From left: John Vig, Marc Apter, and Pedro Ray.

What do the three candidates for 2008 President-Elect say about the key issues that are important to you and to the IEEE?

Marc Apter, Pedro Ray, and John Vig, the three candidates chosen by the Board of Directors, weighed in on the price of dues, publishing more practical articles, improving the image of engineers, and boosting employment opportunities for high-tech workers in answer to questions from the audience at the 19th annual Candidates Night. The IEEE Philadelphia Section hosted the event on 11 June at the Sheraton University City hotel in Philadelphia.

Other questions, some of which had been sent by e-mail to The Institute, asked each candidate what his leadership style and top priorities would be if he takes office in 2009 as IEEE President. Here’s what each had to say about six key issues.

Membership in the IEEE has been seriously affected by the high dues. What are your thoughts on how to deal with this?

MARC APTER MEMBER GRADE Senior Member EMPLOYMENT STATUS Consultant, EG&G Technical Services, Gaithersburg, Md. AGE 64

APTER said the problem isn’t necessarily the cost of dues. He noted that for U.S. members who aren’t recent graduates, the monthly cost “is the price of about three or four Starbucks coffees a month.” The bigger issue, he explained, is that members receive the dues renewal notice as one large bill at the end of the year.

“One of the things I’ve been fighting for and have been told would become available in the 2009 renewal year is an option for dues to be charged monthly to your bank account or credit card,” he said. “As a retiree I’m going to like having the bill spread over 12 months rather than having it as a single big hit at the end of the year.”

Members outside the United States face a different issue with dues, he noted: they can’t pay the bill in local currency. “Right now, with the conversion to dollars, it costs some of them more than 50 percent of what normal dues cost a U.S. member,” he said.

RAY proposed offering alternative membership models for higher-grade members instead of the current benefits to “create a different value interpretation.” He said, “We need to change the value perception of what members believe they are getting for their money. For the same price, we could offer a whole new package, which would include training programs by experts.”

He also proposed a different set of offerings for a lower price for those in developing countries.

VIG hoped to clear up a few misconceptions about IEEE dues. “Contrary to popular opinion, our dues have not been increasing in terms of inflation-adjusted money,” he explained. He noted that the IEEE Board of Directors has been raising dues by the rate of inflation in the United States, as measured by the Consumer Price Index. He also pointed out that IEEE dues are lower than the dues of most other professional societies and added he would like to see the IEEE subsidize dues for members in developing countries.

“With the IEEE having about US $210 million in reserves, I think we can afford to spend some of that money to help our colleagues in poor countries,” he said.

He also supports experimenting with new membership models and trying to find ways to give members fewer benefits for a reduced fee. “We can make some offerings optional or, as some call it, ‘pay by the drink,’” he said.

What should the IEEE do to be more relevant to practicing engineers and their employers?

PEDRO RAY MEMBER GRADE Senior Member EMPLOYMENT STATUS Chief Executive, Ray Engineers, Old San Juan, Puerto Rico AGE 47

RAY said that engineers in his organization read the IEEE’s publications because the journals are relevant to their work. But he acknowledged that many of the IEEE journals are too technical for practicing engineers.

As for their employers, he said the IEEE doesn’t have a relationship with any except for certain large companies. “We need to start communicating with companies to make them realize that they should have a bigger role in the IEEE,” he said. He suggested partnering with companies to offer them corporate memberships and request their financing for IEEE’s activities. He noted that the IEEE Corporate Communications area is developing a program to work more closely with companies and said that more support is needed for that activity.

VIG said he has proposed several new products for practicing engineers. One is to publish and certify application notes. “When I was a student, I learned a great deal from application notes, especially Hewlett-Packard’s,” he said. “But I sometimes wondered whether the notes were really objective. I think we would be doing a service to our practicing engineers to certify that application notes are technically correct and unbiased.”

Another one of his proposals is to digitize Wiley-IEEE Press books and offer them as a benefit of membership.

“IEEE Press books generally contain a lot more practical information than journal articles,” he said. He noted that the Press might be forced to close its operations next year unless it becomes profitable. “Instead of eliminating it, I think the IEEE should convert the Press into a membership benefit,” he said.

He also wants to create a publication called Technology News, which would summarize the exciting research that appears in IEEE journals, and distribute it to members, high school students, and industry executives. As an example, he cited the weekly Science News, which publishes short overviews of new developments in science.

APTER said that there was a time when the IEEE did produce useful information in its journals and magazines for “those down in the trenches,” but that hasn’t been the case for many years, and more can be done.

He said he liked the ideas expressed by the other candidates. “We should start figuring out how we can achieve them today,” he added, “and not wait until the election results are in.”

As for relevancy to industry, “what we don’t do is appeal to the medium- to small-size companies,” he said. “Instead, we concentrate on Boeing, IBM, Lockheed Martin, and their equivalents in other countries. We don’t show employees the benefits of participating in the IEEE. There are skills they can get, but are there enough classes being offered? No.”

Apter said the IEEE should be offering its members programs in soft skills to make them more valuable to their employers.

How can we improve the engineering profession in the public’s eyes?

JOHN VIG MEMBER GRADE Fellow EMPLOYMENT STATUS Consultant, Systems Planning Corp., Arlington, Va. AGE 65

VIG responded, “By emphasizing all the good the IEEE does for the world.” He pointed to the National Academies report “Rising Above the Gathering Storm,” which demonstrated that the vast majority of economic growth could be attributed to new technology.

“Who does technology? The IEEE,” he said. “We improve quality of life around the world. Through our standards, for example, we make products safer and better. Our conferences permit 200 000 professionals a year to network with each other, and our publications are accessible to 2 million engineers because of the IEL [IEEE/IET Electronic Library]. Plus, there are the great inventions that came out of activities that the IEEE sponsored.”

He also said the IEEE should put online, openly, the presentations and publications by well-known members such as Claude Shannon, Nobel Prize winners, and notable inventors so students can learn about some of the great engineers and important events in the institute’s history.

APTER said there are several things that can be done today that don’t have to wait until one of the candidates takes office. One would be to publicize that the top 20 inventions and developments of the last 100 years were in the IEEE’s fields of interest.

“We need to get those kinds of messages out,” he said. “We need to get the word out and tell the public.”

He also noted that the IEEE honors many engineers the public never hears about who have created popular devices. “Two years ago at the IEEE Honors Ceremony in Virginia, one of the gentlemen we honored was the father of the Speak & Spell educational toy,” he said. “We were honoring somebody like that, but the message never got out.”

He noted that another ceremony honored the developers of the hybrid-car technology used today. “I don’t think our members ever heard of them,” he said. “Do I know what’s the best way to promote our activities? No, not personally. But we need to figure it out. If we don’t, people will just forget about us.”

RAY said the IEEE does not spend enough money on public visibility. “It’s hard to imagine any company in the world not spending money on improving its image,” he noted. He called on the IEEE to take money from its reserve fund and the budgets of various projects and spend it on raising public awareness.

“We have a wonderful brand, and we should keep promoting it,” he said.

The probability of a long-term position at a single employer is decreasing in the engineering profession. What do you see as the IEEE’s interest in this phenomenon?

APTER said the IEEE must offer its members the training to build up the skills they need to stay employed in the global economy, wherever the employees are located. But he hastened to say that doesn’t mean the IEEE will be developing all the courses. “We can arrange to get them from universities and other providers, and at a discount,” he said. “But we need to offer the skills—whether they’re soft skills, hard skills, or certification—because we need to ensure that members know the one place where they can get all this, and that’s the IEEE.”

RAY said one has to differentiate between employment problems in the United States and those in other countries. “There are plenty of engineers in India going on the job market,” he noted. “The United States has particular issues, and therefore the IEEE should really partner with the government to try to get companies to help promote the electrical engineering field.”

He pointed to the IEEE’s Try Engineering Web site as a great example of an effort that encourages students to get interested in engineering.

VIG stated that lifetime employment is a thing of the past, for better or worse. The IEEE can provide lifelong learning and, to an extent, it is doing that, he said, adding that the IEEE’s publications and conferences offer an opportunity for members to participate in lifelong learning.

“We’re offering tutorials and workshops at our conferences so members can keep up with technology,” Vig said, “and that’s the best thing we can do: offer the best possible publications, conferences, and educational products.”

Do you think your style of leadership is a good match for the nonprofit, volunteer-driven IEEE?

VIG sees his leadership style as one that is assertive and one that seeks consensus. He pointed to his proposal to form the IEEE Sensors Council. “Initially, there was almost uniform opposition to the idea by the society presidents,” he said. “I proposed the idea in June 1998, and by the following February the Technical Activities Board approved the council’s creation. And I did that by being assertive, not taking no for an answer, and developing a consensus. Previously, the IEEE had no journal devoted to sensors. Now the council publishes the IEEE Sensors Journal, and it also has a successful conference devoted to sensors.”

RAY said the IEEE Board of Directors chose him as a candidate primarily because of his leadership style. “I’ve proven myself in the last 10 years by serving at the highest volunteer levels, including as IEEE’s treasurer during difficult financial times,” he said.

“The Board of Directors put my name forward because it thinks that I’m a team builder and a consensus builder,” he added. “I’m also a businessman. I know how to run a business, and I’ll combine the two to create a good organization.”

APTER pointed to his varied volunteer leadership positions—including director of Region 2 (Eastern United States), council chair, and numerous appointments to IEEE committees—which he feels show that he does whatever it takes to build a consensus and get things done. “And if it doesn’t get done on the first try, I’ll try again. I’m stubborn. But I am willing to adjust to accomplish the main mission,” he said. “I try to deliver what is being asked and will do whatever it takes.”

If you were to become 2009 IEEE President, what would be your top two priorities?

RAY called boosting membership his prime task. “We have a problem with membership in developing countries and in the United States, and with encouraging women to become engineers,” he said. “I also would work to improve the perception of the value of membership.”

His second priority would be finances. “I believe we are counting too much on IEL to bring in income,” he said. “In the long term, we need to find a substitute for IEL, and we need to start looking for it today.”

APTER’s first priority would be to reevaluate the distribution of the IEEE’s revenue. “The IEEE reserves are growing and are in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Yet we have sections that barely survive from year to year and societies that claim to be losing money,” he said. He would call for a complete review of the way the IEEE handles its finances. “We have all this money, but is it being distributed right? Is it being used correctly? What needs to be done?” he asked.

Addressing problems with membership would be his second priority. “I’ve been working in that area for the last few years,” he said. “It’s an important topic, and it can’t wait until the election results are in. We need to continue pushing that issue right now.”

VIG’s primary focus would be to invest more money in membership offerings, publications, conferences, and standards. “We have $210 million in the bank—which is a lot more than the experts tell us we should have,” he said. “We can afford to experiment. We are not doing much experimenting in the IEEE, but we should be.”

Next would be to deal with membership problems—specifically retaining student members once they graduate. “Four years after graduation, only 22 percent of these students are still members of the IEEE,” he said. “That’s a pretty bad statistic.” His answer would be to change the IEEE’s membership message.

“Our message is obsolete,” he said. “We tell students the IEEE’s about knowledge, but knowledge is going to be free in the future.” Instead he would emphasize some of the intangible values of the IEEE, such as the fact that “the IEEE helps makes the world a better place and improves the quality of life,” he said.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: A videotape of the 19th annual Candidates Night in June can be viewed from the IEEE Election Web site at http://www.ieee.org/elections. In addition, you can watch a tape of the candidates as they answer a separate set of questions posed by 1998 President Joseph Bordogna.