Here’s a list of IEEE events coming up in our area. Hope to see you at some of these events.

1. Fourth International Symposium on Resilient Control, August 9-11
2. Section OpComm business meeting, Thursday, August 11th
3. “Team Tator” FIRST Robotics Demo, Tuesday, August 16th
4. Section picnic, Friday, Sept 9th

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1. Fourth International Symposium on Resilient Control
August 9-11, 2011

Boise Centre
850 West Front Street
Boise, ID 83702

https://secureweb.inl.gov/ISRCS2011/

The major purpose of this symposium is to extend and endorse particular concepts that will generate novel research and codify resilience in next generation control system designs. Energy security and sustainability are important concerns to individuals and industry alike, but even with the promise of a smart grid, increasing research will be necessary to ensure that what is achieved is more resilient in nature. As mobile and industrial robotics form an ever increasing role in both national defense and plant automation, the dependence on these systems elevates a need to ensure continued operability in spite of hazardous environments. Through appropriate sessions and presentations, this year’s symposium will highlight resilience in light of the power system and robotics, bringing to light resilience perspectives important to these applications.

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2. Section OpComm business meeting
Thursday, August 11, 7pm

Boise State University Micron Engineering Center (MEC) Room 301

Agenda topics:

1. Picnic planning
2. Section Congress logistics
3. 2012 officer nominations committee
4. Next newsletter

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3. “Team Tator” FIRST Robotics Demo

Tuesday, August 16th
Time: 12:00 – 1:00 pm
Hewlett-Packard Boise site, 11311 Chinden Blvd., Boise
Building 7 Auditorium (non-HP employees — meet at Bldg 1 visitors entrance and we’ll escort you to the auditorium)

The “Team Tator” FIRST FRC Robotics team and the IEEE Boise Computer Society invite you to attend a session about a very exciting program involving robotic competitions, high school students, and mentors from engineering and technology fields. Come find out more about FIRST Robotics and see the Team Tator robot in action!

Team Tator is Boise School District’s FIRST Robotics team. This is the fifth year of competition for Team Tator, and they’ve had an extremely impressive year. They won first place at the 2011 Utah FIRST Robotics Regional Event as defending champions. They also won the Motorola Quality Award at the Seattle Cascade Regional FIRST Robotics Competition, and they competed at the FIRST Robotics World Championships in St. Louis in April.

IEEE is pleased to sponsor the 2011 FIRST Robotics teams from the Boise, Meridian and Nampa School Districts.

The IEEE Boise Computer Society and IEEE PACE (Professional Activities Committees for Engineers) will give away several gift cards at this event to IEEE members and FIRST Robotics team members and volunteers. IEEE members, join us to enter the raffle and to show your support for FIRST.

For more information about FIRST Robotics, please see http://usfirst.org/ .

For more information about Team Tator, see http://www.boiseschools.org/newsltr/news/11_04_12b.pdf .

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4. Section Annual Picnic

Friday, Sept 9th
Time: 5:30 PM – 9:00 PM
Location: Boise Municipal Park

The picnic is open to all the Boise section members and their families. Venue is the Municipal Park located on Boise River at 500 S Walnut St. This will be a wonderful chance to socialize and network among the section members.

Overhead System Condition Assessment and Maintenance: Techniques and Benefits

Date/Time: Tuesday, June 14^th, 2011 at 12:00 PM

Location: Idaho Power Company CHQ Auditorium West

1221 W. Idaho St., Boise ID 83702

Brown Bag Technical Event: Drinks and light snacks provided

Presented by: John Lauletta, CEO, Exacter, Inc.

As overhead distribution electric equipment ages it is subject to damage by lightning, environmental pollution, switching surges, freeze/thaw cycles, and other issues of age related wear-and-tear. The result of this damage is momentary and sustained outages, reduced feeder reliability, increased Customer Minutes of Interruption (CMI) and a degradation of standard reliability indices such as SAIFI and SAIDI.

This presentation will review the root causes of equipment damage, the symptoms that result from weakened equipment, the opportunity to improve overall overhead distribution reliability, case studies to demonstrate the efficacy of predictive-based overhead system hardening, and the methodologies to develop conditions-based predictive maintenance programs. The review will include high-voltage laboratory test methods and results that demonstrate the failure syndromes of weakened overhead equipment.

Finally, a review of U.S. statistics on weakened equipment findings and field methods to pinpoint the structure and piece of equipment to replace will be reviewed.

John Lauletta has been involved in electric utility measurement technology since 1975. John’s career includes ten years with American Electric Power as Measurements Manager, 14 Years as VP Scientific Columbus and most recently as President and CEO of Exacter, Inc.

John holds engineering degrees from The Ohio State University and Purdue University and is the Past Chair of the Central Ohio Power Engineering Society Chapter of IEEE.

John holds several patents in predictive failure technologies. Exacter, Inc. is a developer of predictive technologies for electric utility reliability, grid conditions-based assessment, and preventive maintenance.

Contact Information:

Exacter, Inc.

7700 Rivers Edge Dr.

Columbus, OH 43235

jlauletta@exacterinc.com

www.exacterinc.com

Phone: 614.880.9320

Mobile: 216.496.1219

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No Admission Charge.

Join us the eve of the 2011 IEEE Workshop on Microelectronics and Electron Devices (WMED) for pitchers of soda plus pizza and/or appetizers to mingle with fellow IEEE members and WMED participants.  Non-members are welcome and strongly encouraged to attend! 

Date:  Thursday, April 21, 2011

Time:  17:00-19:00 MDT

Place:  The Front Door, 105 S. 6th Street, Boise, ID (within walking distance of The Grove Hotel)

Bi-monthly Business Meeting

No Admission Charge.

Meeting Agenda:

- Region 6 Spring meeting recap–Chris and Elisa

- NE Area meeting preparation

- Sections Congress (hope to get more info at the Region meeting)

- Spring newsletter content

- IEEE/R6 Award Nominations

State University, Student Union Center – Bishop Barnwell Room
Student Union Building: Barnwell Room
Tuesday, February 22nd at 6:00 PM
Early Registration Fee / Normal Registration Fee:
$25 / $20* for IEEE members and their guest
$15 / $10* for IEEE student branch members

• 5:30 PM — Doors open for reception (non-alcoholic cocktails)

• 6:15 PM — Dinner served

• 7:00 PM — Presentation begins

Register at http://tinyurl.com/4qwp4bq

Guest speaker Paul Kjellander will give a presentation on Idaho’s energy challenges, resource development and energy policy in Idaho.  As energy consumption increases rapidly in the west, the need for transmission systems is increasingly important.  The development of renewable energy resources, often located far from existing transmission line systems, is driving significant transmission system expansion.  Paul will discuss renewable energy, energy efficiency, new energy generation resources and increased energy transmission capacity, which will play a vital role in Idaho’s development energy infrastructure.

Paul Kjellander was appointed by Idaho Governor C. L. “Butch” Otter in October 2007 to serve as the first administrator for the Office of Energy Resources.  Kjellander previously served as a Commissioner on the Idaho Public Utilities Commission. He was appointed by Gov. Dirk Kempthorne in January 1999 and again in 2005. Kjellander served as President and CEO of the commission for 6 years.

Kjellander, a Republican, was elected to three terms in the Idaho House of Representatives, where he served since 1994 as a member of the House State Affairs, Judiciary and Rules, Ways and Means, Local Government and Transportation committees. During his last term in office, Commissioner Kjellander was elected House Majority Caucus Chairman. His legislative service includes membership on the Legislature’s Information Technology Advisory Council and the House/Senate Joint Committee on Technology. He also served as co-chairman of the Legislative Task Force on the Federal Telecommunications Act of 1996 and vice chairman of the Council of State Governments-West “Smart States Committee.” His interim legislative committee assignments included the Optional Forms of County Government Committee, Capital Crimes Committee and the Private Property Rights Committee.

Kjellander has also served as director of Boise State University’s College of Applied Technology Distance Learning, program head of broadcast technology, station manager of BSU Radio Network, director of the Special Projects Unit for BSU Radio, executive producer/newscaster for BSU Radio and director of News and Public Affairs. His undergraduate degrees from Muskingum College, Ohio, were in communications, psychology and art. He holds a master’s degree in telecommunications from Ohio University.

As a member of the National Association of Regulatory Commissioners, Kjellander served on the Telecommunications and Consumer Affairs Committees. He was also appointed by the Federal Communication Commission to the Federal/State Board of Jurisdictional Separations and served as chairman.

Congratulations to the successful candidates of the 2011 officer elections.  The officers for 2011 are:

Chair: Chris Gunning
Vice Chair: Shyam Surthi
Secretary: Kristen Hopper
Treasurer: Gary Ashton

Here is the newsletter for October. (PDF)

The following are the section OpComm positions for which we would hold elections for 2011. The candidate bio/statements are also provided here. The section members will be intimated once the online tools are setup and open for voting. Once started the deadline for voting would be midnight MST on Dec 3rd.midnight MST on Dec 3rd. Please vote the URL below:

https://voting.vtools.ieee.org/

Chair: Chris Gunning, Randy Wolff
Vice-Chair: Shyam Surthi, Perry Lea
Secretary: Kristen Hopper, Joe Rekiere
Treasurer: Gary Ashton, Huy Le

Chris Gunning is the current section chair of the IEEE Boise Section. Previously, he was the section secretary and the chair of the Boise Computer Society chapter. He has been an IEEE member for 25 years. Chris has a BSCS from MIT and an MSEE from Stanford. After serving in the US Air Force for ten years, Chris joined HP in 1992, where he currently is the security firmware architect for enterprise LaserJet products. He lives in Boise with his wife, daughters, and two neurotic cats.

Randy Wolff has worked in various engineering positions at Micron Technology since 2000 and currently leads a component modeling team within the Signal Integrity R&D group. He graduated cum laude from Montana State University with a BSEE in 1999. He is currently the Boise section treasurer and has previously been the GOLD affinity group chair and chair of the Montana State University student section.

Shyam Surthi is a Senior Process Integration Engineer with the DRAM process R&D team at Micron Technology, Inc. He received his B.S. and M.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Bombay and Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Alabama. At Micron, Shyam has been a part of the thin films process development team and is currently leading the module development and electrical characterization of next generation DRAM. He has co-authored 24 referred publications in journal and conference proceedings and has 10 US patents/applications.

Shyam has been actively involved with the IEEE Electron Devices Society Boise chapter and the Workshop on Microelectronics and Electron Devices (WMED) since 2004 and was the General Chair of WMED-2009 held on April 3, 2009 in Boise. He is currently the EDS Boise Chapter Chair as well as the Vice-chair of the Boise section. During last two years, he has led the Senior Member drive and increased the Senior member count of chapter/section from 40 to 60.

Perry Lea is a master architect working at Hewlett Packard. His main interests are deeply embedded design, imaging, and heterogeneous multiprocessing. He has a number of patents, pending patents, trade secret technologies and numerous defensive publications. He has been an IEEE and ACM member for 17 years and was elected to senior standing in the IEEE in 2002. He also was one of the founders of the IEEE Computer Society in Boise and served as officer and chair. He has a BS Computer Science, MS Computer Engineering and recently obtained his postgraduate EngD at Columbia University. He currently lives in Eagle Idaho with his wife.

Kristen Manon McNair Hopper, an IEEE Senior Member, is the present IEEE Boise Section Secretary and Client SSD Strategic Marketing Manager at Micron Technology, Inc. She recently served as the European Automotive Customer Marketing Manager at Analog Devices’ Micromachined Products Division in Cambridge, MA. She previously worked in Engine Management at Infineon Technologies in Munich, Germany, as Technical Marketing Staff Engineer, at Delphi Technical Centre in Luxembourg as an Electronics Systems Engineer and at Delphi in Indiana as Advanced IC Project Engineer and MEMS Process Engineer. Mrs. Hopper received her Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley and her Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University.

Joe Rekiere works as a software engineer at Hewlett-Packard in their storage works division. He currently serves as Boise Computer Society treasurer and the Boise section PACE chair. He is a past section newsletter editor and has held officer postions in the Boise Computer Society as chair, treasurer and speaker chair. He received BSEE and MCS degrees from Arizona State University. He holds a CSDP from the IEEE Computer Society.

Dr. Gary Ashton has been an IEEE member for twenty years and active in the Boise Section for the last several years with activities including the FY2010 financial audit and compiling election results. His career includes PhD and MS degrees in Physics, an MS degree in Image Science, and a BS degree in Physics and Mathematics. He has been involved in research and development in multiple technologies and products at 3M, Imation, Compaq Computer, and Hewlett Packard and has seven patents.

Huy Le, Ph.D. has been working in the industry for 20 years. His experiences include VLSI reliability engineering and device physics, wire-line and wireless data communication engineering. He has published a number of technical articles in peer reviewed journals and conference proceedings. He is currently with Micron Technology, and a senior member of the IEEE.Huy Le, Ph.D. has been working in the industry for 20 years. His experiences include VLSI reliability engineering and device physics, wire-line and wireless data communication engineering. He has published a number of technical articles in peer reviewed journals and conference proceedings. He is currently with Micron Technology, and a senior member of the IEEE.

Boise Joint Chapter of the Power and Energy and Industrial Applications Societies
(Please RSVP)

Automatic Metering Infrastructure:
November 3th: 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM

Idaho Power Headquarters
1221 W. Idaho, Boise, ID 83702
Conference Room: Cafeteria, 2nd Floor
Call (208) 871-7424, or ask the front desk for assistance, if you cannot find the conference room.

Mark Heintzelman, Regional Operations Support Leader from Idaho Power, will discuss the AMI (Automatic Metering Infrastructure Project) that Idaho Power is currently deploying to automatically read power meters.  His presentation will include AMI System Requirements, technical description, deployment schedule, business case, capabilities, and operational enhancements.  Pizza and drinks will be provided at this event.  If you plan to attend, please visit the link below to help us order the appropriate amount of pizza.

RSVP Link (Not required, but strongly encouraged):
http://www.surveybob.com/surveybob/s/49776687-d7f2-4647-a29d-20f7faaad088.html

Renewable Energy For Your Home or Business:
November 8th: 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM

Boise State University
MEC: Micron Engineering Center: Room # 106

Scott Gates, Renewable Energy Specialist from Idaho Power, will give a presentation covering the cost, production and interconnection of small homeowner sized wind and solar power generating systems.  In addition, he will talk about demand side consumption, understanding your power bill, and Green Power concepts and technology advancements for solar and wind.  Pizza and drinks will be provided at this event.  If you plan to attend, please visit the link below to help us order the appropriate amount of pizza.

RSVP Link (Not required, but strongly encouraged):
http://www.surveybob.com/surveybob/s/49776687-d7f2-4647-a29d-20f7faaad088.html