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.

Bicentennial of Robert Mallet, the father of seismology

This evening,  I had the pleasure of chairing a meeting of the Heritage Society at Clyde Rd,  and also streamed to the internet and will soon be available for playback on Engineers TV.

The presentation was by Dr Ron Cox,  historical author and former Dean of the TCD Engineering School. His subject,  Robert Mallet,  1810-1881,  was an observationalist, experimentalist,  polymath and engineering scientist.  Amongst his many achievements, he is widely internationally regarded as the father of seismology,  writing his seminal work on the dynamics of earthquakes in 1846 and coining both the terms "sesimology" and "epicentre".  Three of his descendants travelled from the UK this evening to join us.

Launch of HSE Medical Device & Equipment Management Policy

I attended by invitation and spoke at the launch this morning at the HSE Phoenix house building, of the HSE's new policy document on medical device and equipment, covering procurement, operation and maintenance. The event was hosted by Brian Gilroy of the HSE. Minister Mary Harney was the guest of honour and spoke of the importance of the new policy.

I used the opportunity to highlight the role of engineers in the medical profession, and how engineering mistakes can be more dangerous than medical ones. This of course gave me a segue to talk about registration and licensing of Chartered Engineers in Ireland.

Annual Conference

Well,  the dust has settled after a great annual conference in Cork last thursday and friday.  Well over 300 people attended,  and I suspect the final figure may be as high as 350.

Last monday (19th),  I was very concerned since we had lost four featured speakers due to Eyjafjallajökull - Minister Conor Lenihan, Craig Barrett, Ian Quinn and Bertrand Barré. Conor was stuck in Dubai;  Craig on US east coast;  Ian on US west coast and Bertrand in Paris.  Bertrand very kindly agreed to do a video conference instead.  I approached Ian's CEO,  Helen Ryan who happened to be in the country, and she very kindly agreed to take his place.  But both Conor and Craig were completely unavailable.

ICE Presidential Address

On Friday 16th last,  we were honoured to have Prof. Paul Jowitt of the Institution of Civil Engineers,  visit us and deliver his presidential address.  I had previously met Paul in Belfast and he was kind enough to attend my own presidential address in London.

Paul and his wife June had a challenging time reaching us,  leaving Glasgow at 9.30am,  and travelling via Stranraer,  Larne and Belfast,  to reach us by 7pm.  I am very grateful for their determination!

Joint Council & Executive Meeting

This morning we held a scheduled joint meeting of Executive and Council at Clyde Rd,  from 10am-1pm.

Finance Committee Meeting

Yesterday evening,  we held a scheduled meeting of the Finance Committee at Clyde Rd.

Tadhg Walshe

It was with great sadness that I attended the funeral mass for Tadhg Walshe this morning,  along with other members of Executive and Council.   Tadhg attended our Executive meeting just last Thursday evening and was in fine form as usual!   He died suddenly,  and completely unexpectedly,  the next afternoon and as a relatively young man.

He is survived by his partner Pauline,  daughter Mary-Liz and son-in-law JP,  together with his large family of brothers and sisters.

He served Engineers Ireland,  and his colleagues and students at Bolton St. extraordinarily well.

May his soul rest in gentle peace.

Finance Committee Meeting; Executive Committee Meeting

This evening, we held our regular Finance Committee Meeting,  followed by Executive,  at Clyde Road.

Presidential Address - London

I gave my Presidential Address as a guest of our GB region this evening under the leadership of Catherine O'Sullivan,  at the Institution of Civil Engineers headquarters in Westminster.  About 50 people attended.  In my presentation,  which I have previously given in Clyde Road,  I consciously try to address both non software specialists in the audience as well as software practitioners - in the event,  only 2 of the 50 were software engineers.

Smart Futures Seminar

This evening,  I spoke at the Smart Futures Seminar being hosted at Clyde Rd,  in conjunction with our STEPS team,  ICT Ireland,  Discover Science and Engineering,  and Fasttrack to IT.   The main purpose of the evening was to launch the Irish participation in the European wide eSkills week,  and in particular to brief and assist new volunteers from the Engineering profession who are interested in participating in our schools outreach programme via STEPS.  About 80 people attended.