Every New Year brings new opportunities and I am sure 2020 will be no different. Such opportunities can of course exist in our personal as well as professional lives. In regard to finding good opportunities, some people talk about the importance of having good luck. While I don’t particularly think a lot about the need to have good luck, maybe there is something to do with making one’s own luck, but how can we make our own luck? The Roman philosopher Seneca is quoted as saying “luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity”. 

Also, there is a famous quote from Thomas Jefferson (former President of the United States) as saying “I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it”.

These quotes would lead us to think that finding great new opportunities and having good luck is not a matter of chance, but is more a product of how well prepared we are to tackle opportunities when they arise and how much work we have invested into a given part of our lives in order to be successful. I believe that being associated with a professional society such as ASEM can help us all to be prepared for new opportunities and support the work that we do. In fact, the society offers a number of complementary products and services that can help on this matter.

The professional certification offered by ASEM, through either the CAEM (Certified Associate in Engineering Management) or CPEM (Certified Professional in Engineering Management) route, provides a rigorous understanding of the engineering management discipline and its applications, and can help engineering managers to be prepared for a range of different situations. Staying up-to-date on new theories and different approaches as well as practical insights can be gained through regularly reading the society’s Engineering Management Journal and the Practice Periodical. The society’s key foundational texts on engineering management, the Engineering Management Body of Knowledge (EMBOK) and the Engineering Management Handbook, provide the theoretical and industrial underpinnings for the subject. We can also exchange knowledge and network with peers at the society’s annual conference – helping to refresh our own knowledge base and be connected with others who have shared interests. All these activities across different aspects of engineering management can help us to be more effective in our own work and enable us to capitalize on new and emerging opportunities that we may encounter.

I would also like to remind everyone of the ASEM 2020 International Annual Conference and 41st Annual Meeting that will be held at The Curtis-Denver – a Double Tree by Hilton Hotel in Denver, Colorado from Thursday 29th October through Saturday 31st, 2020. The conference theme this year is ‘Engineering Management Entrepreneurship and Innovation’ and the deadline for abstract submission is 24th February 2020. The Conference Director (Ean Ng), Technical Program Committee Co-Chairs (Heather Keathley, Mike Parrish and James Enos), and Conference Logistics Co-Chairs (Elizabeth Gibson and Patricia McDonald) will all be working hard over the coming months to ensure that a high quality technical program is developed for the conference and that the necessary logistics arrangements are all in place.

I have been attending the ASEM Annual Conference since 2008 (yes, I know, that is a lot of air miles…), when it was held at the US Military Academy at West Point and I have always found the conferences to be excellent technical meetings. The conferences really help for staying up-to-date on different aspects of engineering management, meeting new contacts, catching up with existing friends and making new ones, as well as helping to identify new opportunities, and dare I say even making our own luck.

Simon Philbin
ASEM President