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Society of Women Engineers
Minnesota Section
President: Lesley Wyckoff [email protected]
Vice President: Charlene Willenbring
Secretary: Sara Beck [email protected]
Treasurer: Laura Kooistra
Section Reps: John Kasab, Melissa Stiegler [email protected]
Awards & Recognition: Cassie Svendsen
Fund Development: Amy Raffa, Kalyani Malllela [email protected]
Membership: Lynn Davenport & Nicole Danielson-Bartelt
Outreach: Kristina Wagstrom & Rachel Borchers
Professional Development: Katrina Sanders, Jacalyn St. Dennis, Elaine Reeves
Scholarship: Naomi Brill & Holly Kimball [email protected]
Website Coordinator: Senja Lopac
Newsletter Editor: Michaeline Sheehy [email protected]
Volunteer Coordinator: Kathrine Oxford
Collegiate Section Counselors: Martha Escobar (MN State Mankato),
Charlene Willenbring (U of MN), Angela Neidermire (St Cloud State), &
Melissa Stiegler (U of St Thomas) [email protected]
SWE-MN FY11 Executive Council
Inside this Issue
Pg 2: President’s Report & SWE-MN Sponsors
Pg 3: VP Spotlight
Pg 4: Scholarship
Pg 5: Member News
Pg 7: Member Spotlight
Pg 8: Outreach
Pg 9: Professional Development
Pg 10: Fund Development
Pg 11 Section Representatives’ Report
Pg 12: Calendar of Events
September 2011
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Wow! Did summer come and go already? Well, the end of summer means early school days, fun at the State Fair, and anticipation for fall colors. In SWE-MN, September is the month that we officially kick off the year. I hope to see many of you at our annual Open House event on Monday September 12th. This event is graciously sponsored by Boston Scientific. I look forward to meeting some new members as well as seeing familiar faces. The Open House is an opportunity for all members, new and existing, plus friends and supporters to come together to learn about SWE-MN, network, and get excited about our ideas and goals for the year. Also, at the open house, you will have the opportunity to meet our committee co-chairs and find out how you can get involved in one of our many rewarding committees including Professional Development, Fund Development, Outreach, and Membership.
The Executive Committee received section goals to work towards achieving over the next year and we will be reviewing them at the EC meeting on September 26th. If any member is interested in getting involved in the EC, please contact me this year as I extend an invitation to join us at an EC meeting to see the efficient and unintimidating section operations.
The SWE Annual Conference is coming up in the second week of October and will be held in Chicago, IL. A collaborative document to register your attendance with SWE-MN is posted on SWE Communities> Minnesota Section. Check out this document to search for a roommate and to sign up if you are interested in attending a dinner with other SWE-MN members at the Conference. I also encourage you to consider attending the Celebrate SWE! ticketed event for Saturday night when completing your conference registration at we11.swe.org. Hope to see you in Chicago!
In case I don’t get a chance to see or meet you at the Open House, I want you to know that I am looking forward to a great year in SWE-MN. We continue to be a very vibrant and active section. Be sure to mark your calendars for a SWE event this fall!
Please contact me to share any of your ideas or goals for SWE-MN at [email protected]. ~ Lesley Wyckoff
President’s Report
GE Women’s Network
Medtronic
General Dynamics Advanced Systems & Integration
*If you or your company would like more information about becoming a SWE supporter, please
contact:
Lesley Wyckoff at [email protected]
THANK YOU SWE-MN SPONSORS!
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VP Spotlight
Did you know SWE has a Washington Representative? Each month Melissa Carl spotlights SWE’s public policy initiatives as related to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education as well as the application of Title IX to STEM fields.
The August 2011 Washington spotlight included a summary on a report titled “Women in STEM: A Gender Gap to Innovation”. Here are a couple of summary highlights I found interesting:
According to the report, “Women in STEM experience a smaller gender wage gap than their counterparts in other fields.” Also, “Women with STEM jobs earned 33% more than women in non-STEM jobs in 2009, exceeding the 25% earnings premium for men in STEM.” Engineers are the most male-dominated STEM occupational group, but also the one with the smallest gender wage gap. Additionally, more women are choosing to major in math than men - nearly 10% versus 5.7%!
The report is based on the analysis to date from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American
Community Survey and Current Population Survey. The SWE Washington Spotlight with a link to the report can be found here:
http://societyofwomenengineers.swe.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2085&Itemid=289
~ Charlene Willenbring [email protected]
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Our scholarship program started in 1993 with a group of people with a passion to help female engineering students. After a few years of fundraising and establishing the program we issued our first $500 scholarship in 1998. In 2001, we offered our first scholarship in partnership with a corporation, the $1,000 Caterpillar Company Scholarship.
Scholarship Exceeds $100K
Since then we have grown the scholarship yearly adding new corporations each year.
This year we would like to welcome Loram Maintenance Way Inc. and Colder Products to our scholarship program. With the help of our many generous sponsors, both corporations and internal networks with local corporations we have given 85 scholarships totaling $105,500.
I also wanted to say a great big, Thank You, to Naomi Brill who has participated or lead this committee since it’s inception in 1993. Through her continued excited encouragement and dedication we have helped so many complete their education.
~Holly Kimball [email protected]
Scholarship Update
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Membership
Welcome Back!
Hello to all SWE-MN Members (or soon-to-be members)! We hope you had a great summer, and we can't wait to get started on the next year of SWE. We have lots of networking and other events planned for membership this year, so please watch the newsletter and weekly e-mails for info as the year progresses.
We hope to see you at the Open House on September 12th. We will have a booth there to answer any of your membership questions, or sign-up for future activities. Please let us know if you have any suggestions!
A quick preview of the membership events this year include: New Member/Student party, Volunteering at Feed My
Starving Children, Happy Hours, and Family Bowling Night. We also have been considering starting up our mom's group again, so please let us know if you would be interested. Our first event will be a Brewery Tour of the Lift Bridge Brewery in Stillwater, on Saturday, October 1st at 3pm.
www.liftbridgebrewery.com
There are only 10 slots available so the first 10 RSVPs get those slots! Please RSVP to Lynn or Nicole by September 24th:
As always, a reminder to renew your membership if you haven't done so already. Renewing your membership online at www.swe.org is the easiest way! Or if you aren't a member yet, go to the below link for the application.
www.swe.org/join
The next newsletter we'll be highlighting why both of us joined SWE and continue to be members!
Finally, please check out the "Getting to Know SWE-MN" article each month. This month we are spotlighting John Kasab, a Region H mainstay, but new to SWE-MN. Please let us know if you have any big news (e.g. new job, wedding, baby, etc...) to share yourself so we can mention it in future newsletter articles. Here's to a great new year!
~ Nicole Danielson-Bartelt &
~Lynn Davenport
Membership Co-chairs [email protected]
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Outreach
brought their own hand-formed crazy shapes to light. The volunteers and Fair-goers all around had a good time. The squishy circuits booth was well attended with a constant flow of young STEM enthusiasts. A
STEM was on showcase on the opening day of the State Fair this past week. Carousel Park filled with STEM booths representing many Twin Cities organizations rallying to support STEM. Many offered activities for kids and families. SWE joined forces this year with SciGirls and St. Thomas Engineering to host an interactive booth demonstrating “squishy circuits.” By creating a completed circuit using the Play-Dough, battery packs, and LEDs, kids learned about the conductive and insulating prosperities of Play-Dough and
A few of our members participated as guest speakers at the E=SMC2 camp this year and had the opportunity to meet with budding future engineers. Here’s what Holly Kimball had to say about the event: “I was given the opportunity to discuss my schooling and career path to
with the rest of the Junior Girl Scouts! We would love to have your help as a volunteer for this event, stay tuned for the final date and experiment details soon to come.
Our 9th Annual GSPD event is in the works for late October this year. And now that it’s turning 9, our GSPD event is officially old enough to participate in the event
become a Principle Supplier Continuity Engineer at Medtronic. I talked for about 20 minutes and then answered questions for another 20 minutes. We discussed career choices, next steps and why I became an engineer. It
was nice to talk to students who are currently making these career choices. They also had some great questions! It was fun meeting new students and seeing their enthusiasm for the engineering field.”
E=SMC2
highlight of the day overall was an announcement that FIRST Robotics is now a MSHSL sanctioned activity, making participation in robotics teams and STEM activities more accessible to all Minnesota public school students.
http://courseweb.stthomas.edu/apthomas/SquishyCircuits/
http://www.mshsl.org/mshsl/index.asp
MN STEM Day at the Fair
SWE-MN Girl Scout Patch Day
~ Kristina Wagstrom &
Rachel Borchers
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PLEASE POST
PLEASE POST
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Fund Development
We are looking for Fund Development Committee members who, like us, are excited to work towards our mission: “To plan and execute fund raising objectives to enable SWE-MN to reach its goals in encouraging girls to aspire to technical leadership, to advance the profession, and achieve our full potential as engineers and leaders.” If you are interested in planning events such as the ones listed below, we hope that you will join us!
You and your company can also help us provide programs for our members and the community. Any size donations are welcome, including in-kind donations, and there are a variety of sponsorship opportunities available. For more information please see the Sponsorship Level section of our website, which can be found here:
http://www.swe-mn.org/sponsorlevels.html
Upcoming Events
Halloween Cake Decorating When: Tues, Oct. 25th at 6:30pm
Why: Fun with your friends and family
Where: Fridley, MN
Cost: $15.00 per person, bring a friend for $10 more,
kids 10 and under $5 each
Lunch and Shopping When: Sat, Nov 12 at Noon
Why: Support your SWE-MN community and network
Where: Herberger’s Northtown (Blaine,MN)
Cost: $5 per Coupon Book plus food. (Over $200 in savings)
If you would like to RSVP for either of these events, join the Com-
mittee, become a sponsor, or have questions, please e-mail
Kalyani and Amy at [email protected].
Section Representatives’
Report
Upcoming Events
WE11 - The Annual Conference for Women Engineers
Raising the Heights of Innovation
October 13 - 15, 2011
Chicago, Illinois
http://we11.swe.org
Raise the heights of innovation with more than 5,000 women engineers and technologists
at the WE11 Conference. Throughout the conference participants will experience numerous
career-shaping opportunities. You’ll have access to more than 120 professional
development workshops and seminars, over 250 exhibitors at the Career Fair, and endless
networking opportunities. Hotel registration is already open and conference registration is
open as well.
Mark Your Calendars!
2012 Region H Conference
University of Wisconsin - Madison SWE section
February 17-19, 2012
As mentioned in the previous newsletter, the University of Wisconsin - Madison SWE
section will be hosting the 2012 Region H Conference. Mark your calendars for
February 17-19, 2012! It is very exciting to have the Region H conference within driving
distance. We hope that many SWE-MN members will attend.
~John Kasab & Melissa Stiegler
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I was first introduced to SWE as an undergraduate at Washington University in St. Louis, as several friends of mine were members. I did not join, though, until 1992 when I was a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I was looking for additional activities, and SWE was very welcoming to me as a graduate student. (The free food was a plus.)
I received my degrees in chemical engineering: a BSChE and MSChE from Washington University, and a PhD from the UW-Madison. My PhD thesis work was with Warren Stewart (of "BSL" fame), and involved modeling a special class of chemical reactors, with a strong emphasis on model development and the numerical methods required for system simulation.
I am currently a Section Representative for the Minnesota Section, a role I've served in before with the Detroit Section. I'm also the immediate past Region H Secretary, and have held several volunteer positions at the local level with the Detroit, Wisconsin, and UW-Madison sections. It's a nice problem to have that I have to work out how to catch up with my many SWE friends from around the Region and beyond
at the Annual and Regional Conferences around all the other activities going on!
Since moving to Saint Paul I have become more engaged with the Minnesota Section, with both Professional Development and Outreach Committee activities. I plan to continue to learn more about how we do things here, and share my previous experience as well. We've enjoyed learning more about the Twin Cities. This is as far west as I've lived, although not as far north.
I am a Chief Engineer with Ricardo, a premium engineering consultancy serving the automotive industry (broadly defined) and the clean energy space. With my background in chemical engineering, I have several areas of technical responsibility, including emissions control technology, such as catalytic converters and similar systems for diesel engines; fuels and lubricants, with an emphasis on future fuels; and hydrogen and fuel cells. My responsibilities include meeting with customers, developing proposals, and leading projects. I currently telecommute from here to my office in Detroit, which has been its own interesting adjustment this last year.
Outside of work and SWE, I enjoy cooking, much to the delight of my busy graduate student wife Lisa. We also enjoy traveling in the U.S. and abroad. I also enjoy learning languages, including shoring up my slowly degrading Swedish language skills. I am originally from the Washington, D.C., area, which has spoiled me on being able to see museums for free, but gave me the chance to work on one of my most lasting accomplishments: a mosaic in the Elephant House of the National Zoo.
~ John Kasab
Member Spotlight: Get To Know SWE-MN
John Kasab
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Congrats to Sara!
SWE-MN Secretary Sara Beck and husband, Rich Beck, welcomed a beautiful baby girl to the world on August 15th! Ruth Janine Beck was born at 7:00 AM weighing 7 lbs. 6 oz. and measuring 20 in.
Promotion for Lesley!
Congrats to SWE-MN President, Lesley Wyckoff, on her recent promotion to R&D Project Manager at Stratasys. Lesley has worked at Stratasys since June 2007 as a mechanical engineer.
Baby Girl for Jenna!
SWE-MN member Jenna Rendon and husband, Stan, welcomed daughter Eva Sofia on July 20th at 3:07 am. She weighed 7 lbs. 6 oz. and was 20.5 in.
Membership News
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October 2011
Open
House
EC
Meeting
SWE
Annual
Conference
SWE
Annual
Conference
SWE
Annual
Conference
Halloween
Cake
Decorating
RSVP
Deadline
For
Open House
RSVP
Brewery
Tour
HART
Dinner
Brewery
Tour