Reginald Vachon's inauguration address

Good evening friends. It is an honor to be with you as the 122nd president of this truly great Society. I address you as friends because whenever we meet as members of ASME International, I know we share the same purpose and ethics. We can discuss issues and reach compromise for the betterment of ASME without sacrificing principle.

We are approaching our 125th year and my goal is to celebrate our 150th year with you. I have been a member for 44 years. Twenty-five more is a breeze. By that time I will know ASME well. My uncle, who is here tonight, is approaching his 90th year and his grandfather, a naval steam propulsion engineer, was a member of ASME from the State of Alabama in 1886. I am sure the founders thought ASME was well on its way to being a global society.

As a preschooler I had a book my grandfather read to me. This book, Mr. Tootwhistle's Invention, described the invention of the cowcatcher, a plough-like device to scoot cows off the railroad track. My grandfather was in the hotel business. Hotels had boilers. His friend was a mechanical engineer. As far as I knew, mechanical engineers did everything, and the other engineers played supporting roles.

I mention this, because Sue [Skemp, ASME immediate past president] has been emphasizing K-12 education and the need to get children interested in engineering at a young age. She is right. We need to encourage more young people to enter the profession. Sparking their interest early in life, like Mr. Tootwhistle did for me, will go a long way in meeting this goal. I applaud Sue's dedication to this effort, and I encourage her to continue.

Let's turn now to our Society.

Our purpose is noble. We serve humanity. Our founders stated our purpose, simply:
"To promote the art, science and practice of mechanical engineering and the allied arts and sciences."

To that end, the president of ASME has three internal leadership roles:

• Pathfinding — creating a compelling vision and mission tied to the needs of members, customers and stakeholders.

• Aligning — structuring systems, processes and people to achieve the mission and vision (everyone grows and learns).

• Empowering — Fueled by our purpose and our mission, creating the environment that unleashes the talent, ingenuity, intelligence and creativity of the members and staff.

The president's external role is to exert and project the presence of the members and leadership of ASME globally.

Our shared vision is to be the premier organization worldwide to provide value-added services. Our mission is to inspire our Society to achieve its full potential to create, assimilate and exchange knowledge. This is our heritage. It is our future. We are a knowledge-based society and we must become a knowledge-based organization.

How do we accomplish all of this? First, let's review our assets.

We are strong financially. We are taking measures to ensure that strength. We have talented, dedicated volunteers and staff to conduct programs and to meet anticipated customer-needs worldwide.

We have relationships with 63 peer societies in countries around the world. We have members in 122 countries.

We have many, many good ideas. We have recognized world leadership and unquestioned integrity.

What else must we do?

We must become market-focused to serve our members and the many potential customers who are also potential members. Serving a wider global customer base is the key to longevity. We should serve as a platform for global discussion of topics of common interest to engineers and to the public. We must do all this in harmony with our core values, which are to:

• Embrace integrity and ethical conduct

• Respect the dignity and culture of all people

• Nurture and treasure the environment and our natural and man-made resources

• Facilitate the development, dissemination and application of engineering knowledge

• Promote the benefits of continuing education and engineering education

• Respect and document engineering history

What steps have we taken?

When he was president, Bob Nickell established the Futures Team. That Team and the then Committee on Issues Identification agreed that ASME must address the following issues to ensure that our internal rate of change exceeds the external rate of change — and if it does not, they agreed, the end would be in sight.

The issues that we must constantly address include:

1. How rapidly evolving electronic communications are changing the way the world and ASME does business.

2. How the rapidly increasing multidisciplinary / transdisciplinary engineering activities and the rapid emergence of engineering technologies are dictating ASME's transition to an agile and forward thinking society.

3. How globalization of the economy and engineering practice are shaping ASME programs and services.

4. How the trend toward the continuous reinvention of organizations to meet new challenges is helping ASME create an open, fluid and responsive culture.

What are our priorities?

Based on recent task forces and teams, in addition to current assessments and organizational reviews, ASME has begun to lay out its priorities:

1. ASME is ready to launch a new phase that will help us strengthen ASME as a knowledge-based, market-focused learning organization and society. We will be that center for excellence that this profession aspires to.

2. We are moving increasingly toward horizontally oriented programming and activities — more issues and teams, more joint efforts, more focus on those areas where engineering boundaries become blurred — including joint activities with multidiscipline areas such as nanotechnology, bioengineering, robotics, MEMS, intelligent transportation systems, homeland security and sustainability. We are moving to concept evaluation where we rapidly create prototype services/programs as low cost probes into the future.

3. ASME will continue to recognize industry as a priority, increasing the role of the Industry Advisory Board and other initiatives that focus on engineering management.

4. Young mechanical engineers will find a professional home with ASME, built on information provided from the Young Engineers Task Force and ongoing communications efforts.

5. ASME also will continue to assert its global leadership and take advantage of its recognition in emerging markets.

6. For the individual, we will create new resources and support for engineering management careers.

7. ASME will seek innovative ways to assuage issues of volunteer time — to allow wider, global participation and interchange while reducing time commitments and burdens for volunteers.

8. Last we will work toward sustaining organizational effectiveness and viability.

Where are we going?

There are several new innovations under way to address these issues.

• In March, the Board of Governors appointed a Scanning Task Force to identify markets and customers. Its report will be presented to the Board of Governors.

• We have adopted a balanced scorecard tool to view the Society from four perspectives — financial, customers, internal operations and learning /growth. As part of the balanced scorecard approach, three tasks are underway.

1. The first is the development of a map to display ASME's overall strategy into the future.

2. The second is the development of metrics and measures.

3. The third is the development of initiatives and actions. In addition to these tasks, a task group will evaluate our internal organization to determine whether we are in a position to achieve our strategy goals. A report for action will be presented to the Board of Governors in November.

Prior to these task groups, ASME recently invested $4 million in its e-media system and began improvements to make asme.org more user-friendly and comprehensive.

The leadership is acting quickly on agility and leadership initiatives. To that end, the Board of Governors is undertaking strategic planning at its meetings, rather than listening to reports.

We continue to develop our organization as one that is truly knowledge-based — an organization that promotes, creates, assimilates and exchanges technical information. Our efforts create the technological rain that nurtures the education of aspirants to the engineering profession and nurtures the technical needs of the practicing engineer.

We are constantly scanning the horizons and gleaning information to maintain agility, anticipate needs and respond quickly to a changing environment. Just one example: Immediately following September 11, ASME established the Critical Assets Protection Initiative, CAPI, to address issues of Homeland Security. There are many other examples that we can all be proud of.

Presidents Parker, Weiblen, and Skemp have brought their own perspectives, innovation and energy to all of these issues, as I will. As president-elect, I have had the pleasure of working with Bill Weiblen and Sue Skemp to ensure a continuity of effort. As they have done, I pledge to work with my successor, to ensure continuity, to ensure the success of the next president, and consequently, to ensure the success of ASME International.

There are many more things we are doing and have planned. I will not elaborate here, as we are all waiting to learn the names of our new leadership-nominees.

Before I close, I will name three groups, and after I have named them all, I ask that you give them a standing ovation. First, the staff who support us and provide innovative ideas to ensure our success. Second, the Nominating Committee who has labored long and hard to choose nominees to lead us in the future. Their job is difficult because of the talented and gifted people who present themselves for consideration. Third, the many talented candidates who presented themselves to the Nominating Committee. We thank all of you.

I personally thank Sue and Bill for an enjoyable and productive year as president-nominee and then president-elect. ASME is a family, but we also have our individual families. I thank mine for their support over the years as I participated in ASME International.

Finally, I ask you to recommit your pledge as members to promote the art, science and practice of mechanical engineering — and continue to fulfill the dream of our founders, to meet our obligation to society and to our profession — a truly noble purpose.

Thank you.

 

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