From the Desk of the ASEM President, Dr. Geert Letens, PEM

The last weeks have been exciting for ASEM. Bringing the free electronic benefits to our members was an important milestone for our society as it really provides easy access to the core knowledge of Engineering Management, wherever you are, whenever you want. If you didn’t get a chance yet to check it out, I certainly would encourage you to login to the ASEM Website and claim your membership benefits

While all this illustrates what our society’s wealth of knowledge can do for you, I would like to focus in this newsletter on what you can do for our society.

And that is perhaps more than you would think. As we work towards the implementation of our strategy, there are many opportunities to serve.

ASEM's core mission is to bridge the gap between engineering management theory and practice. This implies that we continue to expand our offerings of webinars to showcase success stories of engineering management. ASEM students would love to hear about your experience in transitioning from a student to a professional engineer, from an engineer to a manager. Our industry members love to know your thoughts on new books on engineering management. They would appreciate tools or templates that you would be willing to share with them.

We need to continuously update our Handbook and Body of knowledge, making sure they include both state of the art knowledge and practice that addresses the challenges that engineering managers face in a turbulent world. Let us know if your expertise in one of the engineering management domains (project management, engineering economics, strategic planning, leadership, …) could strengthen our teams that continuously seek to improve and develop the core of engineering management.

As we continue to develop our network for certification and training, we would value your ideas on how to create local partnerships. Consultants and industry professionals that are interested to serve as ASEM trainers are more than welcome. The support of universities, professional sections and student chapters in setting up local certification events would be much appreciated.

There are many opportunities for international members to become active as well. As we are working towards the translation of our core knowledge in Portuguese and Chinese, we would love to welcome you on our team that supports this effort. We also continue to seek connections with other engineering societies around the world. It would be great if you would be able to help us understand how to connect to engineering managers in your part of the world.

Maybe you are even interested in a higher leadership position in our society. Elections for board members are coming up soon – let us know about your intentions and ambitions!

In short, I encourage you to stand up and to become an active contributor of ASEM. Help us to assure Engineering Management obtains the world-wide recognition that it deserves. That it succeeds to guide engineers around the world towards success, over and over again. That it inspires us all to become better engineers and better managers, today and tomorrow.

Geert Letens, PhD PEM

ASEM President 2015-2016

Please send your thoughts and comments directly to Geert at: President@asem.org