President's Message  -  July 2002

Workin’ Hard and Playin’ Hard!

I hope everyone is enjoying the start off the summer season. Generally, the Detroit Chapter is shut down for the summer after our June meeting, but this year your board is working hard on developing programs and activities for our members all throughout the summer and into the fall. During this brief note, I will review some of the upcoming programs and also review some interesting findings about the Institute from the May National Conference.

We are busy finalizing the program year and have locked in events for July, August, and September.

bulletGOLF OUTING: I look forward to seeing many of you for a fun afternoon at the Annual Detroit IIE Golf Outing on July 27 at Sylvan Glen Golf course in Troy MI. If you don’t golf – don’t worry – we’ll hang around afterward on the 19th hole.
bulletHarbour Report Preview: August 15 will bring our industry respected Harbour Report Preview for Lunch at the Gazebo in Warren, MI. I can’t say enough about this excellent program. You will learn about the latest manufacturing trends and standards observed in the automotive industry, both domestically and internationally, from a world-renowned analyst.
bulletPlant Tour: In September we will have a plant tour with Visteon (Thanks Vinod Chauhan!). Plant tours are always highly rated by our participants and members, so don’t forget to sign up to lock in your spot.

The National Conference was held in Orlando this year. You couldn’t beat the location, and the program was excellent. During some of my Leadership training, I discovered the following:

  • IIE is revamping its website to make it easier for everyone to use. Key to this website upgrade is that each member should ensure that your membership and personal information is up to date in the IIE database. You can easily log on to the website at www.iienet.org, and get into membership areas by using your membership id# as your password.
  • When you renew your membership, select "OPT-IN" to increase networking abilities. This option is on-line when you sign up, or on your renewal form when you receive it on your membership anniversary.
  • To add more value to your membership, HQ will be adding "discussion centers" to the website. These will be special interest topics where you can investigate technical issues or just chat with another professional IE. There are some trial centers their now. If we have enough interest they may even allow us to start our own on a topic of interest – or about our chapter.
  • Our chapter is recognized for having a great newsletter (Thanks Ron Brzuch) and a website. Many of the things we do are considered quite innovative to many of the other chapter presidents.
  • We haven’t had an IIE National Conference sponsored in Detroit in over 10 years – would you like to see one here? Let me know if you think this is a good idea. HQ says Detroit is an excellent destination for IE’s worldwide and they would like to know if Detroit is interested in hosting a conference.

Let’s keep those ideas flowing – if you have any recommendations for how to improve the chapter or increase the value of the service that you receive from IIE, please let me know. Everyone on the Board is excited to keep finding new ways to make our chapter better. 

Have a safe and productive summer!

Past President's Messages