IEEE Southern Minnesota Section History

The IEEE Southern Minnesota Section was formed 50 years ago on August 22, 1963.

The Southern Minnesota Section is part of Region 4 which encompasses the upper midwest in the United States. Regions are organized into sections with 24 sections in our region 4. We have 332 members of the 21,146 region 4 members ranking us as a small to medium sized section. Including guests, student, affiliate, and associate members we current mail 548 meeting notices each meeting. Our section is geographically large and extends roughly from just beyond Mankato, MN at the West to Tomah, WI at the east and from Northfield, MN at the north to the Iowa border at the south. Our neighboring sections are Siouxland to our west, Madison (WI) to the east, Central Illinois to the south (on the east end), Central Iowa to the south (on the west end), Cedar Rapids (IA) to the south (central), and Twin Cities (MN) to the north.

Coulee Subsection

The IEEE Coulee Subsection was formed on May 30, 1987 to better serve the areas in our section east of the Mississippi River and directly on the river's west side. The subsection is its own entity but within the Southern Minnesota Section. Coulee holds its own meetings and has 44 members (also included in the Southern Minnesota count).

Chapters

IEEE has 38 societies which specialize by technology. Sections may have chapters in one or more of these societies depending on member interest. The Southern Minnesota Section has three chapters:

• Computer Society Chapter - formed in 1987
• Joint Chapter in Communications, Signal Processing, and Control Systems (one chapter in three societies) - formed in 1999
• Engineering in Medicine and Biology Chapter - formed in 2007

In addition the section has an "affinity group" in the Consultants Network and an Employment network.

Meetings

Most of our technical meetings are in one of the chapter disciplines. Typical of small to mid sized sections we deliver our technical content at the section level with invitations to all members regardless of Society affiliation (and recent guests).

Our member distribution is Rochester centric; almost all of our meetings are held in Rochester. In recent years we have been doing remote broadcasts in an attempt to better reach our more remote members.

IEEE Southern Minnesota holds a minimum of 8 technical meetings per year and average about 10. Our attendance averages 40-50.

Past Officers

1964 - 1969

First Name	Last Name	Position	Year
Robert	Floyd	Chair	1964
Donald	Shaw	Chair	1966
Jacob	Sanders	Membership Development	1966
Richard	Westerlund	Publicity	1966
Kenneth	Hastings	Secretary	1966
William	Dunnette	Treasurer	1966
James	Isaacson	Vice Chair	1966
Kenneth	Hastings	Chair	1967
Jacob	Sanders	Membership Development	1967
Ronald	Keller	Publicity	1967
Monroe	Brown	Secretary	1967
Wayne	Cassanova	Treasurer	1967
William	Dunnette	Vice Chair	1967
William	Dunnette	Chair	1968
Jacob	Sanders	Membership Development	1968
Ronald	Keller	Publicity	1968
Wayne	Cassanova	Secretary	1968
Myron	Schettl	Student Activities	1968
Kenneth	Ganyo	Treasurer	1968
Lowell	Brown	Treasurer	1968
George	Sedivy	Vice Chair	1968
Monroe	Brown	Vice Chair	1968
Jacob	Sanders	Chair	1969
Paul	Babel	Membership Development	1969
Ronald	Keller	Publicity	1969
George	Sedivy	Secretary	1969
Kenneth	Ganyo	Treasurer	1969
Wayne	Cassanova	Vice Chair	1969

External Links

Link to Section Homepage

IEEE Geographic Unit Organizing Document - Southern Minnesota