President’s Corner: Welcome to FY20!

Contributor: Theresa Krack, FY20 President

Greetings SWE PNW and welcome to FY20! I hope you have all had a great summer so far and are getting excited for our next year with SWE. I know I am!

One of the new things I am going to introduce in FY20 is a (hopefully) monthly “President’s Corner” blog post. This will be one more way that you can keep in touch with what SWE PNW is up to, especially from a behind the scenes Section Operations perspective.

For July 2019, our President's Corner topics are:

• FY20 Theme: Continuing the Journey
• FY20 Sponsor: Honeywell Aerospace
• Signature Events
• FY20 Summer Planning Meeting
• FY19-FY20 Section Operations Housekeeping
• Thank you, FY19 EC!

FY20 Theme: Continuing the Journey

I am excited to announce that this year’s theme for SWE PNW is “Continuing the Journey” – this builds on the successes and challenges that we had in FY19 “Taking the First Step” in a post-region world of SWE.

As we work towards a successful FY20 and beyond, we’ll be looking at how we set up the section for long term success both for our members’ experiences and for our section leadership experience and pipeline. In FY19, we introduced the concept of “Focus Areas” as topics that we think are key for both areas. In FY20, we’re going to continue to define and refine Focus Areas to make those connections between members and local organizations.

Our key Focus Areas and their overall goal are list below. We had a great year working on continuing with our Professional Development and Outreach areas, and even got started with building corporate relationships. And we’ve aligned many of our EC activities/events to Section Operations so members can keep track of those. If you are interested in helping (or even leading) one of the focus areas, please let me know!

Focus Area	Goal
Professional Development	To provide formal and informal learning opportunities to allow SWE members to develop skills to help in their professional careers.
Outreach (K-12) & Volunteering	To engage with the community around STEM related activities and provide volunteering opportunities for SWE Members to impact their local areas.
Social & Networking	To provide formal and informal opportunities for SWE members to engage with each other, build relationships, and make new connections.
Member Engagement	To focus on the recruitment, retention, and engagement of SWE professional members with the Section
Corporate Relations	To focus on the engagement of local companies and partner organizations with the SWE Section
Section Operations	To run the SWE business and organizational activities that support the Section.

FY20 Sponsor: Honeywell Aerospace

I am super excited to announce that Honeywell Aerospace in Redmond, WA, will be our FY20 Sponsor! This is a result of the relationships built last year through our Corporate Relations focus area and it’s great to see that relationship building result in expanded support from a local company.

Honeywell Aerospace will be providing both locations and funds to support the section in multiple focus areas as a part of their sponsorship. I look forward to continuing the grow the relationship with Honeywell in FY20 and hopefully expand our relationships with other corporate partners and organizations in the area!

Look for a future blog post highlighting their FY20 sponsorship - coming soon to a link near you!

Signature Events

Another great area that we’re going to be continuing to develop is our Section’s Signature Events. FY19 was the first year we introduced the “Signature Event” nomenclature as a way to highlight our larger events that often cross multiple focus areas. Signature event that we would like to continue to develop in FY20 are:

• Holiday Party
• Mid-Year Open House
• Enso Center Workshop
• Annual Banquet

There are a few ideas for a new signature event to launch in FY20 – anything from a Kick-off Open House in fall, to a Conference Prep Workshop ahead of the Society WE Conferences to even a summer informal picnic after the annual banquet to wrap up the year. We’ll be taking a look at a couple ideas during our FY20 Summer Planning meeting on August 10, 2019 – which is, of course, a great set up to talk about that event!

FY20 Summer Planning Meeting

Our FY20 Summer Planning meeting is open to all SWE PNW members and it’s your chance to help come up with ideas for the section under all focus areas! It will also be your first opportunity this year to have a chance to volunteer or take on a leadership role for FY20. Plus lunch will be provided thanks to Honeywell's sponsorship!

Topics that we will be looking at are:

• Annual & strategic planning activities
• Focus area and event ideation breakout sessions
• Signature Event brainstorming
• Opportunity to sign up for committees / leadership roles
• And how do we celebrate 65 years as a section!?!?

We’ll be running a combination of target all group topics, breakout sessions to provide focused brainstorming and initial planning ideas, and mini break out sessions on more detailed targeted topics. The detailed agenda should be posted about a week a head of the event, so keep your eye open!

One thing we are looking for are breakout session leaders. You don’t have to be taking on a role in FY20 to help with this. The idea is that you would be given a set of prompts to lead the discussion and then you would help the breakout group brainstorm and record thoughts. If this interests you, please let me know!

Be sure to RSVP for the event, even if you can only make it for part of it!

FY19-FY20 Section Operations Housekeeping

As you may be aware, we had a few items that are still open from FY19 to FY20 on the section operations side: FY20 Election and Bylaws updates. Here are a few quick updates on both:

We were not able to run a FY20 Election as of yet due to the lack of candidates to slate. We are looking for candidates to slate for President Elect (serving 1 yr as President Elect and 1 yr President in sequence), Secretary (1 yr term), and Treasurer (1 yr term). If you are interested in any of these positions, please reach out to the Nomination Committee ASAP via  swe.pnw.nomination@gmail.com.

For our Bylaws updates, triggered by the dissolution of regions and other upkeep, we are in the holding pattern of waiting for HQ review and feedback. That step needs to completed first before we can put the Bylaws to the section voted for approval. At this point, we don’t have a solid timeline but are hoping to have feedback in August. Please watch for more updates on this as we have them.

Thank you, FY19 EC!

Finally, I wanted to give a huge thank you to the FY19 Executive Council (EC) and especially the elected officers from last year. Thank you to Elaine Reeves (FY19 President), Sherrie Rippe (FY19 Treasurer), Marina Dannecker (FY19 Secretary), Heather Alverez (FY19 Outreach VP), and Sonia Hingorany (FY19 Professional Development VP). Thank you to all the sections members that stepped into leadership and supporting roles to help make the section successful!

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This article is part of SWE PNW's President's Corner series, where the current Section President provide highlights on what the Section has been up to behind the scenes and covers anything from SWE business to upcoming events. If you have a topic you'd like to see addressed or question answered, please submit to swe.pnw.president@gmail.com with the subject "President's Corner Submission."

Theresa Krack is SWE PNW's FY20 President, having serve the section as FY19 President Elect, past section representative, and the driver behind the launch/deployment of the Virtual Brand Team (VBT). She is a Development Program Manager at Honeywell Aerospace, with a background in aerospace and aircraft certification engineering. In her remaining spare time, she is a SWE Leadership Coach for professional sections, a martial arts enthusiast, and enjoys getting out on her bike for rides.