IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - November/December 2017 - 10

leaders' corner

T H E I EEE POW ER & EN ERGY
Society (PES) has approximately 40,000
members who volunteer their time, energy, and talents to keep the organization
moving ahead with its mission:
✔ publishing leading-edge technical papers
✔ writing important technical standards used throughout the world
✔ holding noteworthy conferences
where professionals and experts
can discuss emerging and difficult technical issues
✔ conducting local Chapter meetings.
As the second-largest Society in the
IEEE, PES has been growing steadily
over the last few years. The IEEE PES
T&D Conference and Exposition is the
most successful conference in the IEEE
and our overall industry. The IEEE PES
General Meeting in July broke a number
of previous records, including attendance
and global participation. Local Chapters
keep growing, and student Chapters are
exploding. These are the signs of a very
successful and healthy Society. What a
great group with which to be associated!
We both have been members for
over 25 years. Damir has lead the technical council, been on countless committees and working groups, and is the
current PES president. Chris has been
a PES Governing Board member-atlarge, secretary, and is the current treasurer. Why do we volunteer for these
extracurricular activities beyond our
demanding day jobs as industry execuDigital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2017.2734258
Date of publication: 18 October 2017

ieee power & energy magazine

Damir Novosel and Christopher Root

why do we volunteer?
the value in being a PES member

tives? There are several reasons why
we feel it is important.
Being a volunteer with PES allows
you to meet knowledgeable and innovative experts in our chosen area of
work. Meeting these people at local
Chapter meetings, conferences, tutorials, or other events allows us to expand
our group of contacts. We are offered
opportunities to learn from others with
ideas and solutions different from what
we may have learned by just talking to
our colleagues at our companies.
PES is the place with many brilliant people in the industry. We are
continually awed by the approachability of some of the most well-known
and respected industry leaders and
how willing they are to volunteer and
give advice to others. Hearing these
stalwarts give tutorials, webinars, panel
discussions, and technical paper presentations or speak at local meetings
has given us new knowledge and industry perspective which has helped us
immensely in our careers.
One of the major strengths of our
Society is our technical committees and
their work on standards. Being members of these groups has allowed for a
focused effort in our area of expertise
and has been very rewarding and educational. PES publishes the most standards by far of any of the IEEE Societies (close to 50%). Industry participants
use these important documents as part
of their designs and specifications.
Having the ability to develop, modify,
or vote for a new standard is an exciting part of making history and provid-

ing direction to the industry. This year,
there will be a significant revision to the
IEEE 1547 family of standards, Interconnecting Distributed Resources with
Electric Power Systems. This standard
will be adopted worldwide throughout
the industry and will be a defining document as the power system continues to
evolve with the explosion of renewable
distributed generation and new solidstate converters.
The final reason we volunteer is that
we want to give back to the industry we
have been so committed to over our many
years of experience. We also represent
the engineers who work for us and try
to be a voice for them in influencing
the Society to continue to be relevant
and important to the industry. Being
able to share some of our experiences
has been rewarding.
PES is a great institution, which continues to grow and evolve as our industry is rapidly changing. We truly believe
that it is the place to be. This is why we
volunteer and hope you will continue to
be active and become engaged in either
your local Chapter, technical committee, working group (all are welcome), or
any of our numerous initiatives. Thank
you to the thousands of volunteers who
are contributing to our Society, and please
keep moving us forward.

More Power to the Future
When I wrote my first column as PES
president, I emphasized how proud
I was of what PES has become and excited about what we can do in the future
to provide global technical leadership to
november/december 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - November/December 2017