NSBE - January/February 2009 - (Page 9)

From the NationalChair Image or Action? By Stevenson A. Dunn Jr. NSBE National Chair I remember the first time I met a NSBE National Executive Board (NEB) member. His name was Eric Esteves, a former Region I chair. After meeting “Pops,” as he’s often called, I thought, “That’s a cool brother.” He was very down to earth and humble, but you could see he was serious about NSBE. When I became a NSBE leader, I always said that’s the same impression I’d like to make on every NSBE member I meet. However, I also wanted to make that impression on people outside of NSBE, as a way to bring them into the organization and show them that NSBE is an organization that truly empowers young people. Interesting enough, not everyone agrees with my take on how leaders should engage members and nonmembers. For instance, I recently had a conversation with a fellow NSBE leader who told me he’d met a friend of mine from Brooklyn. He told me that he thought my friend, who happened to have a criminal background, was “bad for the national chair’s image.” My response was, simply, “We have a mission to ‘positively impact the community,’ and one of the reasons I decided to join NSBE was to change the notion of people being more worried about our image than reaching out to the people who truly need NSBE.” I have always invited my friends and other people in my community to participate in NSBE activities, conferences, etc. I don’t judge them for what they’re doing now. I try to show them what futures are possible through the support and network of NSBE. This is how we turn 31,118 members into 100,000. By not being afraid to do outreach in our own communities, that real NSBE P.O.W.E.R. comes to life! I know bringing people to NSBE conferences seems to be cliché for many. But our conferences are a true illustration of NSBE’s P.O.W.E.R. That fact hits home for me because of my own experience. I have been privileged to travel all over the world on behalf NSBE and have worked to encourage students of all ages to go into engineering. However, it has been extremely difficult for me to convince my own younger brother that he should go on to college, let alone into engineering. It was not until I took him to his first NSBE Annual National Convention in Orlando this past March that he was overwhelmed by the energy of NSBE’s membership and decided to start looking into schools. At the end of the day, the best tool we have to fulfill our mission and use NSBE’s P.O.W.E.R. is each other. To see the drastic changes in education and STEM employment that we all want desperately, we have to be willing to reach out to our own brothers and sisters in our community. If we can commit to doing this as a society, the world will feel the impact! ■ “By not being afraid to do outreach in our own communities, that real NSBE P.O.W.E.R. comes to life!” 2008–09 NSBE National directives Professional excellence Outreach worldwide Impact Engineering excellence Recruitment and Retention www.nsbe.org • january/february 2009 • 9 http://www.nsbe.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NSBE - January/February 2009

NSBE - January/February 2009
Contents
Image or Action?
Bringing It Home
Your Time
Nigerian Students Celebrate
Region III Makes ‘iImpact’
Fall Regional Energy
A Walk for Education
Member Benefits from Microsoft!
Success Catches On
Grad Conference Seeks Heavyweights
Al Collins of Fluor Corporation
What the meltdown may mean for U.S. engineers
Boosting NSBE on Wall Street
“Energizing Creativity to Achieve Exponential Growth”
NSBE Golden Torch Awards
The AE Niche
Jobs in Green Industries
AE Members on the Move
NSBE for Life!
Toronto 2010: Making It Happen
NSBE Calendar
Advertisers Index

NSBE - January/February 2009