On November 4th, the Cedar Rapids Section held a dinner to celebrate our section’s 80th Anniversary!  Meredith Godar was presented with the Ted Hunter award.  The Cedar Rapids Section Ted Hunter Award is given in recognition of outstanding service in furthering the purpose and objectives of the Section.  Vickie Ozburn was presented with Myron “Mike” Wilson’s past director pin.  Vickie is the current director of IEEE Region 4 and will become the past director in the new year.  Mike Wilson was a member of the Cedar Rapids section, former director of IEEE Region 4, and an IEEE Fellow.  Mike passed away in September at the age of 99.  His obituary is here.  At Mike’s memorial service, lapel pins from his years of volunteer service were given away in his memory.

On April 10th – 11th, 2024, Leon Tabak of the Cedar Rapids Section, attended the IEEE-USA Congressional Visit Day.  IEEE Congressional Visit Day is an annual event that brings engineers, scientists, mathematicians, researchers, educators, and technology executives to Washington to raise visibility of and support for engineering and technology.

You can find out more about the IEEE-USA Congressional Visit Day here. And read more about Leon’s experience here

On September 12th, our past chair, Chad Mittelstadt, presented at the kickoff meeting of the 2024-2025 University of Iowa IEEE Student Branch.  Congrats to the new student officers!

The CVARC Hamfest was held this past weekend, on August 3rd, 2024 at the Linn County Fairgrounds. Around 100 people attended, many of whom are IEEE members.  The Cedar Rapids IEEE was represented with a booth at the vendor fair.

The Central States VHF Society Conference was held July 25th – 28th 2024 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. There were over 144 attendees, several of whom are IEEE members.  There were technical presentations, outside demonstrations, vendors, antenna and LNA testing, and a banquet.  The predominate topic was on earth-moon-earth (EME) 50 MHz-47 Ghz along with grid mapping contacts.

On July 18th, members of the Cedar Rapids IEEE and Rotary had a tour of the Duane Arnold Solar projects with NextEra Energy. It was a beautiful summer day in Eastern Iowa!

On Pi Day, the Cedar Rapids IEEE had a pizza social and a presentation by Bob Sternowski, founder of Softronics in Marion.

During E-Week, the Cedar Rapids Section hosted an event at Crystal Group in Hiawatha.  Employees at Crystal Group gave us a tour of their facility and a technical presentation on applications of COTS technology.

Congratulations to Team 5 from Harding Middle School who won the IEEE Special Award at the Future Cities Contest on January 20th at Maple Grove Elementary School.

Registration for the 23nd Annual Professional Development conference, ProCon, is now open!  This one day, two track event is on Tuesday, April 21st at the Cedar Rapids Marriott Hotel.  Visit www.cr-ieee-procon.org for more information and to register.  Procon 2020 Flyer