Wanda K. Reder
Biography
An exemplary volunteer leader, Wanda K. Reder’s initiatives cultivated new membership, established a successful scholarship fund, and positioned IEEE as the source for expert smart grid information. The first woman to serve as president of the IEEE Power & Energy Society, Ms. Reder’s trendsetting programs instituted during her 2008-2009 tenure serve as models. When other Societies were losing members, she targeted marketing toward early-career engineers that jumped Society membership from 20,000 to 30,000+ in a few short years. Changing the Society’s name from the IEEE Power Engineering Society to the IEEE Power & Energy Society to better represent the field of interest and to attract a broader audience was pivotal to her campaign. Reder also launched “IEEE Smart Grid,” which carved a leadership position for IEEE as the definitive source for information on smart grid technology using social media and Web presence. It has set the example across IEEE for multidisciplinary technology collaboration and has enhanced IEEE’s brand. The program enjoys continued growth and global participation with 1.4 million portal page views, 21,800 LinkedIn members, and 7,500 Twitter followers.
Another flagship program that Ms. Reder instituted was the IEEE PES Scholarship Plus Initiative, aimed at attracting the best and brightest into the power industry. Since 2011, over $1.1 million has been distributed via 549 scholarships to 364 undergraduate engineers attending 137 US and Canadian universities. Since program inception, over 160 companies have hired a PES Scholar and there have been substantial increases in the enrollment of power engineering electives. To raise the funds, Ms. Reder created a partnership with the IEEE Foundation to launch IEEE’s its first capital campaign―which is now being emulated for other strategically aligned needs.
An IEEE Fellow, Ms. Reder is the Vice President of Power Systems Solutions at S&C Electric Company, Chicago, IL, USA. Reder was the recipient of the 2014 IEEE Richard M. Emberson Award.
