End of My Year

Well,  this evening was the end of my Presidential Year,  and so this is my last post to this blog.

We had our Annual General Meeting this evening,  and after presenting the annual reviews of the year,  and financial report,   I duly passed the chain of office to the incoming President,  Martin Lowery.

Its been an extraordinary year for me,  and one that I enjoyed tremendously.   I've summarised it in my annual report to the members,  which has been distributed electronically to them and which is also reproduced below.

Thanks for following me on this blog.

Finance Committee Meeting; Executive Committee Meeting

This evening we had a regularly scheduled Finance Committee meeting, followed by a meeting of the Executive.

It in fact was Brian Kavanagh's last meeting as Chair of the Finance Committee,  after six years of voluntary leadership and oversight.  It was also Jim Browne's last Finance and Executive meeting,  as out-going Past President.  I am very grateful to both for their enormous commitment and support for Engineers Ireland,  and expressed our gratitude.  In fact,  it was also my last Finance and Executive meetings as the current President,  and Martin Lowery takes over from me at the AGM on 27th next.

My Presidential Speech

I have given my presidential speech a number of times throughout my year as President,  and recently in Galway,  for the last time.   I've therefore (at last :-) posted the full text of it here.

Conferring at the Helix

Last evening,  I presided over the annual conferring ceremony,  hosted at the DCU Helix.  The evening was a celebration,  and while a little formal was a happy occasion with friends and families attending.  About 160 people were conferred with Professional Titles,  including over a 100 new Chartered Engineers and about 20 new Fellows.   This year,  over 450 people nationwide have received Professional Titles.

As President,  I also have the privilege of inviting distinguished engineers to Fellowship.  As you may have read earlier in this blog,  I already did so for Deputy Prime Minister Hai of Vietnam last October.

Last evening,  I similarly awarded Fellowship to:

• Tim Chapman,  of Arup,  a leader in geotechnics;
• Bill Grimson,  of DIT,  a respected and a long time senior volunteer for Engineers Ireland;
• Dervilla Mitchell,  a director of Arup,  and who lead the design team of the Heathrow Terminal 5 project;
• Regina Moran,  who developed her career as an Engineering Technician to Chartered Engineer and is now the CEO of Fujitsu Ireland (and who spoke at our recent conference);  and
• Ray O'Rourke,  who is the founder,  CEO and Chairman of Laing O'Rourke,  now one of the world's largest construction firms.

Finally,  I was delighted to be able to give a special award to Malcolm O'Kelly,  of the Irish rugby team and who has freely given much of his time as an engineer to our STEPs programme.

Academy of Engineering: AGM

I attended the AGM of the Academy last Thursday morning at the RDS, representing Engineers Ireland. Michael Hayden retired as President,  after many years,  and Jack Golden is the new President.   The meeting was well attended,  including a strong representation from Northern Ireland. It was followed by a lunch which I had to miss due to another commitment.

Western Region Conferring and Presidential Address

This evening I was the kind guest of the Western Region at their professional conferring ceremony in the Clayton Hotel in Galway.  I was particularly delighted that amongst the twenty members conferred tonight,  three were to Fellowship. of registered status (Fellow,  Chartered and Associate) on a number of their members.  I also gave my Presidential Address,  and took questions from the audience afterwards.

Midlands Region Conferring and Presidential Address

Yesterday evening I was the kind guest of the Midlands Region at their conferring of registered status (Chartered and Associate) on a number of their members,  at the Clonmore House hotel in Tullamore.  I also gave my Presidential Address which stimulated quite a lot of discussion and questions afterwards.

World Intellectual Property Day

This evening,  I gave a guest presentation as President of Engineers Ireland at an event organised by William Frys to celebrate World Intellectual Property Day.   I spoke about some of my experiences and thoughts on intellectual property,  arising from my career at IONA.   There was also some discussion during the Q&A on the innovation taskforce.

DIT Bolton Street

This afternoon,  I gave a guest lecture via the  kind invitation of Mike Murphy of DIT to about 350 engineering students at DIT Bolton Street.  I spoke briefly about my own career,  and then addressed the importance of Chartered Engineering status,   and the role of Engineers Ireland.   We had a pretty lively Q&A afterwards,  with people interested in entrepreneurship,  Chartered status,  Jobseekers,  and the transition in 2013 to Masters level for Chartered Engineers.

TCD-UCD Innovation Alliance

TCD & UCD hosted an all-day design innovation today at Foster Place.  As President of Engineers Ireland, I chaired a one hour discussion panel at lunch time with Mark Dyer,  Tony Fagan,  Eugene O'Brien,  Gregory O'Hare, Feargal O'Morain and Richard Reilly.   The main emphasis of the Q&A with the audience was on even more efficient mechanisms for technology transfer including intellectual property.