In this month’s newsletter we get the chance to highlight our IEEE PES activities in Region 3, Southeast USA. Our region comprises of chapters that vary in size from large ones such as the Atlanta, GA chapter members to smaller ones such as Hampton Roads. Nonetheless the sizes of our chapters we are committed to provide our members the most amount of value to their membership via different activities throughout here year. Presently, we are doing this via monthly regional conference calls, technical meetings, technical seminars, and so much more.

In our monthly regional conference calls we have invited all Region 3 IEEE PES Chapter chairs to get together alongside their regional representative in order to discuss the issues that we are all seeing in different areas. If you are a Region 3 IEEE PES member (and even if you are not!) I encourage you to join us in discussing the items that you believe could make us a better organization. Some of the issues that we have discussed and will be discussing throughout the year are:

1)     vTools and how to use this great IEEE developed tool

2)     Succession planning: What can we do and what do we need to do to ensure our IEEE PES Chapters continue to grow their leadership

3)     SAMIEEE: The best way to know how many members does your chapter have and how to properly reach them.

4)     Social Media: How to attract Young Professionals by using their tools
-Examples of one of urged chapter using social media is our Atlanta, GA chapters and their use of Facebook (www.facebook.com/AtlantaPES) and Twitter (www.twitter.com/pesatlanta)

One of our other efforts are technical meetings! These technical meetings can vary from facility tours such as the ones performed by our Hampton Roads chapter to Distinguished Lecturer (DLP) sessions. These technical luncheons are the backbone of most of our chapters for this way we keep in contact with our existing members as well as prospective members. Some of the Topics seen throughout Region 3 are: power System protection, facility tours of power circuit breaker factories, facility tour of transmission control centers, designs of solar farms, among many others! Thankfully, the IEEE PES has provided Region 3 (and all regions out there!) great tools such as the Distinguished Lecturer Program which immensely helps our chapters to obtain speakers to come and talk to them. I encourage and challenge all of our PES chapters to make use of your PES given resources such as the DLP program for it has been clear to those of our chapters that have been making use of this outstanding opportunity that is is extremely worthwhile.

Lastly, the technical seminar efforts is one that has seen great success in other Regions and we have decided to try it down in the south and it had been excellent. For example, our Atlanta, GA chapter has been doing Spring and Fall seminars for the past three years with the last one being on Fault Induced Delayed Voltage Recovery. Other topics that have been seen in the area are: Introduction of Solar Energy to the Power Grid, Smart Grid, Stand-By Generation and its Intricacies, among many others. This has been a great way to fill a need among many of our Region 3 IEEE PES members who have the need and desire to further themselves via Professional Development Hours (PDH) or Continuing Education Units (CEU) which the IEEE provides to approved programs or sessions.

All in all, our IEEE PES Region 3 stands tall looking forward to paving the road to continued growth as an organization and as members. I encourage you to touch base with your local IEEE PES chapter and see what it can do for you as well as what you could do for them.