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Office: EPIC
2164, Labs: EPIC 2124 (research), EPIC 2130 (teaching). Fall 2013 office hours: Mon/Wed. 1:00 - 2:00 pm.
James M. Conrad received his bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Illinois, Urbana, and his master's and doctorate degrees in computer engineering from North Carolina State University. He is currently a professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He has served as an assistant professor at the University of Arkansas and as an instructor at North Carolina State University. He has also worked at IBM in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, and Houston, Texas; at Ericsson/Sony Ericsson in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina; and at BPM Technology in Greenville, South Carolina. Dr. Conrad is a Professional Engineer, a Senior Member of the IEEE and a Certified Project Management Professional (PMP). He is also a member of Eta Kappa Nu, the Project Management Institute, and the IEEE Computer Society. He is the author of numerous books, book chapters, journal articles, and conference papers in the areas of robotics, parallel processing, artificial intelligence, and engineering education. IEEE Region 3 Director Election - fall 2013James Conrad is on the ballot for IEEE Region 3 Director/Director-Elect. The election will be in the fall of 2013. The elected volunteer will serve as Director-elect in 2014-2015, Director in 2016-2017, and Past Director 2018-2019. It is an honor to be nominated to serve in this important role. Balloting opens August 15 and closes October 1. Visit the IEEE Annual Election page for more information. Here is a copy of the pages that appears in the IEEE election book. What do you believe are the major issues facing IEEE?
In many cases, this is nothing more than a marketing issue - we need to show the MONETARY value of the products members use. For example, if the local IEEE section offers a free meeting on a technical topic, it should be shown that this education offered by a for-profit organization would cost $n, a substantial cost savings to the member and his/her employer.
What
do you think is the number one goal for IEEE leadership? The number one goal is to remain relevant to the
members in a financially sustainable way.
In my work as an industry project manager and university
department associate chair, I have learned that continual "firefighting"
- in this case the efforts to retain members - is indicative a larger,
systemic problem. The
problem is that relevance is highly dependent on age in the field,
specific industry, and region of the world.
I will push to have the IEEE
predict the needs that members will have in five years and start
building products now for deployment in the future, rather than worrying
only about "catching up."
What
qualifies you for the job? I have a breadth of experiences that reflect the
breadth of the membership. I have
firsthand knowledge of the needs of the software engineer, project
manager, hardware engineer, researcher, professor, entrepreneur,
student, and volunteer. I
have worked in large companies and start-ups, universities and community
colleges. I have seen where
IEEE has provided the necessary products to make me successful, and
where the IEEE did not provide the needed products.
With my past IEEE volunteer experiences and work skills I feel I
bring the best balance of industry, academia, project management, and
passion to the position. I
also bring enough of an inquisitive nature to question the status quo if
it does not appear to work anymore.
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