Bill Dugary (left) receives engraved silver plate from incoming president Fred Capanna to commemorate Bill’s two years of service as president of the Philadelphia Section.

As the new Philly Section President, I want to start by thanking Bill Dugary for his service as our previous president. Bill has done an excellent job re-invigorating our section. If you look at some of the speakers and topics we have had over the past two years, I think you would agree they’ve been excellent.

He also expanded our participation in related community and educational activities, such as Future Cities, ISPE meetings, and local training seminars.

We have a great core of leaders. At our recent kickoff meeting, they generated some innovative ideas to keep the momentum going.

For example, we will continue to have quality speakers with industry experts in the ever changing automation field.

Additionally, we are offering Professional Development Hours for the Professional Engineers. We’ll have more to say on this, but for our first meeting in September, we will offer certificates for 1 PDH.

Our focus is on Education. We will continue our scholarships awarded at the May meeting. These are open to family of section members, including children, grandchildren, adopted children, nieces and nephews.

And we have more plans to be involved with area students. Education of our membership continues through our technical speakers and ISA training sessions in the Philadelphia area.

As a last thought, if you haven’t been to a meeting lately, I think you will see we are attracting a diverse and younger group of automation engineers and technicians. We are always looking for others to be more involved and we hope to see you at the next meeting in September.

Best regards,
Fred Capanna