Message from the Chair

My second Journal Chat is being written just after the successful Engineering Design Graphics Division 60th Annual Mid-Year Technical Conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. As I mentioned in my last chat, we are the only ASEE Division to conduct a conference on its own. In addition to yours truly being General Chair, Mike Stewart was Program Chair and published a great 176 page Proceedings. Katherine Holliday-Darr was Registration Chair and processed the 48 members and their 10 guests. Six attendees were first timers and will become new members of the Division. Jon Duff was Exhibitors/Sponsors Chair and arranged for four exhibitors: Autodesk, Schroff Development Corporation, Solidworks, and Thompson/Delmar Publishers. Twenty three Technical Presentations were made during six Technical Sessions moderated by Douglas Baxter, Ted Branoff, Aaron Clark, Retha Groom, Moustafa Tossi, and Nancy Study. The Oppenheimer Best Technical Presentation Award was won by new ASEE/EDG member Eric F. Kirton of New England Institute of Technology for his paper “Utilizing Rapid Prototyping for Architectural Modeling”. Catherine Newman and David Wittenborn, both PhD students at University of California-Berkeley and Purdue University respectively, were paper presenters who received Travel Grant Awards from the Schroff Development Corporation. A wonderful field trip was conducted to visit the faculty and students at the Stranahan High School engineering magnet program. In addition to also conducting the business of the EDG Division, the attendees had a dinner/cruise on the Inner Costal Waterway. Yours truly and my wife enjoyed the Pre-Conference Cruise and Golf Outing. Thank you to all participants and attendees for making the 60th Mid-Year one of the Division years highlights. Pat Connolly, a Chicago native, is the EDG Division Program Chair for the upcoming ASEE Summer Conference. Pat has a full complement of technical sessions planned for the division, plus an exciting off-site Division Annual Banquet. Look for details of this event in your ASEE Prime Magazine or on the ASEE Web Site. In my last chat I challenged the membership to become involved with the activities of the EDG Division. Jon Duff is a Membership Committee of one. He could use some assistants willing to develop and promote ideas for membership growth. Doug Baxter is host of the 61st Mid-Year Conference. He is looking for volunteers to be Program Chair, Registration Chair, and Session Moderators. Doug is also our 2006 Student Design Contest Chair. He can use volunteers to be judges at the competition at the Summer Conference. Frank Croft is our Division Program Director. Since Frank is about to become ASEE President, he will need an assistant to plan division meetings out to 2010. Tom Krueger is Liaison Vendors and Publishers Committee Chair. Tom could use a Publishers Assistant so that he can concentrate on identifying new vendors. Two EDG Committees currently have no one serving on them. The Liaison Industry and Manufactures Committee and the Professional and Technical Engineering Design Graphics Standards Committees both need a Chair. All Division Committees could use some new faces. Check out the Division Web Site and let me know where you are willing to help. Do not forget to vote for your 2006-2007 Division Officers. I look forward to seeing you at the ASEE Annual Conference in Chicago this summer