SWE - Winter 2009 - (Page 7) VIEW FROM THE EXECUTIVE SUITE Preparing for a Celebration EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR & CEO: Betty Shanahan, CAE, F. SWE SWE BOARD OF DIRECTORS: President/Virginia Connolly, P.E. Medtronic A t WE09, the SWE national conference in Long Beach, Calif., next October, we will begin our yearlong celebration of the Society’s 60th anniversary. The commemoration of this milestone will honor the many women and men who formed — and continue to form — SWE. We will remember the women of courage who envisioned an inclusive engineering profession. Thanks to the passion, sacrifices, and perseverance of our founding mothers — and all women engineers who preceded us — today we enjoy more opportunities to contribute technically and in leadership. These women, and the men and women who championed diversity in engineering, overcame challenges we can hardly imagine today. President Elect/Nora Lin, Northrop Grumman Electronics Systems Secretary/Fran Stuart Retired Treasurer/Joan Graf Qwest Communications Directors/ Bernice Brody, Professional Development, IBM Melissa Tata, External Affairs, Dell Inc. Siddika Demir, Education, Genentech Erin McGinnis, Membership Initiatives, Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems Director of Strategic Initiatives/Karolyn Tiefenbach, Retired Transoma Medical Director of Regions/Alyse Stofer Speaker of the Council/ Their legacy is a more inclusive engineering profession that offers opportunities for meaningful contributions and work/life balance that they only dreamed of. The 60th anniversary provides an opportunity to remember their contributions and to create our own legacy by continuing their work. The SWE archives are a rich repository waiting to reveal our members’ stories. These narratives will contribute to a deeper, more personal understanding of SWE, the overall engineering profession, and the women’s movement. The anniversary motivates us to further mine this valued resource. Despite its wealth of history, however, our formal archives are not the exclusive, or even largest, keeper of the Society’s stories. From the five founding sections, SWE has grown to more than 400 sections organized into 10 regions and hundreds of members-at-large and international members. Because this structure has been the foundation of SWE’s service to our members since our earliest days, much of “her-story” in SWE is held collectively by the sections, regions, and groups of members, either as physical records or in memories and oftenrepeated stories. Capturing the local histories will create a more comprehensive SWE story. Until recently, collecting any significant number of these histories has not been practical. Fortunately, the 60th anniversary coincides with the availability of low-cost, high-quality, and easy-to-use technologies to record and distribute video, audio, and paper accounts. Of course, capturing this history in a meaningful and accessible way takes more than technology. SWE is fortunate to have a professional archivist, Troy Eller of the Walter P. Reuther Library at Wayne State University, supporting our collection. Troy has prepared guidelines and training materials, available in the archives community, to help sections, regions, and groups of MALs and international members document their histories. (Check out the archives community on MySWE.) Awards for the best histories will be given at WE09. You hold a piece of SWE’s history, whether you are a pioneer or in a recently chartered section. You can make SWE’s 60th anniversary celebration much more than a party by committing to add your piece of history to SWE’s history. Diana Joch Northrop Grumman Mission Systems Collegiate Representative/ Brittney Elko The Clorox Company FOR MORE INFORMATION, contact: The Society of Women Engineers 230 E. Ohio St. Suite 400 Chicago, IL 60611 312-596-5223 Fax 312-596-5252 http://www.swe.org E-mail: hq@swe.org Visit our Web site at: SWE (ISSN 1070-6232), Magazine of the Society of Women Engineers, is published quarterly with an extra issue in October by the Society of Women Engineers, 230 E. Ohio St., Suite 400, Chicago, IL 60611. Annual subscription rates: SWE members,$10.00 included in dues; SWE student members, $7.50 included in dues; non-members, $30.00. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago, IL and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: SWE, c/o Society of Women Engineers at the above address. Copyright 2009 Society of Women Engineers Betty Shanahan, CAE, F. SWE SWE Executive Director & CEO SWE WINTER 2009 7 http://www.swe.org http://www.swe.org
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