Introduction

It has been a true pleasure to serve as your Director Elect these past two years. By working together, we have strengthened our sections through a new “Region 5 Congress” model, and engaged the next generation of students as well as our young professionals through several successful MGA surplus projects, and engaged industry through reinventing our conference program.  As a result, we are now one of the fastest growing regions – not just in the US, but in the world.

The “Region” is an important part of IEEE – The Region connects our membership in every corner of the world not just to the resources of the organization, but also to our mission of advancing technology for humanity.  To execute this, we need exceptional volunteers who have a passion for collaboration and leveraging their skills in a dynamic team environment that links our members and communities in the US Southwest to the entire globe.

As we look forward to 2026, as Director, I plan to build on these trends, and focus on continuing to work better together at the region level so that we can help all of our members and engage our communities successfully.  We are only as strong as our weakest link, and I want to enable our most important resource – our volunteers – to not only represent our region well but also be organized for maximum effectiveness.