NOTES FROM REGION 6 RAC MEETING, MAY 22, 1999

Ken Sanger is on vacation; Assistant Director Merlin Dorfman presided in his absence.


Staff Report--Elizabeth Carter
The only correction to the minutes is that the correct date of the last meeting was January 31, 1999, not September 26, 1998.
The first item discussed was domain names for section and student branch web sites. The form desired by National is aiaa-xyz.org, where xyz represents the section or branch, e.g., aiaa-sf.org. Apparently xyz-aiaa.org is not wanted, though earlier communications indicated that this was acceptable.
The Regional Leadership Conference is July 16-17 in Dallas. Discussions there will include downloading of section labels and rosters from the National web site. Financial assistance is available for attendance by section officers; apply by June 6.
Action items were reviewed. One relating to current membership figures is still open. Two sections (China Lake and Point Lobos) need to send their bylaws to National. The discussion of postage and printing arrangements is still open.

Director's Report--Merlin Dorfman for Ken Sanger
Ken's slides from RSAC were reviewed. There was also a special presentation on the status of Flight 2003, the centennial celebration of the Wright Brothers flight.

Assistant Director's Report--Merlin Dorfman
The only item of note is that, while judges have been identified for the Region 6 web contest, only two of the five judges have filed a report for April.

Deputy Directors Reports
- Finance (Miles Nessman): Category 3 rebates and financial aid to attend the Regional Leadership Conference have been granted, and more are solicited. The Student Conference account balance is about $5000 and the Region 6 general account about $10,000.
- Education and Student Conference: written report submitted.
- Honors and Awards (Ranney Adams): the National Committee met. There were some problems with the awards dinner.
- Public Policy (Juanita Ryan for Pat Fresh): the regional Public Policy colloquium was held in February. Section award nominations are requested. Congressional Visits Day was held and there were discussions of the NASA and DoD R&D budgets. Rep. Rohrbacher wants to meet with a small delegation of Region 6 members to discuss technical issues.
- Technical (Tom Nosek): funding, both NASA and DoD, for aeronautics research is decreasing. TAC (Technical Activities Committee) is discussing the question of conference fees--it is very expensive to hold conferences in big cities, but people don't seem to want to attend in less expensive locations. Funds are available to recognize and help preserve historic aerospace sites.

Section Reports
- Orange County (Tim Howard): excellent programs this year have helped boost attendance. The program chair will become newsletter editor, and the current newsletter editor will become chair-elect. There are good prospects of filling most, if not all, council positions. There was good attendance at a tax planning seminar. Tours of the Boeing Sea Launch facility are being scheduled.
- China Lake (Craig Porter): membership is up 7-8% over last year despite declining employment. Programs have been good and well attended. New officers were elected. The section web site has been resurrected. A local high school class on rocketry was developed and presented, including test firings; there was much discussion of how to do this kind of thing more widely, and the section took an action item to come back with recommendations.
- Phoenix (Keith Jenkins): good programs but some financial concerns. The Phoenix section is trying to help revitalize the Tucson section. A local Space Technical Committee has been formed. The section would like to participate in the Flight 2003 celebration and asked what they could do, e.g., something on the history of aerospace in Arizona.
- San Diego (Bill Chana): membership is up 4% over the last year; 37% of the section's members are retired. (There is little local industry any more.) There are many council vacancies. A Technical Symposium was held; programs and attendance were good. New officers have been selected.
- Los Angeles (Charity Lawson): membership is up slightly. A mini-symposium was held on where the aerospace industry is headed.
- San Fernando Valley: good dinner events, including Jim Harford and a presentation on the X-33. An Engineers Week seminar was held, jointly sponsored with AIChE. This year's Joint Propulsion Conference will be hosted by Rocketdyne.
- San Francisco (Steve Jaeger): finances are good. The grad student who won the Section's paper contest was sent to Italy where he was hosted by the sister section there. Galileo Scholarships were awarded. Engineer of the Year nominations have been received and are being judged. The essay contest is under way. The membership director is now sending out welcome and renewal-reminder cards. There are many council vacancies for the upcoming year.
- San Gabriel Valley (Gautam Shah): good meeting attendance, up from 10-15 last year to 27-55 this year. 85% of the section's membership is employed at CalTech or JPL. The section has two new educator associates. The section is doing some outplacement networking. 
- Utah (Melinda Tolle): the section had a program in Logan and will have one in Provo, which are smaller centers of membership compared to the Salt Lake City-Ogden-Brigham City area. Successful recruiting activities have been held and more are planned. The section has a Getaway Special on the next shuttle. The Unity 4 rocket project, sponsored by four local universities, continues.
- Vandenberg (Mel Desambrana): a teacher seminar was held in connection with the Landsat launch. The section is supporting Congressional Visits Day locally. There are problems finding enough active participants and officers. A fund raiser for the local junior college was planned with office holders to be in attendance, but it was not possible to find a date when enough of the office holders could attend, so a contribution to the college was made from section funds.
- Antelope Valley (Dion Ramiscal): a joint meeting with the Society of Flight Test Engineers included a tour of the Rotary Rocket facility.
- Director at Large (Norm Bergrun): there is a high correlation between section awards and public policy awards; every section activity has a public policy component.

Brainstorming Session
There was some discussion of the topic to be brainstormed, during which discussion some ideas about web sites and other means of electronic communication took place. The brainstorming topic finally selected was ideas to increase participation. A number of ideas were put forward, including
- Make contacts with executives in local industry
- Ask candidates for Fellow and Associate Fellow to strengthen their applications by participating in section activities
- Have a committee for section functions such as newsletter or program, instead of one person, to spread the workload and prevent burnout and also to have a large number of officer candidates

Next Meetings
The next meetings are tentatively scheduled for September 25, 1999, and January 22, 2000.

Submitted by Merlin Dorfman