President's Message

The Los Angeles Chapter contacted us last year about the possibility of working with them on a regional conference.  There was more discussion at the International Workshop in January at which we learned something about what is involved in planning and organizing such an event.  At the board of directors meeting there was some uncertainty whether the chapter can muster the membership to support the endeavor but it was viewed as an excellent learning opportunity.

The Los Angeles Chapter has experience putting together conferences and is leading the initial planning.  Currently, the San Diego, Central and Southern Arizona Chapters are also engaging in supporting this regional conference.  Bill Sanders, Dave Mason and I are representing our chapter.  We are learning about the logistics involved in putting on a conference:  finding keynote speaker(s), finding a venue, advertising the event, setting up registration, defining technical program, call for papers and review/selection.  The latter is most important to ensure that participants find the investment of time and money to attend is rewarding.

The original plan was to try and have the conference in the fall of this year.  But that did not afford sufficient time to organize the technical program.  The team has agreed that we should delay it until spring of next year.  This will provide the time to gather and review potential papers in order to promote a quality event.

The objective of the regional conference is to offer local INCOSE members who may not have the resources to attend the International Symposium in July the opportunity to discuss and learn about innovative applications of systems engineering to new domains and challenges and network with other professionals.

The theme planned for the conference is Systems Engineering – One Discipline Providing Global Value:  Fundamentals, Applications, and Innovation.  This conference will consider that systems engineering is a global discipline, and that its concepts and fundamentals can be adapted for many different applications to solve worldwide concerns and create value.

The details of what technical tracks will be offered are still being defined.  The proposed tracks that are being considered are:

• Value of SE in Bio, Trans, etc.

• Agile

• Entertainment SE

• MBSE

• SE Processes / Tools

• Biomedical

• Cybersecurity / Data Analytics

• Autonomous Systems and Vehicles 

You are invited to submit a paper for consideration on any of these topics or other topics that are germane.  There is an opportunity to present the papers planned for the Transformation Caucus series to be submitted this fall to Insight.  This is an excellent opportunity for members to get published, share their knowledge with systems engineers, and be recognized.  If interested, please prepare an extended abstract, a page or two, that describes your work in enough detail for a good review.   Authoring guidelines will be provided later.  Please submit your abstract to rollieolsonjr@gmail.com.

By Rollie Olson

INCOSE SFBAC President

George Vlay Announcement

It saddens me to announce the passing of George Vlay. George was a member of INCOSE in 1991 and was a motivational force behind the forming of the San Francisco Bay Area chapter in 1992. George was an active member of the chapter, sharing his vast experience as a presenter and last year engaging the board on ways to improve members involvement and appreciation for the organization. This past year he represented the chapter at the Silicon Valley Engineering Society. George was an inspiration and will be sorely missed.

Full Obituary: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/mercurynews/obituary.aspx?pid=174373980

Respectfully,
Rollie Olson
INCOSE SFBAC President

INCOSE Website Update

The new INCOSE web site, incose.org, including the membership system, Store and Connect has launched!

All public INCOSE resources are available to you here on the new site, and as a member of INCOSE you can also use the Store and Connect once you log in. Your old INCOSE login format is no longer the way to access Connect, and so click the Member Login button at the top right corner and you will see instructions to get started, with your email address as your Username. 

If you need help, please look at the Help resources on Connect, or if you have difficulty getting connected email helpdesk@incose.org.

Note: if you have previously accessed the beta.incose.org site and logged in there, that login continues to be your new incose.org login.

Mastering Agile Requirements Workshop

The chapter is looking into a training opportunity for members. Agile engineering development has become standard practice for software but there is applicability to systems engineering, as well. A local company provides workshops on agile methods, Agile Learning Labs, and has a workshop on Mastering Agile Requirements we are working with them to offer a Saturday workshop to our members. The date, May timeframe, and location are still tentative as is the cost, somewhere between $400-$500 depending on the venue. There is a minimum of 15 participants. If you are interested, please respond to rollie.olson@incose.org in order for us to proceed with planning.

Upcoming Membership Meetings: April & May

The INCOSE SFBAC will have their April and May 2015 Membership Meetings at San Jose State University. 

April 13, 2015, Yang-Yang Zhao, Associate Professor, Norwegian Institute of Systems Engineering (NISE), Norway and Visiting Associate Professor, Center for Design Research (CDR), Stanford, USA will give a talk called "Human-Centered Development of Systems Engineering in Norwegian Engineering Industries."

May 11, 2015, Andrew Webster, Agile Coach, PayPal will give a talk called, "The Seven Wastes: Could You Be A Little Leaner?"

New Member Spotlight: Shawn Mazzeo

Shawn Mazzeo is a project manager for Project Management Advisors (PMA)  specializing in managing the engineering design, construction and commissioning process for bio-pharma projects. Shawn has over six years’ experience as a project engineer working on the design and construction of power generation, pharmaceutical, chemical and life science R&D laboratories. Shawn graduated from Clarkson University with a B.S. in Engineering and is currently finishing his M.S. in Systems Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

New Member Spotlight: Daren Heidgerken

Daren Heidgerken is the Technical Collaboration Lead for Systems Engineering, Software Engineering, and Integration, Test and evaluation. In this role he facilitates communication and collaboration in these key technical disciplines across Lockheed Martin, the world’s leading aerospace and global security company. In addition he connects individuals with subject matter experts across the company to help solve their technical challenges. Prior to this role, he held engineering and leadership positions in guidance, navigation and control engineering and systems engineering primarily on missiles and reentry systems. Throughout his career he has mentored both entry level engineers and technical experts. Last month he celebrated his 15^th anniversary with Lockheed Martin and as a California resident.

Daren grew up along the banks of the Mississippi River in Iowa and graduated with an aerospace engineering degree from Iowa State University. He also holds a MBA from Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business. He is married with  3 young children. He is a member the AIAA and IEEE engineering societies, SGT aerospace honor society and is a classroom volunteer and advisory board vice president at his children’s elementary school.