The Chairman's Message

I am always blown away by the number of old friends and new acquaintances that I meet at our yearly conference.  It seems as if I just walk from conversation to conversation all week long – what a networking opportunity!  Amazingly enough we topped 2100 attendees this year, and from a total of 48 different countries.  I don’t know about you, but that definitely puts the ‘Global’ in Emerson Global Users Exchange.

All of the folks that traveled ‘the extra mile’ (or kilometer) to come to the conference from outside the USA deserve an extra ‘Thank You’ for your efforts.  One of our focus areas in the upcoming year will be to reach out into other world areas, so if you have ideas or are interested, please drop us a note.

Next year our conference is early, September 10^th -14^th, at the Gaylord Texan Resort on Lake Grapevine outside of Dallas Texas.  This means that you need to start planning now and thinking ahead about that paper that you want to present, or which individuals in your organization you want to send.

The focus of the 2007 conference is the significant role that the engineering disciplines have in shaping our future.

To quote retired Emerson Process Management Vice President Dave Beckmann; “Skilled people are needed to unleash the true potential. One thing is clear: The heavy lifting will require new skills and knowledge to meet the challenges we face today.”

One thing is clear in my mind; that the fields of engineering are undergoing significant change, perhaps a revolution of sorts, and we are prepared to take on the challenge, whatever it may be.

Engineering Revolution…Are you ready?