Best wishes to you and your families for a healthy and Happy New Year!

Your 2018 LI Section Officers team is Lou Donofrio, Chair; Jim Colotti, 1st Vice Chair; Howard Edelman, 2nd Vice Chair; Sandy Mazzola, Treasurer; Lorenzo LoMonte, Secretary; Marjaneh Issapour, Junior Past Chair, and Nazrul Islam, Senior Past Chair.

I would like to thank all of those who volunteered their time to the Section in 2017. Your efforts are vital to providing value to our members. The many successful conferences and excellent seminars were the result of many hours of work by our dedicated volunteers. Jim Colotti also arranged for social, networking gatherings in 2017. I personally enjoy them and encourage you to attend.

I would be remiss if I did not recognize the efforts of those who will not be continuing in their present roles in 2018. First, I would like to thank our outgoing Chair, Marj Issapour for her service to the Section. I am grateful for her leadership, and for being one of my mentors. Alberto DeLeon, Metodi Filipov, and Davor Dokonal will also not be continuing in their roles in 2018. Davor and Metodi both devoted a lot of their personal time to development of the section website and were both Officers in the Computer Society. Davor was also the Editor of the PULSE. I am currently recruiting replacements for these positions. Please let me know if you would like to be considered.

For those who may not know me, I would like to share some information about myself. I have always lived on Long Island. My Bachelor of Engineering degree is from SUNY Stony Brook, and my MS degree is from LI University. I have spent my professional career in the Power and Energy field, and I am currently a technical advisor for a 24MW solar energy project. I have been Chair of the Power and Energy Society, and have held Officer positions in the Section. I am very proud of our Engineer profession, and I would like all of us to contribute to the public awareness and understanding of what Engineers do. As IEEE states, we “advance technology for the benefit of humanity.” I believe it is important for the long-term vitality of the Section that we try to attract more young people.

Membership Development, in general, is another priority. As you may be aware, the Section has had a declining membership for a number of reasons. As Vice Chair of the Membership Development Committee, I would like to see more members become involved with our efforts to recruit new members, and retain existing members. I believe the key to doing this is to provide value to our members. One of the ways that we do that is by providing technical seminars. Unfortunately, some of our Societies did not have a minimum of 2 technical seminars in 2017. One of my goals for 2018 is to address this issue.

I would like to inform you of some of the Section plans for 2018. Our Awards Banquet will be held at the Crest Hollow Country Club on Thursday, March 22, 2018. There is a Region 1 Student Conference that will be held at NYIT on March 23-25. Please “save the date” for these events, and “stay tuned” for announcements of our other conferences and seminars.

I hope that you will support the Section, and will be involved in our many activities.

Regards,
Lou D’Onofrio
2018 Chair, IEEE Long Island Section