Welcome to IEEE Region 2!

It is my honor to serve as the Director of the IEEE Region 2 for 2019 and 2020. IEEE Region 2 has a proud heritage and serves over 25,000 members in Delaware, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, northern Virginia, southern New Jersey, West Virginia, and Washington, DC with 20 vibrant IEEE sections. We are one of 10 geographical regions around the world which make up the IEEE whereas Region 1-6 are the only regions within the US.

In this elected position, it is my responsibility to represent our region’s successes, needs, and concerns as a sitting Board member of IEEE MGA (Member and Geographical Activities), as well as a Board member of IEEE-USA. In these bodies, I ensure you that Region 2 will be proactive, allowing our members to succeed in their goals. In addition, I am a sitting member of the IEEE Board of Directors, where my responsibility is to guide IEEE in current and future directions.

My goals for my term in Region 2 echo many of the goals of IEEE and our past director Timothy Kurzweg. We need to engage three populations better than we have done in the past. Our industry members, the “working professionals”, who have needs which might include continuing educations opportunities, career services, or networking opportunities. The second population is the Young Professionals (members within 15 years of receiving their first degree) are the key to sustaining our organization. We must engage our Young Professionals, and allow them opportunities for leadership. And our Women in Engineering population needs more support from us than provided in the past to increase their visibility and ability to contribute and lead in our male dominated engineering profession. I look forward to working with you all to better serve all of our members.

I would like to encourage you all to get involved as your time allows. This can be as attending a Section meeting or volunteering in different events. I realize that time is valuable and free time can be hard to find. I challenge each of the Sections to have events and volunteering commitments times that can fit a variety of schedules.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all of our volunteers at the Region and Section and chapter levels, and I know many of you are participating in all three. As a volunteer-based organization, IEEE could not survive without you. It is these individuals that organize new professional, technical, and social activities all throughout the Region.

As you have new ideas that will help our members, I want to hear from you. Please share these ideas with me (my email is given below) and I hope we can implement them for the benefit of all members in Region 2.

Many thanks to the hard work of our past Region 2 directors, especially Timothy Kurzweg who has shown exceptional leadership in leading our great Region 2 during his director term in 2015-2016. His vision and goals for Region 2 and his ideas to vitalize our great Region 2 will lead me during my term.

With your help, we will make Region 2 great again!

Best Wishes,

Wolfram Bettermann

Region 2 Director, 2019-2020

bettermann@ieee.org