Greetings! By way of introduction, my name is Chris Slovacek and I am the current President of the Houston Chapter of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society. It has been a busy year or so and is trending toward getting busier with the Annual Meeting coming to Houston. The purpose of this message is to increase communications in the chapter and increase membership. But, primarily it is intended to announce the upcoming chapter elections. I think that if the elections aren't held on the schedule mentioned below, the opportunity to do so will be overcome by annual meeting activities.

If you have any comments or suggestions for the chapter and future issues of this publication, feel free to contact me at slovacek@yahoo.com or by replying to this message.

Official Chapter Home Page     http://www.bigfoot.com/~houstonhfes

This site is intended to be a resource for Houston area Human Factors professionals for locating people with various areas of expertise. It is still in its infancy and would benefit greatly from submissions from the chapter's members. Take a look, fill out the survey, and if there are any important dates, news items, etc. that you can think of that need to be included, please feel free to email me.

Houston HFES Yahoo! Club     

If you haven't discovered Yahoo!'s Clubs yet, you owe it to yourself to take a look. I've used them for family meeting places, high school alumni, work groups, and other things. Other people have used them for a wide variety of uses. (see http://help.yahoo.com/help/clubs/ for details)

Our Houston HFES club includes areas for Messages, Photos, Chat, News, Links, Contacts (the members), and a Calendar. Please take a look.

I am in the process of putting together the next election. Contrary to the status quo, the tenure of the officers is supposed to be one year. Therefore, we are running long on our offices and will move as swiftly as we can to hold the election.

According to the chapter's constitution, the following schedule would be the fastest possible election:

30 days -- call for nominations

30 days -- election

Several things need to happen before we can hold the election. Because of the constitutional requirement that nominations come from "members in good standing" (MIGS) which we are operationalizing as "having paid dues." Therefore, our election schedule would more likely look like this:

05/05/99 - 05/17/99 -- membership drive

05/18/99 - 06/16/99 -- call for nominations

06/16/99 - 07/16/99 -- election

However, I hereby officially make an executive decision that the durations for the nomination period and the election period be shortened by half unless any member can provide a compelling reason against this decision.

If you are on this mailing list, you have been identified as a person who 1) is associated with the Houston Chapter of the Human Factors and Ergonomic Society, 2) has been associated in the past with said organization, or 3) would likely be interested in joining this organization. Otherwise, you are getting this message as a fluke and should email me and ask to be removed.

If any of the first three conditions are true, then you are a candidate for membership into the Houston Chapter. You can be a member of the local chapter without being a member of the national society (and vice versa). Chapter dues are only $10 per year (you may pay multiple years at a time to avoid the yearly bother of dues drives).

Benefits to membership in the Houston Area Chapter include:

-- Enhanced collegial association with other area human factors professionals;

-- Increased awareness of other human-factors-related activities (including employment prospects) within the Houston metroplex;

-- Closer association with other Society members and administrative personnel.

An added benefit to chapter membership during 1999 includes the opportunity to participate in our chapter's hosting of the Society's 43rd Annual Meeting, to be held at the Westin Galleria during the week of September 27 through October 1. Volunteering in any of several Host Chapter Committee activities as we prepare for this annual event promises to be a rewarding, fun, and professionally-edifying experience.

The membership drive will close on May 17, 1999 and only those people who have become MIGS will be emailed a "call for nominations." This will allow you to nominate people for officer positions in the chapter. The offices in the chapter are: President, Secretary, Treasurer, Directors (two positions). Officer duties will be posted this weekend on the chapter web site (http://users.ev1.net/~slovacek/hfes).

Electronic ballots will be mailed to all MIGS and will be accepted for 15 days. At the end of the 15th day, votes will be counted. Tie votes for any office will be resolved by drawing lots. Winners will be announced and shall assume their offices on the first day after the close of the Annual Business Meeting.

The Chapter's annual business meeting will be held during the week of July 18th. Since we will have a new members and officers by that time, we will wait until closer to that date to determine the exact date, time and location of the meeting.

As mentioned earlier, the national society's annual meeting will be held here in Houston. If you are not already on the Annual Meeting Committee, there are still plenty of opportunities to help. Contact Cletis R. Booher (cletis.r.booher1@jsc.nasa.gov 281-483-8951) or Chris Slovacek (chris.p.slovacek1@jsc.nasa.gov 281-483-8124) for more information.