Keeping an Eye on Technology Futures, No Hidden Agendas, New Attitudes, No Platitudes!
Recently, I spent a couple of days with Pat Gouhin, the new ISA Executive Director. We had plenty of time to talk as we drove together from Los Angeles to San Diego to address ISA sections in both locations. Pat had already read my articles, criticizing ISA's bloated bank-account and volunteer-driven paralysis-analysis; we discussed possibilities and alternatives. I was impressed that he already has significant experience with volunteer-driven organizations and knows what to do, how to do it, and perhaps most importantly when to do it.
Pat Gouhin is actively promoting the international growth and success of ISA. He sent me this upbeat email recently:
"Next week I am off to meet with Senators in DC to begin to make a name for Automation and increase their awareness of the profession. And the end of the week will be spent at a strategic planning workshop for the Automation Federation. A feature article in the August issue of Automation World will be on Work Force Development.
"We are making good progress and are focused on the right things. We are even seeing the membership numbers beginning to increase. Yes, it is incremental and we have a long way to go to get to your objective of 100K, but it is up.
"As for the free standard benefit that you and I discussed in January, we had 4,200 downloads in all of 2006; through the first 5 months of 2007 we had 46,000. So we ARE getting the additional exposure that we were hoping for, and much of it is in the international arena.
"By mid October I hope to tell you that ISA will be formally known as the International Society of Automation."
