremony. We can’t say thank you enough to the volunteers and sponsors, but this is one of my favorite events to reflect back on the year with appreciation. I will be at the June 17th picnic and hope to meet you there if I haven’t had the chance to talk to you yet and hear your thoughts about our section.

Contact me (alneidermire@yahoo.com) or Lesley (lawyckoff@gmail.com) if you already know that you would like to get involved and thank you to all the members who have agreed to serve on the FY11 Executive Council. Enjoy your summers everyone, rest up, have fun, and plan on attending a SWE event in the fall.

- Angela

Farewell from our FY10 President - Lisa Schmalhurst

Hi there everyone.
This is my last newsletter article to write as your president. *sniff*

I want to start by thanking you all for the honor of representing you this year. It has been at times a humbling experience to try to understand and fully appreciate all that this section does throughout the year. This year has been a challenge for SWE-MN – one that was met with strength and resilience by our executive council. Whenever we were down in volunteer or attendee numbers, these ladies stepped up efforts to insure that our activities were not only impactful and a success, but also aligned with the goals of the section and the Society. I know at times these ladies were discouraged by the effects of the economy on our operations, but as the song goes, they “[got] knocked down, but [they got] up again. You’re never gonna keep [them] down”. I thank each one of them individually for sharing their dedication, intellect and talents with SWE-MN. Thank you, Cassie, Laura, Adrienne, Lindsey, Jenna, Charlene, Lesley, Kalyani, Sara, Katrina, Jacalyn, Swati, Holli, Roz, Melissa R, Senja, Holly, Naomi, Angela, Janette, Melissa S, Martha and Nicki.

We’ve had a number of successful new starts this year. I want to take just a moment to recognize a couple of them. Most obvious among them is the change to the format of this communication. The impact that this has had is notable. Feedback from senior management within my company, Boston Scientific, ranged from “Looks awesome” to “HTML is the way to go”. This change improves our credibility with our members, current and potential sponsors. Moving to a monthly format also allows improved visibility for our events and the ability to include other news, articles and information of interest to our memebrs. Many thanks go out to Senja Lopac, Melissa Rhodes and Rozaane Johnson for the parts that they each played in helping this to come to fruition. I’d also like to recognize Sara Beck for the breakthroughs that she had in publishing and executing our Fund Development strategy this year. Last year’s chair had begun this work and Sara picked it up and ran. We now have a documented and published corporate sponsorship policy with funding tiers and entitlements. Disbursement of this policy this year resulted in the generous gift by Xcel Energy that enabled our spring Wow! That’s engineering event to be so well-attended by underprivileged girls. Sara is currently drafting a member sponsorship package and an example set of funding breakdowns to further help this effort succeed and support SWE-MN activities.

I know that Angela will lead FY11’s executive council to accomplish more great things in the year ahead. I could close with a “Farewell”, but that doesn’t seem to me to be in the right spirit for the time, so I’ll end with “Cheers!” in celebration of all that we have accomplished.

lisa