SHPE-NYC Awarded Most Valuable Professional Chapter at ETLC

The Eastern Technical Leadership Conference took place this past weekend, March 17 to 21, at the University of Central Florida. Students and professionals from regions 4 and 7 took part in various technical and developmental workshops designed to enhance their skill sets and create future leaders. Participants had the opportunity to meet with sponsoring companies during the career fair which included, Morgan Stanley, P&G, Johnson and Johnson, W.L. Gore and Associates, and others.

Pilar Montoya, SHPE National CEO, hosted the Gala Banquet on Saturday evening where she motivated members to take their first step in reaching for their dreams. The keynote speech was given by past president of SHPE and current Board Chair of SHPE Foundation, Diana Gomez. She spoke about her family and past experiences which helped her become the leader she is today.

Several local chapters received recognition at the Gala banquet for outstanding achievements. Jose Fernandez, President of SHE at Rutgers University, received the award for Outstanding Chapter Region 4 on behalf of Rutgers. Daisy Gallegos, President of the SHPE chapter at NJIT, received the Most Valuable Student Member award for Region 4. The hosting chapter of the ETLC conference, SHPE UCF, won the Shark Pride Award for the second consecutive year. All three chapter representatives are shown below. CONGRATS!!!

Members of the SHPE-NYC Professional Chapter accepted the award for Region 4 Most Valuable Professional Chapter.

NSHMBA's Social Media panel discussion - Event recap and overview

This is a follow-up post to the NSHMBA "Social Media's Night Out" event, where SHPE-NYC member Mauricio Godoy was an invited panelist. Below is an excerpt and photo from the Latinos at IBM blog which Mauricio maintains. There is also a link to the blog entry which contains additional media and details of the event.

The National Society of Hispanic MBAs (NSHMBA) “Social Media’s Night Out” event united prolific bloggers with an audience eager to learn about leveraging the social web for personal branding and business. Among the night’s attendees were Monroe College alumni, current students, and staff.


This special event was appropriately held during the first ever World Wide Social Media Day on June 30th.  After an excellent networking reception where professional blogs, Twitter pages, and Linkedin profiles where gladly exchanged, NSHMBA President Iveth Reynolds introduced a panel of guest speakers including social media consultants and entrepreneurs. 
~Mauricio Godoy, Latinos at IBM

For additional details on the event, you can visit the Latinos at IBM blog post below:
http://latinosatibm.tumblr.com/post/758887388/celebrating-social-media-with-the-national-society-of

Thank you - Dora Maria Abreu - SHPE Region 4 Vice President 2008-2010

SHPE-NYC would like to send a very warm  thank you to Dora Maria Abreu, SHPE-NYC Lifetime Member, as she has completed her term as the SHPE Region 4 Vice President, which spanned  a total of 2 years (2008-2010). During her term, she was assisted by Regional Student Representatives (RSRs) Delia Rios (2009) and Victor Martinez (2010). Dora led numerous initiatives and accomplishments including:

• A 66% increase in the number of SHPE Professional Membership
• A 61% increase in the number of SHPE Lifetime Members
• A 66% increase in the number of SHPE Junior Chapters
• Largest Region representation at the SHPE National Conference (2006-2010)
• An increased communication within the Region by leveraging technologies such as Google Groups, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn
• Implementation of a Regional book club and "Bits of Knowledge"
• Successful RLDC and Regional Retreat conferences

Prior to this position, Dora was SHPE National Secretary for a total of 6 years, where she standardized how are documents were prepared and archived, as well as setting up the templates for various documents that have been shared across all regions.

Region 4 is the largest Region in SHPE for Professionals, Students and SHPE Juniorr chapters.

Dora began her career as a software developer, and then went on to other technical roles dealing with Technology that dealt with migration and integration testing of legacy applications where she formulated, developed, coordinated, and implemented procedures to ensure that quality assurance standards were met. 

Dora is also a lifetime member for SWE, NSBE, ALPFA, and NAACP. She is an avid volunteer and strong advocate in the community especially for youth, women & technology issues. Recent recognitions include selection as one of Maybelline's 10 most inspiring women - Empowerment through Education winners featured in People En Espanol Magazine's for inspiring and contributing to community (Dec 2007 / Jan 2008 Edition). In 2006 she was listed in Hispanic Engineer & Information Technology Magazine's annual list of "100 Most Important Hispanics in Technology and Business" for 2006. 

Thank you again Dora for your commitment to the success of both Region 4 and the SHPE organization as a whole. 

The new SHPE Region 4 Vice President - David Solis - SHPE-NYC Lifetime Member

SHPE-NYC would like to congratulate SHPE-NYC Lifetime Member, David Solis, who will soon take on the role of SHPE Region 4 Vice President (2010-2012) starting July 1st.  We are very proud of his commitment to the organization, and we are confident that under David's leadership, he will be able to continue to build on the success that previous Vice President, Dora Maria Abreu, has built the foundation for.

David first became a member of SHPE at Stony Brook University, where he studied Computer Science and Business.  He reconnected with SHPE-NYC in 2002, where he held the chapter's first I.T. Director position and launched the SHPE-NYC web site.  

David is currently a Senior Database Administrator (AVP) in Citigroup's North American Operations and Technology group since 2004.  He began his career as a C programmer in the defense industry, then moved into web development in the media industry.  Following that, he became a consultant where he worked various positions including Unix administration, database administration, Voice-over-IP engineering, and Program Management on Wall Street.


Congratulations again David!

SHPE-NYC Executive Board member Jose Dumancela successfully passes FE examination.. Are you next?

Congratulations to Jose Dumancela on succesfully passing the Fundamentals of Engineering  (FE) examination. Jose is currently an Associate at JB&B Consulting Engineers, and will be working to acquire his PE license in the coming year.  


If you are interested in preparing for the FE exam, Jose ,along with several other individuals and organizations are leading a peer study group for SHPE-NYC members. Read more about this at http://shpenyc.blogspot.com/2010/06/looking-to-take-fundamentals-of.html


If you are a SHPE-NYC member who has also passed the FE exam (recently or in the past), please let us know and we will be happy to highlight such an accolade. These, and other relevant accomplishments can be shared on our blog and also the SHPE National Magazine, by emailing us at info@shpe-nyc.org.

SWE-NY and IEEE-WIE Professional Development Seminar at Google with Dr. Firari

On April 15, I attended a presentation hosted/sponsored by Google. It was an event run by the Society of Women Engineers (NY Professional Chapter) and IEEE Women in Engineering. SWE NY Chapter extended an invitation to SHPE-NYC.

The speaker was Dr. Fairlie Firari. In summary, she gave a very interesting a presentation on communication styles at work, specifically on peoples e-style of communication using email. What follows are a few key points from her talk:

• Important fact, 40% communication at a business is over email.
• Email has is own intrinsic problem. It being that 50% of emails are misunderstood.
• No such thing as good or bad styles. We must learn to adapt to others.
• There is a correlation between e-style and face to face communication.

Her main proposals:

• We did not learn everything we needed to learn in kindergarten, specifically how to listen. So its a good idea to take a listening class.
• Effective communication is hard work, thus you must learn to adapt. You will see benefits such as respect, and you will develop stronger business relationships.
• Understand your own style, and of course understand others as well.

Maybe the most interesting thing she talked about was people's style under stress. There exists something called "The Z phenomenon" which describes how styles change due to stress and how it is very predictable of how your communication style will change depending on your dominant style.

A very good summary of the body of her talk can be found on her blog. askmissmanagement.typepad.com/

Also, visit Dr. Firari's website at: per4mance1.com, and visit the SWE NY Chapter homepage at: www.swe.org/SWE/RegionE/Sections/sweny/index.asp

 

---Juan Rafael Lopez
SHPE-NYC Technology Director