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The next national conference of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE, www.shpe.org) will take place October 31 to November 4 instead of its customary January date. The conference site will be Philadelphia, PA.
The organization has committed itself to the fall slot for the next four years, says ChE Monique Rene Jackson, conference chair and organizer. The name of the event is also changing, from the National Technical and Career Convention (NTCC) to simply "the SHPE Conference," Jackson notes.
A lifetime SHPE member, Jackson is active in the Washington, DC professional chapter and served as chapter president from 1998 to 2001. She has organized several SHPE East Coast regional conferences. In her day job, Jackson is a patent examiner for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Recruiting season
The most compelling reason for the changed conference date is the heavy corporate recruiting of current and future technical employees that goes on every fall, explains Diana Gomez, recently re-elected SHPE national president. The fall date will ensure attendance of top recruiters, offering outstanding opportunities for SHPE techie and student attendees.
Regional conferences on the East and West Coasts are expected to take place next spring.
Gomez points out that the schedule shift comes as SHPE celebrates its thirtieth anniversary and prepares to start its next decade. This fall's conference will continue the theme of "a new era of service."
"Black and white" kickoff
Popular elements of SHPE conferences will continue, including activities for pre-college and college students, workshops, networking events, a mammoth job fair and a gala banquet.
A high point of this conference will be the kickoff reception, held aboard the U.S. Navy's amphibious assault ship U.S.S. Iwo Jima stationed at the port of Philadelphia during the conference. "The Navy's colors are black and white, so we're asking everyone to come to the reception dressed in black and white," Jackson says. "Definitely not 'black tie,' just black and white." The Navy is a member of SHPE's Industrial PartnerSHPE Council (IPC), and will of course have a large and busy booth at the career fair.
Other longtime IPC members include IBM, Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble. "We expect they will all be there in full force," Jackson says. IPC members support a variety of national, regional and local SHPE activities throughout the year. Their number has been growing, and the goal is to have fifty corporate members signed up by conference time.
Conference tracks
The popular Professional Development Strategies workshop track will continue this year. The series focuses on career development for managers and executive leaders.
The technical workshop track will feature an all-day seminar on nanotechnology developments. Many IPC members will present workshops as well. Graduate Records Exam prep and grad school information will be available for students.
The National Academic Olympiad will be the major event on Friday night, as student teams from each SHPE region compete to solve increasingly difficult engineering problems. Winning teams receive prizes and scholarship money.
Another competition, the Ultimate SHPE Challenge, will bring student teams and their advisors together to design a working vehicle from a standard set of raw materials in just twenty-four hours.
The awards banquet has been moved from Friday to Saturday, following the all-day career fair. "This will be the gala event of the whole conference," Jackson says.
Crowds are expected
Jackson and her team project a total attendance of more than 6,000. They have expanded the career fair venue to accommodate a heavy turnout of recruiters. Events will take place in both the Philadelphia Conference Center and the Philadelphia Marriott hotel across the street.
As SHPE starts its next decade, it's moving forward in its quest to be "the premier source for premier Hispanic technical talent," Gomez declares.
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