March 2002 Message from Your District 1 Vice President,
Dawn MacKerron
I welcome the honor of now serving as your District 1 Vice President
and ask for your support of the ongoing effort to keep the ISA
experience a valuable one for everyone. I am a member of the Boston
Section and have served in various offices within that Section,
including two years as President. But I am now enjoying the challenge
of representing the interests of District 1 amongst our worldwide
peers. If you are a typical member like I was, you are not even aware
that your Section is part of a District and that the District
officers help to run the Society overall. So I will attempt here in
my first Message to give you a brief outline of what function the
Districts serve, and of my duties within the Society.
First, District 1 enjoys prestige throughout the ISA organization as
pioneers in many different areas, and we have many recipients of
ISA's highest ranked honors and awards resident within our various
Sections. But like most other Districts, District 1 is experiencing a
steady decrease in membership numbers (both new members and retaining
existing ones) plus difficulty in finding volunteers to serve at the
Section level. So my primary goal as DVP will be to assist the 11
Sections in District 1 with these most pressing issues and help them
bring value to each ISA member.
A second duty of mine is being a member of the Board of District Vice
Presidents (there are 13 DVPs - one for each of ISA's present 13
Districts). This governing body within ISA attempts to identify,
discuss and present policy on all of the issues that face ISA. As
with the other facets of our lives, ISA is rapidly becoming a global
organization with all of the associated changes, issues and hurdles
to address. We are tackling new Districting issues, language
barriers, financial concerns, etc. that come with globalization.
Personally, I am fortunate to have the smallest District
geographically at "288,000 square kilometers" so it will
not be a huge geographic challenge for me to visit you at your
section program nights. I empathize with my District 4 and 12
counterparts who have up to "11,040,000 square kilometers"
and multiple countries/continents to cover. One of my challenges will
be to do what is right for ISA in these difficult transition times
while preserving the traditional expectations you are used to from
your US involvement in ISA. I assume, however, that like me many of
you are being forced within your jobs to address international issues
inside your instrumentation, systems and automation requirements.
Standards and practices, networking issues, displays calling for
different languages, etc. are a part of our day-to-day jobs now so
ISA's globalization efforts should be useful to you as a member. The
next time you are sent to Brazil for a few months to set up plant
equipment, we can help!
I can tell you that I enjoy working with my fellow District Vice
Presidents tremendously. They are intelligent, hardworking and very
committed ISA volunteers. I can assure you that we work long and hard
hours at the President's meetings plus have many months of
preparation on various Committees coming into the President's
meetings. My ultimate goal is to represent you, the individual
members in District 1, as best as I can and to that end I welcome
your input and what's on your mind as an ISA member. Within the
society membership has dropped from close to 50,000 members 10 years
ago to just under 40,000 now. And Sections are experiencing
increasing difficulty in finding people to serve on the local Section
Boards. So your thoughts and ideas are crucial to ISA's future.
I look forward to meeting many of you as I travel throughout the
District, but don't wait to see me to let me know your thoughts and
ideas. Might I also challenge you to consider getting involved in
running your Section, or even working with me on the District level.
We have many opportunities to assist the Sections in membership
retention, growing Student Sections, etc. Visit the District 1 web
site on occasion to view minutes from District Council meetings and
highlights from our District Leadership conferences available to any
ISA member.
http://www.isa.org/~dist1/
Looking forward to meeting as many of you as possible, Dawn.
Dawn MacKerron
ISA District 1 Vice President
Applied Motion Solutions
70 Becket Road
Belmont, MA 02478-3907
dawnmackerron@earthlink.net
617-489-4709
617-489-6892 (fax)
http://www.isa.org/~dist1/ |
