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     MINUTES OF THE
     UTAH ENGINEERS COUNCIL
     March 3, 2004 - 12:00 Noon
     Van Boerum & Frank
     330 South 300 East, Salt Lake City, Utah


Members Present:                                                Members Absent:
     Jeff Watkins, Chair                   ASHRAE       Wendy Grosvenor, Treasurer      ASHRAE
     Linda Bachmeier, Vice-Chair    SWE              Carl Cook, 1st Past Chair           ASCE
     Sarah Winkler, 2nd Past Chair  SEAU            Bob Davis                                   ACEC-Utah
     Paul C. Oestreich                      IEEE              David Merrill                              ASME
     Carl Eriksson                            SEAU            Chad Walker                              IES
     Ken Randle                              AIAA             Jay Nelson                                  ITE
     Kiran Bhayani                          AAEE             Mike Norrie                               SAME
     Rick Campagna                       ASCE                        
     Dan Church                             USPE
     Jim Belshe                               USPE
     Lenard J. Barney                     UCLS
     Susan Merrill                           Executive Secretary
                                                                                                     

1.        WELCOME

Jeff Watkins, UEC Chair, called the meeting to order at 12:05 p.m.

2.        APPROVAL OF MINUTES - February 4, 2004

Motion:        Carl Eriksson moved to approve the minutes.  Sarah Winkler seconded the motion.  The minutes were unanimously approved.

3.        FINANCIAL REPORT - Wendy Grosvenor

Wendy was out of town and not able to attend.  She gave her financial report to Jeff to distribute.  There are apparently some outstanding items that were paid for at the banquet that are not included in the financial report.  The $1670 is the deposit Linda made following the banquet for money she received at the banquet.  The scholarship receipts show $1,355 received, but Ken said we have received $3,105.  Apparently, some of the amounts in the budget report are incorrect.  We’ll let Wendy know so she can correct them and see if the report can be approved next month.

Rick Campagna mentioned that at this point, it appears that we are lacking $6,900 for banquet tickets.  He has received $5,180.  Paul gave Susan $945 from IEEE.  Jeff has some checks in his office for tickets.  Rick, and Jeff gave Susan the banquet ticket checks they had.  Susan will get them to Wendy.

4.        COMMITTEE REPORTS

     A.        E-Week - Linda Bachmeier: The banquet went beautifully.  There was a lot more room than at Abravanel Hall.  Linda asked the audio/video people about the loud popping noise that kept occurring.  Apparently, they isolated it to a particular box, the one the guitar was going through.  She hasn’t received a reply back from them about the cause of the noise.

             Utah Foods did a great job.  Linda has the bill for the audio/video stuff.  She doesn’t have the bill from Utah Foods yet.  The corsage bill has been paid.  We served 311 meals.  We had committed to 321.  We had about 17 people not show up for a variety of reasons.  Doing the flowers through Utah Foods worked really well.  It wasn’t any more expensive and it simplified life a lot.  The flowers were beautiful.  

             If we use the Grand Hall again next year, we need to consider that ACEC didn’t really push the banquet again this year, and they sold 125 tickets this year versus 75 the previous year, so there probably is still the potential for more people next year.  The only thing on this setup that was a little rough was that the first row of tables probably still struggled with line of vision, even though we set up extra screens.  So if we have about the same number of people, we may want to pull that first row back a few feet to increase the angles to the screens.  Multiple screens are essential at that venue.

             Linda has gotten really good feedback on the speaker.  There were many favorable comments.

     B.        Awards Committee - Carl Cook: Carl was out of town and not able to attend the meeting.  For the record, the award winners were as follows:

             Engineering Educator of the Year - Dave Widauf from USU
             Engineer of the Year - Rachel McQuillen
             Fresh Faces in Engineering - Stephanie Mecham
             MESA Teacher of the Year - Jelena Jensen from Granger High School
             Scholarship (BYU) - Aimee Worthen

             Lenard Barney mentioned that Dale Bennett was chosen as surveyor of the year at the UCLS
             convention three weeks ago.

     C.        Scholarship Committee - Wendy Grosvenor: The scholarship check was given to Aimee Worthen.  Next year the scholarship will be given to Utah State University.  Thanks to Paul Oestreich for filling in for Wendy at the banquet and presenting the scholarship to the winner.

             The MESA teacher did get her check.

     D.        Publication Committee - Sarah Winkler: Jeff mentioned that Sarah did a very nice job on the Journal.  Sarah thanked everyone for their advertising support.  Sarah passed out a report showing expenses and income for the Journal.  Expenses totaled $10,538 and Income totaled $11,058, so we actually came out ahead by $520.  Sarah asked if we should make a decision about covering IEEE’s mailing permit fee which was $150 this year.  Sarah paid it this year because it hadn’t been paid when she went to use it for the Journal.

             Sarah had good success with advertisements and business card ads because people seemed to want to see the Journal survive.

             Jim Belshe has expressed a willingness to take over the Journal next year.  Many of his firm’s clients go through McGraw-Hill/Intermountain Contractor.  Jim would be willing to do the Journal with McGraw-Hill, but he does not want to do what Sarah has done this year.  It was mentioned that our member societies are not able to give out their memberships addresses for a directory in the Journal.  Jim felt that Intermountain Contractor would not be interested in doing the Journal without the directory.  We will need to talk with Don at Intermountain Contractor - Jim’s conversations with Don have indicated that the understanding was that there would be a directory.  

             Jim suggested that for the directory we really don’t want personal listings, but rather UEC would send out an ad to engineering firms and societies saying we would like to list their firm for free in our directory and give them a form to fill out.  Then, if they want to buy bigger ads, they can from Intermountain Contractor.  That approach might work.  It would be more helpful to have businesses listed, anyway.  That way, if they choose, those within the business can list themselves individually if they desire.  Jim feels that after the first year, people will see the results and more will probably want to participate in the future.  Jim’s firm put a half-page ad in the Journal and received five calls from the ad and he retained three new clients, so he felt he got a good return for his advertising money.  He knows that people read the Journal and look at the ads.

             Ken Randle wants to make sure that those who advertised in the Journal received a copy of the Journal.  Sarah said that every person who bought an ad had a Journal mailed to them.  Ken said John Hill hasn’t seen the Journal yet, and he put in a full-page ad.   Sarah verified that 5,111 Journals were sent to the post office and the advertisers were on the list, but anything beyond that is out of her control.  Neither Sarah nor Jeff Watkins received their Journals in the mail, however, so she knows at least two were lost in the mail, so there were probably even more.  Sarah will give Ken some Journal copies so he can make sure John Hill gets a copy.

             Larry Reaveley at the U of U is a big fan of the Journal.  He bought the back cover and requested that if we had extra copies of the Journal, we would distribute them to the high schools to promote engineering.  He asked if we would make a contact with someone in the high school and drop off the Journals to them.  Sarah said we would do that.  She got a list of high schools from the University of Utah, but it is a list of MESA program contacts, so not all of the high schools are listed.  Linda said that MESA has a spring awards banquet and she doesn’t think they have had it yet.  She wondered if that would be the place to distribute the Journals.  Susan expressed concern that if we just distribute the Journals to MESA, then we are at risk of leaving out a large group of students - Caucasian boys.  Hopefully the MESA teachers wouldn’t just distribute to their students, but we would have to make sure they have the understanding that the Journal is to go to all students who are interested in engineering, not just MESA students.

             Sarah suggested that each representative take an armload of Journals and drop them off to his or her favorite high school.  Suggested contacts would be science and math teachers and some math or science counselors.  We will distribute about 30 copies per school.  We will keep some to show to potential Journal advertisers for next year and we will give the remainder to MESA to distribute at their banquet.  Sarah has a list of high schools that will be covered.

     E.        Fund-raising Committee - Paul Oestreich: We had a very successful year.  We are still missing the check from Triumph Gear Systems.  It is supposed to be in the mail.  All other donations have been received.  We have brought in more money this year than ever before.

             Ken passed out a chart showing what scholarship money should be in savings.  We really should put the scholarship money in a separate account.  Jeff feels that we need to establish a trend of receiving more scholarship money donations before we decide to give out more scholarships each year.  We don’t want to set a precedence we can’t continue in the future.

             Motion:        Linda Bachmeier moved that we go ahead and separate the scholarship funds and put them in a separate savings account.  Kiran Bhayani seconded the motion.  The motion was approved unanimously.

             It was suggested that we not only put the money in a separate account, but we put it in some kind of a growth fund, one that perhaps would be renewed each year so we could withdraw money without being penalized.

     F.        Membership Committee - Jay Nelson: Jay was not in attendance.

     G.        Scholarship Committee - Wendy Grosvenor: Wendy was not in attendance.

     H.        Nominating Committee - Sarah Winkler: The nominating committee has met and has come up with a slate of nominees for Chair, Vice-Chair, and Treasurer.  Wendy Grosvenor has indicated that she will not be able to continue serving next year because she has a new position at Johnson Controls that requires a good deal of traveling.  Therefore, the slate of nominees for the 2004-2005 year is as follows:

             Chair:                Linda Bachmeier
             Vice-Chair:        Paul Oestreich
             Treasurer:        Dale Bennett

5.        OTHER BUSINESS

Susan asked Jeff if he has the pictures of the award winners so she can post them on the Web site.  He will give them to her after the meeting.  The Journal cannot be put on the Web site currently because of software limitations.  Susan will see if she can with the Front Page software.  Sarah will mail Susan a copy of the Journal in PDF format.

6.        ADJOURNMENT

Motion:        Linda Bachmeier moved to adjourn the meeting.

The meeting was adjourned at 1:03 p.m.