The Puget Sound Engineering Council (PSEC) held the annual Inter Society Officers Workshop (ISOW) on May 9th, 2015 (a Saturday) from 10:30 am – 2:30 pm at the U.W. Facility at Sand Point in Magnuson Park (Seattle).  This is a free event for PSEC member Societies, and is a great opportunity for different Society officers to exchange information.

There were 28 Engineer Officers in attendance from 17 different Engineering Societies.

As each participant signed in they also filled out a cardboard name tent with their name, engineering Society, & officer position.  The name tents were used during the table discussions and placed in front of each participant – to help identify them to the other table participants.

Steve Snelling, who coordinated the event, welcomed everyone and had everyone go around the room and do brief introductions;  each participant stated their name, parent engineering Society, their current officer position in their parent Society, and if they were a PSEC rep. or PSEC officer.

John Schaufelberger, the U.W. host (U.W. Dean of the College of Built Environments) – who owns the building (John is also a PSEC officer) – described the building’s layout & emergency evacuation route.  Luis Leon (PSEC President) and Sam Gheesling (PSEC President-Elect) gave a brief overview of PSEC and talked about some of the planned events for the coming program year.  Neal Jacques set up all the food & drinks in the nearby kitchen area, and made cold drinks and coffee available at the start of the event, and later set the food out buffet-style for the two food breaks (after the first, and after the second discussion sessions).

Stan Dyck (PSEC’s Webmaster) gave a short demonstration using a large wall monitor screen, of the new Development PSEC website’s features.  The newer website will replace the current PSEC website in about a month (the URL address will remain the same: http://pseconline.org/  ).

Steve Snelling described the way the discussion sessions would be conducted, with everyone staying together in the large room this year (vs. breaking out into 3 separate discussion groups, as done in the past) , and a spokesperson to be chosen from each Society, who would then describe what their Society did for the discussion topic.

The first discussion was held (as a group), followed by a short food break, then the second discussion session was held, followed by a second food break, and finally the third discussion session was held.

At the end of the event, everyone filled out a short survey, and Steve thanked everyone for attending the event.

The three discussion topics this year were:

• Engineering Educational activities – What your Society does locally to support Engineering Education (K-12 & college), and any special events.
• Young Professionals – How to get Young Professionals involved with your local Engineering Society, and special events they coordinate.
• New Officers – How to get new officers involved with running your local Engineering Society.

Thanks to Dave Butcher and Carmen Cejudo as Discussion Leaders.  Thanks to Neal Jacques for bringing all the food & drinks.  And special thanks to John Schaufelberger, for making the U.W. Facility at Sand Point available for PSEC’s usage.