In case you have not heard, the Orange County Section of AIChE is merging with the Los Angeles County, or Southern California Section.  The merger should be complete by the end of this year.  Members of the Orange County Section will not notice much of a change.  The four meetings that we have each year at Khoury's Restaurant will continue.  The only difference, which you should have already noticed by now, is that meetings are now held on the third Tuesday of the month, not the fourth, as it used to be.

 

 

Fortunately, the young Orange County Section flourished.  Within a few years, they were holding eleven monthly meetings each year.  Thirty to forty members were showing up at the monthly meetings, and all the officer positions were filled with enthusiastic, hardworking volunteers.  In addition to the monthly meetings, the Orange County Section held a one-day conference each year at a local hotel, featuring both technical sessions and vendors' tables.

 

In all respects, the Orange County Section was a success and fulfilled the goals of national AIChE in setting up local sections.  Chemical engineers were improving their management skills, becoming better public speakers and enjoying the satisfaction of contributing to their profession.  In every case, employers supported those engineers who worked within AIChE, seeing their professional contribution to AIChE as an expression of the positive role the employers wanted to play in the chemical process industry.

 

 

It was during this time that I joined the Orange County Section and started to volunteer.  It was years before the Internet would become a universal, free source of technical information, and meetings were the way professional engineers maintained an edge in their field.  In additions, meeting were an opportunity to find out what your colleagues were doing, discuss employment opportunities and share personal experiences.

 

During this period, I took a lot of pride in helping my professional colleagues and became more involved in section activities, particularly in helping to locate and set up speakers for our monthly meetings.  Because I was self-employed, networking was a key tool in achieving success, and representing the section allowed me to talk to industry professionals and government representatives with whom I would normally have no access.

 

Unfortunately, things began to change for the worse.  Attendance began to drop off, and it became more difficult to fill Officer positions.  By the time I became President in 2005, the section was struggling to survive.  We were unable to fill all of the Officer positions, and with fewer volunteers, the remaining officers were overworked, and morale suffered.

 

By 2008, we were down to two Officers: myself as President and Dale Botts as the Secretary-Treasurer.  Despite providing an array of outstanding speakers, we were losing money on every meeting.  To survive, Dale and I dropped the number of meetings to four per year, and all of our section meetings would be joint meetings with the Los Angeles Section.

 

Working with Dale was a pleasure.  He was tireless, never complained about the work and was always enthusiastic.  Dale and I were convinced that the section was going through a phase.  If we continued to find great speakers and remained enthusiastic, members would start to respond to our regular requests for help and volunteer.  Unfortunately, this was wishful thinking.  Despite providing great meetings, the volunteers never materialized.

 

The good meetings did have one humorous side effect.  I received an e-mail from AIChE National which stated that after talking to several student sections in our area, they wanted to report that the students really enjoyed going to the meetings.  However, the students were wondering why we only had four meetings a year and why there were no plant trips.  When I told Dale about the e-mail, we both enjoyed a good laugh.

 

By mid 2009, it was obvious that the Orange County Section was a section in name only.  Of the five Officer positions, only two were filled.  At the end of each year, Dale and I would simply carry on in our old positions.  There were no nominations because no one wanted to be an officer.  As a result, there were no elections and no annual meetings.  Even though Dale accepted working under these circumstances, I requested a meeting to talk about the future of the section.

 

At our meeting, I explained to Dale that our section was operating in a way which was so far removed from the way it was set up to operate, there was no way we could or should justify continuing.  The best solution was to merge with the Los Angeles Section and ask them to continue the format of four meetings per year at Khoury's Restaurant.  Even though Khoury's Restaurant is in Long Beach, which is in Los Angeles County, it has been a convenient location for many of the members in the Orange County Section, and they enjoy attending the meetings.  Dale agreed with me, and, fortunately, the Los Angeles Section agreed to support the merger and the four-meeting format at Khoury's Restaurant.

 

In closing, I would like to thank all of the wonderful speakers who have taken the time to speak before our section.  In addition, I would also like to thank the many members who have served as Officers in the section since 1982 and have taught me valuable lessons in running an organization, planning events and finding interesting speakers.  Special thanks goes to Dale Botts, who has donated hours and hours of his free time.  Whether it was helping me on running the meetings, paying our bills, filing our annual income tax forms, finding speakers or just simply listening to me, Dale has been super.

 

Both Dale and I are hopeful that in the not too distant future, a group of excited and motivated chemical engineers who live and/or work in Orange County will want to set up their own AIChE Section.  When this happens, Dale and I will be among the first to support them.

 

Dominic Meo III, P.E., BCEE

President Orange County Section, AIChE