We are proud to announce the slate of candidates for our FY16 officer positions! Stay tuned for candidate bios and a link to vote, coming soon!
President – Barbara Read
Vice President – Cherrie Fisher
VP of Membership – Zaineb Ahmad
VP of Outreach- Nandika D’Souza
Secretary -Marzia Monty and Elizabeth Gentry
Treasurer (2 year term) – Elizabeth Hainey
2 Section Representatives – Amanda Posadas and Sadia Khan
1 Board of Trustee (3 year term) – Arwa Kassamali and Justa Trevino
Women In Technology International (WITI) and one of our corporate sponsors, Capital One, are hosting a networking and speaker event on April 30, 2015. Dallas SWE is invited! This is a FREE event with refreshments provided by Capital One (beer, wine, sodas, and appetizers).
Location: Capital One Campus, 8036 Dominion Parkway, Plano, TX 75024
Schedule of Events:
5:30PM-6:00PM: Registration
6:00PM-6:45PM: Event Open and Welcome – Networking
6:45PM-7:15PM: Keynote Speaker Address
7:15PM-8:00PM: Resume Networking and Event Close
To find out more about the guest speakers and to register, visit the event’s website here.
Looking for ways to improve your leadership skills and get more involved in Dallas SWE? Have some great ideas for what you want to see from us? Join our leadership team! Dallas SWE is an all-volunteer organization so the more people get involved, the better we can serve our membership!
Terms are 1 year from July 2015 to June 2016, except where noted otherwise. You can view a chart of our leadership structure here and a description of each elected position’s roles in our bylaws here.
Elected positions include:
The slate of officers for elections to be announced April 15, so don’t delay! Self-nominations encouraged. Send an email to dallas.swe@gmail.com to submit a nomination or request information.
March was a busy month for Dallas SWE! If you missed those opportunities to connect with us, please join us at one of the following upcoming events. We would love to see you!
Are you a recent college grad? New to the DFW area? Looking to meet other engineering or STEM professionals who are also early in their career? Join the Dallas SWE Younger Members Listserv! At this month’s brunch from 10:45am-1:00pm, we will be joined by Dallas area SWE collegiate seniors who will have the chance to learn about upgrading to Professional Dallas SWE Memberships. Please RSVP by April 10!
Topic: SWE’s Expanding International Reach. Join us at noon CST, follow @SWEDallas and @SWEtalk (the SWE HQ account) and use the hashtag #AskSWE to participate in the discussion!
Join Dallas SWE for our April Professional Development Meeting featuring speaker Jennifer Bell!
Jennifer will be speaking to us about her engineering career, her SWE life, and ASME!
Boxed lunches will be provided. Come listen to this engaging speaker and connect with members of SWE Dallas, ASME, SWE SMU, SWE Ft. Worth, and all DFW SWE collegiate chapters.
When: Tuesday, April 21, 2015, 6:00pm – 8:00pm
Where: SMU Embrey Engineering Building. Huitt Zollars Room. 3101 Dyer St, Dallas, TX 75205
Cost: Professional attendees: $5, Collegiate attendees: FREE.
RSVP: Register here!
Jennifer is a native Houstonian and currently resides in Houston, Texas. She received her Bachelors of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Texas Tech University. She has had roles in downstream, midstream and upstream oil and gas industry with positions that include Risk and Reliability Consultant, Intervention Engineer, Subsea Systems Reliability Engineer, Subsea Systems Integrity Management Team Lead and Offshore Interface and Coordination Manager. She left Chevron in 2012 to purse her MBA and Master in Reliability and Quality Engineering. Her responsibilities have included Offshore Interface and Assurance Manager, Integrity Management Team Lead and Offshore Installation Engineer. For the last 2 years Jennifer has used her spare time outside of school to focus on Reliability and Safety training.
The SWE Leadership Coaching Committee provides proactive leadership coaching to SWE organizational units, including sections, regions, and Members at Large (MALs). Trained Leadership Coaches provide Society leadership with the coaching and support essential to maintaining healthy, vital, and growing section, region, and MAL organizations. Training modules on various aspects of SWE operations, and/or necessary leadership and management skills for SWE success, are delivered to sections at the local level, delivered to sections and regions through the Region Conferences, and are delivered to all levels of SWE at the Society Annual Conference.
Please join Dallas SWE as we hear from Jennifer Bell (photo and biography above in April 21 event) and Carol Bachman about SWE Leadership Coaching Committee Modules (Knowledge of SWE, Tactical & Strategic Planning, Effective Meetings and Succession Planning).
Boxed lunches will be provided. Come listen to this engaging speaker and connect with members of SWE Dallas, SWE SMU, SWE Ft. Worth, and all DFW SWE collegiate chapters.
When: Saturday, April 25, 2015, 9:00am – 2:00pm
Where: SMU Embrey Engineering Building. Huitt Zollars Room. 3101 Dyer St, Dallas, TX 75205
Cost: Professional attendees: $10, Collegiate attendees: FREE.
RSVP: Register here!
Carol Bachman, a Project Engineer at Peterbilt Motors for 13 years, spent 4 years as an FAA Liaison Engineer & Project Manager for Boeing Commercial Airplane Group and 8 years as a Design & Test Engineer for Texas Instruments Defense Div/Raytheon. She graduated from UTA with a BSME in 1990 as her daughter finished 3rd grade and her son turned 5. She has been an active Fort Worth SWE member since 1998, serving as Region C Governor for 3 yrs, Lt. Governor 1 yr, Leadership Coach 9 yrs, Fort Worth Section President for 4 years, Counselor for UTA SWE 3 yrs and Charter & Counselor for UNT SWE Collegiate Section 7 yrs and currently the Region C Rep on the SWE National Nominating Committee. She has lead Girl Scout Workshops for over 2000 girls over 5 years. She loves Country Western/2 Step dancing and pop-up camping at all the parks with her favorite cowboy photographer Boyd and their little pug mix Buster!
On March 18, 2015 (rescheduled from February due to inclement weather) professionals from Dallas SWE, AT&T, ExxonMobil, and Raytheon met at SMU’s Lyle College of Engieering with collegiates from SMU SWE for their annual event, She Networks, She Wins! SMU SWE has hosted this event for over a decade to introduce college engineering students to professionals, build networks, and start mentor relationships.
Attendees enjoyed hors d’oeuvres and mingled with one another before the formal program started. Jennifer Vilbig, SMU SWE Counselor, opened the meeting with some announcements from Dallas SWE and a welcome to the panelists and attendees. SMU SWE President Emily Ghastin introduced each panelist and moderated the discussion, asking questions to the panelists and then fielding questions from the audience.
The panel discussion and open Q&A yielded some great insights:
Dallas SWE is a proud partner for this event. Thanks to SMU SWE for hosting another successful She Networks, She Wins!
You can view the agenda for this meeting on our Newsletters page.
On Tuesday, March 17, 2015, Dallas SWE members headed up to McKinney for a joint meeting with the employees of Emerson Process Management at their Regulator Technologies site. The meeting of over 35 attendees included networking and appetizers, before an informational session and a tour of the facility.
Stephanie Law, Vice President of Marketing and eBusiness, spoke about Emerson’s history, expansion into the international market, and other manufacturing facilities and service centers in Texas. She spoke of her own journey from engineer to marketing professional, from learning presentation skills to becoming a subject matter expert to management. Susan Hughes spoke of her career path to Vice President/General Manager of Tescom, mentioning she had specifically been told she would not have been considered for a position without her STEM background. She mentioned the support she had throughout her life, from her parents encouraging her to a female math professor pushing her into active roles within groups to a higher-up persuading her to apply for a higher position when he noticed her potential. Susan encouraged all the attendees present to take initiative to help girls stay in STEM and other women navigate their careers through inclusiveness, encouragement, and respect.
Following the speakers, Rebecca Hawkins gave a product overview and demonstration of the regulators made by Emerson. Elizabeth Biru have a tour of the flow lab at the McKinney site, including their regulator testing setup and methods.
A special thank you to Chantel Bailey, for organizing the event with Dallas SWE, and our speakers and tour guide for their time presentations. Emerson sponsors SWE memberships for all of their employees: if you work for them, take advantage of that opportunity! We hope to see all Emerson attendees at future Dallas SWE events!
Mark your calendars for the next Dallas SWE professional development meeting on April 21st! Also, keep a lookout for details about the Joint Professional and Collegiate Leadership Training in April. Details to follow.
Zaineb Ahmad
Dallas SWE – Awards Chair
