Greetings Safety & Security Division members!

My name is Paul Gruhn and I am stepping up as Division Director as of mid-July 2012. I started this Division about 10 years ago and am thrilled to have the opportunity to take the reins once again. There are major changes in the works and you can be part of it!

Take a look at our web site. You will see from the list of committees that there are a few chair positions open. The responsibility of the chair is to write brief articles at least twice a year for posting online. If you specialize in one of the open fields and would like to receive a bit of recognition for you and your employer in your efforts to help our 1,400 members, please contact me. If you can think of any additional committee topics or specialties, please let me know – especially if you’re interested in serving as chair!

The Division has historically held a yearly conference. While attendees have considered the conferences beneficial, attendance for the last six years has been below 60. Considering the effort and costs associated with putting on such an event, and considering that the Division has 1,400 members, I believe the Division can better serve more of our members in a more cost effective manner. Why should a speaker have to travel to another city, pay a couple hundred dollars for the privilege of speaking, and present a paper to only 50 people, when he could post the paper online for free to an audience of 1,400? Why should you as an attendee have to travel to another city and pay almost $500 to attend a conference, when you could access all the papers online for free? Duh!

We will also not be producing newsletters. Considering the depth and breadth that we will soon have on our web site, what’s the point of producing a static snapshot of a portion of the material in a pdf format that you still have to go online to download? Duh!

Our committees will be producing free webinars for your education and benefit. These will be presented live, yet recorded and available for viewing whenever it’s convenient for you. Think of it as our version of www.ted.com. (If you’ve never visited that site and watched some of the recordings, check it out; you’re in for an addictive, mind-blowing treat!)

You and others can submit non-commercial white papers at no charge that will be available for our 1,400 members. Send whatever you like directly to me for consideration. 

One of the most effective ways for all of us to be communicating with each other directly is through our two listservs. These e-mail broadcast systems allow you to communicate with all of our 1,400 members. The safety list has been around for 10 years. We recently implemented a security list. Safety and security are related, but the topics differ enough to warrant separate listservs. However, you must sign up for these lists on your own; policy prevents us from adding your names automatically. We have 1,400 Division members, yet only 700 people are members of the safety list (and not all of those may be Division members). This means we are not effectively communicating with half our membership. Please sign up for one or both of our lists; it’s in your best interest! If you have a question or problem you are trying to solve, there are 1,400 like-minded people available to assist you! 

Everything we do will be focused on achieving our single, simple goal for the Division, “To make our members more successful”. Tell me what you want and we’ll see how we can provide it for you!

Yours in service,

Paul Gruhn, P.E., ISA Fellow
Division Director
pgruhn@ra.rockwell.com