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

I have so much exciting news to share with you this month that I hardly know where to start. 

Let’s begin with an incredible summer deal offered by our Product Development and Continuous Education Committee (PDCE Director Tricia Simo Kush).

At the occasion of its International Annual Conference (IAC) in Charlotte, the American Society for Engineering Management is proud to offer a special professional development value package. The package includes a two-day (15 PDHs) professional development and continuing education seminar on October 25 and 26, a one year complimentary ASEM membership and a Professional Engineering Manager (PEM) certification voucher. While the seminar provides a general overview related to the Engineering Management Body of Knowledge (EMBoK), it focuses on a number of important topics in preparation of the PEM certification exams. The ASEM membership includes free electronic access to the EM Handbook, the Engineering Management Journal, the EM Practice Periodical, and webinars on diverse EM topics, allowing you to continuously develop your EM skills throughout the year. With the PEM voucher, you will be able to take the PEM exam whenever you feel you are ready for it. This maximizes your chances for successful completion of the exam that provides you the only internationally recognized certification of Professional Engineering Managers. All this for…$950! Read the details on our website and be quick: we only have sixteen seats available.

Our international committee (International Director Simon Philbin) continues to increase ASEM’s international presence.

While an international delegation is getting ready to present ASEM at the International Forum for Engineering Management (IFEM) in Xi-an (China), we are happy to announce our first webinar in collaboration with the Chinese Academy for Engineering (CAE), presented by Dr. Dayuan Li entitled "Practice and Impacts of Chinese Emission Trading Scheme". At the same time, our Brazilian ASEM section has started the translations of the EM BoK in Portuguese. Under the leadership of the section’s president, Fernando Deschamps, a team of more than 30 translators and reviewers will assure the quality of this work. A similar effort for the translation of the EM BoK in Chinese will follow after our discussions with CAE at IFEM 2016.

Mark your calendar for ASEM’s first international event in Europe (Valencia, Spain) during the summer of 2017. ASEM is proud to become the co-organizer of an international joint conference organized in collaboration with ADINGOR (Asociación para el Desarrollo de la Ingeniería de Organización), ABEPRO (Associação Brasileira de Engenharia de Produção), AIM (European Academy for Industrial Management) and IISE (Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers). Precise dates will follow soon, but this is clearly another important milestone for our society.

John Farr and Jimmy Gandhi are doing the final editing of the second edition of the EM Handbook. With several new chapters and various significant revisions of previous chapters, the new handbook addresses current globalization trends that make engineering management more relevant than ever, but also require engineers to develop new management skills that are essential to be successful in a economy characterized by geographically dispersed organizations and multi-cultural employees.

Let us know if your organization would like to benefit from the increased (international) visibility that our organization is receiving. Our sponsoring Director Rafael Landaeta will be more than happy to explore all our options (EM Handbook, conference, LinkedIn, website,…) with you, to identify the opportunity that really fits your purpose.

‘Go ASEM International’!

Geert Letens, PhD PEM

ASEM President 2015-2016

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