Naim Logic, IEEE PES Region 6 representative

The IEEE PES Region 6 has 24 Chapters in the western U.S. and three of these chapters are joint chapters.

Geographically, it covers the states of HI, AK, WA, MT, OR, ID, WY, CA, NV, UT, AZ, and NM. One Chapter representative covers 3 states: ID, OR, and WA. There is a need to have one more Chapter representative, but so far I wasn’t able to find volunteer for this position. As a reminder, previously Region 6 had two Chapter representatives.

Recently, two more Chapters were established: Hawaii and Western Montana.

Most PES chapters in the region 6 are very active providing technical and social service to local members, showing the benefits of being a PES member.

Nineteen chapters have established their web sites. Unfortunately, only 7 of them are working properly, 5 of them are not updated this year yet, 3 are linked to Section web site.

In addition, there are nine Student PES branches established in the Region 6.

Recently, one more Student Branch Chapter was established: University of Nevada, Reno.

As result of such activities 9 Chapters have submitted the IEEE PES Chapters Annual Report / High Performing Chapter Program (HPCP) information for program year 2016 and received funding in the amount of $5,270.

Although it is the largest number of the HPCP awardees in US and Canada: regions 1 to 7 (9 out of 36) I’ll continue to stimulate Chapter officers to report their activities through HPCP forms.

The most of our communications are by e-mails. Although offered, phone calls or conference calls are not so popular.

For example, some notable chapter activities and successes are:

• Orange County Chapter has already organized 6 technical meetings with interesting topics and consequently, significant member attendance. They arranged the PES President (Dr. Damir Novosel) to speak to them in October.
• Idaho Chapter has extensive Education activities including 5 lectures that can be used for Professional Development Hours (PDH).
• Metropolitan Los Angeles Chapter has organized presentation with very hot topic: “Distributed Energy Resources Interconnection Procedures in California”. The presentation was well received by the audience.
• San Fernando Valley Chapter has already organized 9 technical meetings with interesting topics.
• Spokane Chapter held a NESC Class and had over 30 participants with the net income of about $4,500.
• San Francisco Chapter has arranged a 2-day workshop on Distributed Energy Resources (DER) and its impact on electric grid.
  • September 6-7 at CPUC auditorium in San Francisco.
  • 18 speakers from PG&E, SCE, CAISO, NREL, EPRI, NREL, Berkeley, Florida CAPS, and industry such as Schneider, Eaton, Exponent, Schweitzer labs.
  • Damir Novosel and President Picker were the key note speakers.
• On the other hand, Oakland East Bay and Alaska Chapters are reporting struggling with their activities…

Chapters are finding ways to collect money necessary to support their activities.

One good example is from Phoenix, AZ. They are traditionally organizing yearly Golf Tournament. This is excellent fundraising, socializing and networking event.

In general, the PES Chapters in Region 6 did a great job. It is expecting that the momentum will continue to further improve the chapter activities and provide more benefits to our PES members.

Besides helping chapter officers in their volunteer efforts I was active as:

• Chair of the PES Scholarship Plus Program Regional Selection Subcommittee, and
• Evaluating nominations of candidates for speakers in Distinguished Lecturer Program – DLP.