President's Message    -  October 2002

Thanks for the Memories

We are winding down our Detroit Chapter program year, and with that I will be ending my term as president of the Detroit Chapter. What a trip its been!

This newsletter includes the ballot for your Detroit Chapter Board of Directors for 2003. Thank you all for your nominations and to the candidates for volunteering to help guide, further develop, and grow your Detroit Chapter. Please take your time to vote to ensure that your voice is represented in the future direction of the chapter.

I would like to thank the Industrial Engineering Student Chapter at Wayne State University and Dr. Frank Plonka (IE Department Head) for hosting me at their September meeting. It was great to see all the enthusiasm with the student industrial engineers. During the meeting, I reviewed all the support the Senior Chapter provides to our IE student chapters (scholarships, conference support, community service activities, meeting discounts, etc.) and received good feedback and interest from the audience. I met many students from this group at the May IE conference in Orlando. They have many great ideas, and I look forward to them providing many great ideas and energy for the Detroit Chapter and to IIE.

Looking forward, I am encouraged by the work that has been done by the current Detroit Chapter Board of Directors. We have an award winning newsletter, a good website which is generating some traffic and is helping our members get current information about chapter operations and activities. I believe that we have increased our contact with the membership with email notification of monthly meetings and special events. Our Chapter has won Silver and Gold award with the national organization for our operating parameters – which tells us that we are focusing on the right things to support our members.

During my tenure, we all experienced a cataclysmic event with the September 11 attack on America. I hope that the Detroit Chapter operations helped provide some consistency to our members as we begin to heal and put some distance beyond this event. As industrial engineers this is key moment for our nation when we can assist our friends, neighbors, and business associates to create new opportunities and move forward to better times. IIE and your Detroit Chapter will assist by keeping you on the leading edge of our profession, trying to "make things better."

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If you have any suggestions on how the chapter can be improved, suggestions for programs, or questions about IIE programs feel free to contact me directly. You can easily reach me via the website at www.iiedetroit.org and send an email (president@iiedetroit.org) or call me.

Enjoy the fall season, your family, and the soon to be here Holidays.