Dennis S. Bray, PhD, FSME SME President Member Since 1985
SMESpeaks SME: Making It Possible
The Society of Manufacturing Engineers A
s we recover from our New Year’s celebrations, it is a good time for us to start thinking about the opportuni- ties and challenges that lie ahead in 2013. The world is
still trying to recover from its political and economic hangover. We now have to start focusing our attention on what we are go- ing to do to keep manufacturing moving forward, which grows our businesses and puts more people back to work. Keeping manufacturing moving forward continues to be
SME’s focus, and our New Year’s resolution is to do our best to do even more in 2013. SME accomplished some significant milestones in the past few years and plans to accomplish even more this year. As the incoming SME president, I look forward to helping accomplish this goal.
Synergy SME has a wide range of products and services that we
offer, as well as many different ways we interact with individu- als and companies in manufacturing. I know that a significant opportunity and challenge is to make sure we effectively utilize all of SME’s resources, working together to achieve a high level of synergy among all our SME activities. If we look at all the things that SME does, you can see why SME is “making it possible” for manufacturing to move forward and be a strong foundation for our country and the world to prosper. • Look at how our Education Foundation is “making it possible” for manufacturing to thrive in the future by inspiring and helping to prepare the next-generation manufacturing workforce.
• Look at how our chapters and other membership ac- tivities are “making it possible” to bring people together to meet new people, share their expertise, and improve their companies and local communities.
• Look at how our tradeshows and other events are “making it possible” for companies to improve and expand their businesses, and expose thousands of people to the latest manufacturing technology, prod- ucts and knowledge.
• Look at how our Tooling U and Professional Develop- ment offerings are “making it possible” for many indi- viduals to learn new skills and enhance their careers, and for companies to improve their current workforce to meet global manufacturing needs and beat interna- tional competition.
• Look at how our Manufacturing Engineering Media products are “making it possible” for people to connect with the latest technology, ideas and trends that are happening all around us every day at an ever-increas- ing pace.
• Look at how our relationships with government, educa- tional institutions and other organizations are “making it possible” for us to be relevant, as well as an integral part of improving the image of manufacturing, which ultimately helps manufacturing and society prosper. These are truly exciting and significant activities.
Contributing Member Engagement
In addition to our goal of taking advantage of the synergy within SME in 2013, we want to find ways to improve the engagement of our membership. We have members who are simply consumers of SME products and services. At the same time, we also have members who are contributors to our products and services. Those volunteer members, who share their time and expertise, truly make SME special. They are an integral part of SME’s intellectual capital, which defines our value proposition for members and customers.