ISA NorCal President's Message
by Brian Thomas

ISA Norcal is pleased to offer our membership a wide range of activities that we will be rolling out shortly in both the Transmitter as well as posting our events on our Website as well.  Some of the things that we are working on for our membership:

- We have a facility tour set up with Clos Du Bois winery on March 12th with the plant operations manager and engineer; full details will be released shortly but be sure to reserve a spot as we expect this tour to fill up quickly.

- Historically on an annual basis, a Past-President's dinner was held by the section to promote best practices exchanges and continue to drive value to our section members.  While it's been a few years since this was last held, we believe it's important to continue this tradition, and will be holding this event March 2nd at Skates in Berkeley.

- In 2010 we provided monthly a controls-centric night course from the three top control & automation manufacturers in the area.  The 2011 schedule for these events will be released shortly; this year we will be running these sessions during the day to see if day sessions will be easier to attend by our membership.

- Expanding on just the control & automation sessions from last year, we are also working on incorporating similar instrumentation / DCS bi-monthly training sessions from top manufacturers in the area; this schedule should also be completed shortly for 2011.

- We are continuing to hold ISA educational presentations at many local colleges; updates will be made available as to when we will be at the local educational institution near you!

- Local ISA Certified Control Systems Technician (CCST) Level 1 and Level 2 courses will be rolled out this year; a minimum of (3) sessions are scheduled to be held throughout the year.

- Look for information to come out soon in regards to our Tech 2011 event; traditionally held in May this year we will be holding in the month of August and changing the format to offer a broader range of technical training sessions.

- Plan ahead for our ISA Norcal golf tournament scheduled to take place in September this year; location and full details to be released shortly!

- Additional facility tours in both the South and East Bays to be schedule in the October and November months.

Please share with any of our board members any questions or ideas that you have in regards to any of these events; we value our membership feedback and participation - the more we get from our members, the better we can serve you!

We appreciate your interest and participation with ISA Norcal and look forward to a productive 2011 together.

Brian Thomas

2/3/2011

rev: 2/7/11  GJG