POST CONFERENCE MESSAGE

October 4, 2009

The Ninth Early Career Technical Conference (ECTC 2009) of ASME District F came to a successful conclusion on Oct 3rd 2009 at 12:30 PM. The technical acumen of the papers reviewed and accepted was as in the previous ECTCs consistently of high caliber.

ECTC 2009 had presenters from Europe (Ireland, Scotland and Turkey), Asia (India, although we had a paper from Pakistan who did not show up), and continental United States beyond the frontiers of District F (NY, NJ, AZ, LV, OH, NC, TX, MI and ARK) and 14 papers from District F. We had three no shows, including two from India and one from Pakistan.

All of the 34 papers published in the Journal were reviewed using the standards stipulated for the Technical Divisions of ASME International. Only one paper, from Scotland, was submitted after the review process and was permitted for presentation only. Useful comments were provided so that the presenter could resubmit for review and if accepted will be posted ‘on-line’ along with other papers published in the journal.

The conference was attended by 62 persons that included presenters, sponsors, donors, guests, ASME Volunteer Leaders, ASME Staff and members of the hosts (University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa).

Past President Keith Thayer, K&C Managing Director Burt Dicht, District F Leader John Mulvihill graced the function. Persons who were in attendance throughout the entire proceedings from the beginning to the end include sponsors such as Industry Leader Tom Yingst of Unified Brands, Mr. D. Negandhi of ASME MS Section; Donors Lee Crawford (past RVP-XI and District F Leader), and Dr. Indira Rao. From the academia, we had from Ole Miss MEDH Dr. Rajendran and Dr. Raju Mantana, most recently elected ASME Fellow.

Dr. Lee Durbetaki, Treasurer of ECTC since inception nine years back, who had mentored such Early Career Technical Conferences for past two decades, had enormous impact on the success of this Conference. His guiding influence made ECTC not only technically but also financially viable.

Dr. Robert Taylor's academic credentials and robust organizational skills were evident in the way he grouped the 35 technical presentations into VIII Sessions, with Saturday sessions running concurrently. The technical papers covered diverse topics such as 3 papers of Heat Transfer, 6 of Design & Analysis, 3 of Fluids, 2 of Materials, 3 of Manufacturing, 3 of Bioengineering, 2 papers of Turbine, 3 papers of Pressure Vessels & Piping, 3 of Nano Engineering, 1 of Marine Engineering, 1 of Aviation, 2 of Robotics and 4 addressed Internal Combustion Engineering. Thus, orchestrating all of these diverse topics with perfect symphony, while following the time lines defined in the Program, was a critical component for the success of this conference. Thus, much of the credit goes to Dr. Taylor who not only got the reviews done consistent with requirements of ASME Technical Conferences but gave ample opportunity for Presenters time to respond to questions, after each presentation. Choosing the session coordinators from the presenters was a smart move.

Our thanks go to sponsors ASME Old Guard, HOLTEC International, Unified Brands, ASME Mississippi & Birmingham Sections, ASME District F, Dr. Robert P. Taylor; University of Alabama for hosting the event and FIU for their continued support.

In the final analysis, it is the Presenters that count; several of them came to me not merely for a hand shake or a photo opportunity but to express their gratitude for giving them an opportunity to present a Paper at an ASME CONFERENCE! They mentioned they will either come back or make sure some of their colleagues will present a technical paper at the next ECTC.

All of the papers in the journal that Dr. Taylor got on a CD are posted on the web site www.krrao.com at the web page ECTC 2009 Proceedings. Also posted are pictures on this web site at the web page ECTC 2009 in pictures. Since the sizes of these files are large, communicating with others via this web site has been useful up to this point of time. We are hoping that ASME will transfer all of these files within the next week to the ASME ECTC website http://districts.asme.org/DISTRICTF/ECTC/2009ECTC. After that move all of the ECTC files at www.krrao.com will be vacated.

Since Entergy's gracious support in 2006, ASME OLD GUARD had endeared to the cause of Early Career Engineers and supported it without a break during ECTC 2007, ECTC 2008 and now ECTC 2009. We appreciate the generous support of ASME Old Guard during all these years.

Dr. Lee Durbetaki, Professor Emeritus of Georgia Tech had approached Georgia Tech for holding ECTC 2010 at their campus and they readily agreed to do so. We will be able to target fifty (50) paper presenters for ECTC 2010, who can have their accepted papers published in ECTC 2010 Journal. We hope to have ECTC 2010 in early October 2010. We recommend early submissions since once this quota of 50 papers are accepted for publication we intend to close the receiving process.

– KR Rao (ECTC Chair)

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