Ref:Report to NSPE Board of Directors from Central Region

Date:September 17, 2007

To:Mary Ann Cannon, NSPE

Ref:Report to NSPE Board of Directors from Central Region

From:Michael L Shirley, PE, F.NSPE,

Director, NSPE Central Region (2007-2009)

C:Central Region Leadership

Region Activities:

Central Region Representatives from all states attended the House of Delegates Assembly in Denver, CO on July 29, 2007. A Central Region meeting will be held in January 2008; selection of the location and date is in-process. NSPE staff will be invited and welcomedto attend and participate; I will notify NSPE immediately upon confirmation of date and location. A region conference call will be scheduled in October following the 9/27/07 NSPE BoD meeting.

Several states are in the process of working through the repayment process regarding the NSPE monetary advancesfor membership dues issues, made during 2006.

All states have established 2007 - 2008meeting / activities calendars and budgets; and all are conducting membership recruitment and retention activities and programs.

State Society Information – Illinois:

The report from R. Todd Weegens, PE (Representative, HoD) follows:

September 2007 Central Region Report

• ISPE continues to attract new members. This month, we were able to host a ceremony for new PEs and SEs in Illinois. Nearly 30 new engineers attended the event. Thirteen individuals joined ISPE as a result of this event alone.

• Financial status – ISPE is still awaiting a promised refund of $2,400 as a result of our participation in NSPE’s pilot software project for the state societies. The other two pilot states – New York and Virginia – were never required to pay the licensing fee. Like the other two states, Illinois discovered during the pilot phase that the software did not meet our needs. We would like this refund to be processed immediately as this request was made more than two months ago.

• ISPE was able to provide a new leadership training seminar earlier this summer that was very well received. We hope to be able to offer this on an annual basis. Our annual convention in OakBrook was very well attended – nearly 400 PEs and their guests. We are currently preparing for our Professional Development Boot Camp to be held during the first week in October.

• We have no active practice divisions in Illinois.

State Society Information – Indiana:

• Membership in all categories continues to gradually decline; although 5 local chapters did add new members in 2007. Several activities are in-process to contact & follow-up with newly licensed PE’s and re-activate other members who’ve become inactive or dropped.
• The ISPE website is being re-vitalized and a secure, members-only link is being added. This new forum is intended to provide opportunity for “virtual chapter – type” communication and exchange of information; including active participation in local & state PE activities.
• Past President (2004-2005) Mike Fink, PE, F.NSPE is actively chairing a vigorous effort to increase advertising revenue for the “Indiana Professional Engineer” – which was forced to discontinue paper copy mailings several years ago due to financial issues. Goals include being able to publish two of the six annual issues in paper copy for mailing to members.
• The ISPE annual publication of the Membership Directory is being mailed to members in mid-September 2007.
• The ISPE BoD will vote to accept proposed amendments to the state By-Laws at the November 10th BoD meeting (Indianapolis). The primary focus is to revise the fiscal year dates to match the calendar year and clarify the geographical assignment of members to local chapters.
• Two Practice Divisionsare active in Indiana; with John Bowers, PE –(PEPP Chair) and Les Carroll, PE (PEI Chair)
• Task Force/Committee activities: Jeffrey Henkle, PE is active in NSPE CIHS Task Force and Michael Shirley, PE, F.NSPE is active in NSPE BER, and will be attending the BER meeting at NSPE Headquarters in DEC 2007

State Society Information – Michigan:

• MSPE’s increased penalties bill has passed Committee and will be scheduled for a floor vote in October 2007.
• MSPE will hold a BoD meeting on SEP 21 & 22, 2007

State Society Information – Ohio:

The report from John G. Banton, PE – President, OSPE follows:

a) Membership trends and issues

My administration is focusing on increasing membership. We will strongly emphasize the use of existing programs. We will push Enterprise memberships, telephone marketing (TelOhio) to gain new memberships and retain our present members, incentives programs such as ShareOhio (chapter keeps half of proceeds of program to raise funds for our educational arm, Engineers Foundation of Ohio or EFO), Give Back Get Back and CAAPOhio II (OSPE staffers assist chapters with programming in order to encourage grass roots participation.)

It is too early to tell any membership trends in the fiscal year, but Ohio is taking a proactive step to make sure members know that it is renewal time. We’re moving up in our schedule the sending of “delinquent” letters. We want to mail them prior to the NSPE invoicing as “thank you” letters to mitigate any loss in case of another invoice delay.

b) State budget/financial status

OSPE is still moving to recover from dropped memberships. We have high hopes and see positive early signs our extra work to contact and enroll delinquent and dropped members will ultimately be successful. Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is still relatively new in Ohio. Engineers seeking the required PDH’s are finding OSPE to be a great source of CPD opportunities at the lowest cost to members and seem willing to come back for the benefit of PDHs. An increase in membership is key for OSPE to offer more to members and further increase quality in our programs.

c) StatePE organizational meetings, activities, highlights/upcoming events

The OSPE annual conference in May, 2007 was the largest Ohio has seen in about 20 years. *** Our next OSPE quarterly board meeting is this month. *** The 2-day, 15-hour CPD Conference in October, 2007 already has sign-ups before the brochure was even sent. *** Annual Joint Societies Meeting between OSPE, our Foundation (EFO), ACED, Professional Land Surveyors of Ohio (PLSO) is scheduled for November, 2007. This keeps a dialog open to discuss common issues. *** Our bi-annual PE, PS, EI, SI certificates presentation ceremony at the Ohio Statehouse continues to be immensely popular with 400 attending this past August. We receive a number of membership apps during this event. *** Our Engineers Legislative Day in June, 2007 at the state capital was successful. We heard presentations on lobbying, getting involved in the local political process, STEM initiatives, and legislation. We met state legislators at a reception we held for them near the Statehouse.

d) Task Force/Committee activities from Central Region representatives

No report

e) Practice Division activities, reports, needs

Ohio PEI is funding a direct mailing to PEs for our Foundation Fall CPD program

f) Other needs, issues, requests from Ohio to the NSPE BoD & Staff

Legislatively, Ohio is doing well with no current major threats and have enacted several key legislative goals in the last few years. PEs in Ohio are well-protected!

Increasing membership is key! We must do all we can to increase membership.

We endeavor to serve members on the chapter level and provide all the support and encouragement we can.

State Society Information – West Virginia:

• Competed and placed 19Th in the National Mathcounts competition on May 11, 2007 in Ft. Worth, TX
• The West Virginia PE “EXPO” is in planning for MAR 2008
• Engineers Week plans include school visitations in FEB 2008
• A BoD meeting is scheduled for NOV 2008
• Membership recruitment activities include a Luncheon that will be hosted for newly licensed PE’s

State Society Information – Wisconsin:

The report from James A. Buggs, PE – President, WSPE follows:

As President of WSPE for 2007-2008, I have established seven goals for the year. These goals and the progress made to date on each are listed below.

1. Improve communications and coordination between State Board and Chapters

A.All State Board members and Chapter leaders have been provided access to the WSPE Infobase, which is a central repository of information. The goal is to maintain a database of historical information and documents so incoming officers can easily carry on based on past procedures.

B. A calendar that was added to the WSPE website during the last term continues to be updated with additional information to help keep members informed.

C. We arejust starting to develop an Administrative Manual as a tool for use by all officers and committee members. The manual will contain operating procedures and schedules to make it easy for WSPE leaders to carry out the various tasks and programs in the organization.

2. Implement new Supporting Organizations program

A. Solicitation letters were sent out in early September for this newly revamped program aimed at gaining sponsorships from organizations to support the wide variety of WSPE programs. The Supporting Organizations program also offers a membership incentive by providing a credit toward a sponsorship level based on the number of WSPE members employed by an organization. The next step will be follow-up phone calls to encourage organizations to participate.

3. Increase membership

A. After seeing a precipitous decline in membership over the past 2-3 years, we are implementing a member recovery program beginning with phone calls to delinquent and dropped members. We are hoping most of these are due to confusion created by the NSPE database issues and that most of these members will pay their dues to renew their memberships.

4. Increase member involvement

A. We continue to advertise opportunities for our members to participate in various WSPE programs and leadership positions at the state and chapter levels. The response so far this year has been very encouraging.

5. Expand education outreach activities

A. With a new Vice President over education and our former education VP unavailable, this initiative is off to a slow start. We will be compiling available resources on the Infobase that our members can use to make presentations at schools. We will also be taking active steps to encourage and organize these school visits. We will also be working to develop and/or implement other programs, such as JETS and Zoom into Engineering. The key here is having success with goal #4 - increasing member involvement.

6. Improve image of WSPE through awards, website, Discovery Conference, and Governor's New Product Awards (GNPA)

A. We held an awards ceremony at the State Capitol in the Governor's Conference Room in August to recognize several Wisconsin companies that won NSPE New Product Awards. All of these companies first won at the State level through the GNPA program.

B. We are actively soliciting award nominations for the various Engineer of the Year awards that we offer (e.g. government, industry, construction, private practice, etc.).

C. We are in the process of updating the WSPE website and changing its appearance to make it more appealing and easier to use. This will continue to be an ongoing initiative.

D. Planning is already underway for the 2008 Discovery Conference (DC). This conference offers professional development opportunities as well as providing a forum for the WSPE Annual Meeting.

E. We are planning to have members present at the various testing locations for the Fundamentals of Engineering and Principle and Practice exams to promote WSPE.

7. Expand legislative activities

A. We have increased the membership of the Legislative Committee and it being led by one of our new Vice Presidents. The committee has a lot of energy and enthusiasm and has already been active on two pending bills in the state legislature - continuing professional competency and licensure requirement changes. We have liaisons to the Wisconsin Department of Commerce and Department of Regulation and Licensing who attend meetings and keep the committee and State Board apprised of developments.

Respectfully Submitted,

Michael L. Shirley, PE, F.NSPE

Director, Central Region (2007-2009)

Central Region Director’s Report, SEP 2007Page 1 of 4