FY16 Candidate Bios: Section Representative

Section Representative Candidates:

Theresa Krack

Theresa Krack has been an active participant and member of the Society of Women Engineers since her college days at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. She is passionate about continuing her development as a professional engineer but also strives to pay it forward to the next generation and continue to find ways to improve the SWE connections for current members.

Theresa was a professional member of the SWE Wisconsin (SWE-WI) Section from 2006 to 2013. Her passion was to help bridge her interest in SWE with her life-long passion for Girl Scouting. In May 2012, she became the SWE-WI Girl Scout Liaison, working to keep SWE-WI involved with Girl Scouts of Wisconsin Southeast (GSWISE), coordinating STEM outreach events for both groups. For one such event, she organized a booth at the Girl Scout 100th anniversary Rock the Ice celebration, making silly putty with both girls and adults. She also support a SWE-WI program to connect established and active section members to new and less active members to help ensure that they felt connected to the section.

When she moved to the Seattle area in the fall of 2013 to work with Honeywell Aerospace, she became engaged and affiliated with the Pacific Northwest (SWE PNW) Section. Theresa worked to fit the SWE PNW events, both professional development and outreach, in her schedule of balancing moving, a new job, and a Master of Engineering program. She wanted to quickly connect with her new local section and was able to start meeting new people and learning what SWE PNW has to offer.

After learning about some of the difficulties connecting members across the challenging geography and traffic considerations, Theresa approach the SWE PNW leadership team with a 2 year plan to revamp and develop an improved virtual footprint for the section, in the hope that improving the virtual space for the group would provide better member-to-member engagement for the section. She became the Virtual Brand Coordinator and started to work at improving the section’s virtual footprint.

Just shy of halfway through that plan, she has transitioned and update the section webpage, launched an integrated social media platform, and has been working to streamline the behind the scenes infrastructure for the group. Theresa is excited for some of the new improvements that she’ll be launch for the Section in FY16 and looks forward to continuing to work with the SWE PNW!

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Elaine Reeves

Elaine Reeves received her B.S.E.E. from the University of St. Thomas in 2009 and is currently working towards her M.S.E.E. at the University of Washington.

She is currently working as an EMC Test Engineer and Deputy Quality Manager at Microsoft Corp where she performs controlled emission and immunity testing on ITE products. From 2009 – 2012 she was an EMC Test Engineer at Northwest EMC in Brooklyn Park MN, where she primarily focused on medical equipment testing.  She has been a member of both SWE and IEEE since 2001 as an undergraduate student.

Professional/Technical Society Activities:

2012 St. Cloud State University School Counselor

2012 University of St. Thomas School Counselor (interim)

2009-2012 SWE-MN Professional Development Committee Member

2012-present PNW-SWE Member

2009-2012 SWE-MN Member

2009-present IEEE Member

2009-present IEEE EMC Society Member

2008-2012 Minnesota Society of Professional Engineers

2010-2012 SWE National Scholarship Reviewer

2012 SWE-MN Scholarship Reviewer

2011-2012 SWE-MN Professional Development Committee Co-chair

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Julie Bennett

Julie Bennett is an Engineer and Scientist at the Boeing Company where she currently works as a project manager for the Product Development Electromagnetic Effects team supporting new technology projects and sustaining delivery efforts for BCA. Julie earned a bachelor's degree, a Master of Science in Engineering, mechanical, and a Master of Business Administration, operations, from the University of Washington. Julie was a former Treasurer for the Pacific Northwest Section and currently serves on the engineering program advisory boards for Central and Western Washington Universities.