New board plans to promote diversity and outreach

Mary James Legatski
Public Affairs

Since its establishment in 1989, ASME's Board on Minorities and Women achieved many of its original goals, initiated substantive programs, and set the benchmark for other engineering societies.

In June, at the close of the 2003 Summer Annual Meeting, ASME's Board of Governors approved the transition of the BMW to the Board on Diversity and Outreach (BDO) to meet new and evolving challenges, as well as opportunities faced by the Society.

The charter members were selected by the BDO Nominating Committee, chaired by Victoria A. Rockwell, who is the senior vice president of Public Affairs, and approved by the Council on Public Affairs at its June 2003 meeting.

The BDO is comprised of a vice president, immediate past vice president/advisor and nine members-at-large. Charter members of the BDO are: Mulchand S. Rathod of Wayne State University, who will serve as the BDO's vice president, and Monica Moman-Saunders, P.E., of the Louisville Gas & Electric Co., who will serve as past vice president/advisor.

The members-at-large are: Todd Allen of Johnson & Johnson; Klod Kokini of Purdue University; Rachael McQuillen, P.E., of URS Corp.; Donna Michalek of Michigan Technological University; Mahendra Patel, P.E., of Honeywell Technology Solutions Inc.; Mary Lynn Realff of the Center for the Study of Women, Science and Technology, Georgia Institute of Technology; Linda Ann Riley of New Mexico State University, and Keith Thayer, a former ASME president who is with Garuda USA.

The ninth member-at-large position on the charter BDO remains open at this time. The BDO Nominating Committee hopes to identify an appropriate candidate prior to the BDO's first meeting at the 2003 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition.

The BDO will continue the successful programs of BMW, while becoming more involved with K-12 programs and more involved with young member programs, through interactions with the Board on Young Engineers.

For more about the newly established BDO, visit http://www. asme.org/communities/diversities/bdo, or e-mail Mary James Legatski at legatskim@asme.org.

 

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