"A New Era" - Bernie (Bernard) Lin - Fall 1998

With the previous eight presidents' hard work, TBP was ready to burst into the limelight and become a well recognized chapter in the College of Engineering as well as the nation. Following a very similar path as Andy, James and Babak years before, Bernie made many drastic changes in the chapter's organization and events that will ultimately allow TBP to host a successful convention and sustain its prosperity into the millenium. His other key contribution was to maintain *continuity* through the frequent transitions that the chapter faces every semester due to graduation and re-elections. The following account was written and edited during Fall 1998.
I began the semester planning to name the theme to be "change" or "transition," but after the convention, it solidified to this, "A New Era." My goal was essentially to better our chapter in every way possible so that it will be a "powerhouse" by the time the 2000 Convention rolls around. Activity wise, with all the new ideas I learned from the convention, I focused on increasing the quantity and quality of our chapter projects and activities so that we may win the Project Award in the near future. These projects included first time events such as Beach Volleyball, Pizza Night fundraiser, Officer manuals, Meteor Shower watch, Swing Dance, Berkeley Neighborhood Computers, Engineering Futures, TBP Laureate Award, Industry Speakers at General Meetings, and more. Internal organization wise, I pushed the officers to help compile the Officer Positions Manual so that future officers won't have to spend the first few weeks of their term trying to figure out what they have to do. I believe that this, coupled with the project book and the officer retreat will offer great assistance to the new officers.

Since the president position is probably the most important in the society, that person will have to know the most about the inner and outer workings of the organization. They have to also focus on a goal, or "theme," so the future of the chapter will be clear. To accomplish this, the Past Presidents' Theme Page was created. This is a project where I contacted all the past presidents that are still reachable thru e-mail and asked them to summarize the themes for their semester and what they focused on to improve our chapter. We are glad to have presidents from as far back as *Fall 1994* to respond and give their input on what they planned for the chapter.

The re-establishment of the Engineering Futures program, co-sponsored by ASME, allowed us to service the college and the engineering profession and began the first inter-societal cooperation between two big societies such as ASME and TBP. I believe that future presidents should use all the connections they have to work with other societies such as HKN, ASME, EJC and more to learn from each other and plan larger events. An awareness of our budget and fundraisers was introduced to the chapter so we may find more ways of increasing our funding while limiting our spending. By having a third Ind Rel position, we should be able to begin building relationships with the industry so they can sponsor us when the Convention rolls around. Also, there was a closer interaction between the treasurer and president so that the budget can be carefully planned.

Also, there has been an improved publicity for TBP this semester through publications such as Engineering News (where we had the longest society profile out of all the societies at Cal), and may flyers for college wide activities where TBP was a co-sponsor (Research Opportunity, Engineering Futures, Swing Dance). This way, our chapter will receive more recognition from the campus, and it will help in the candidate recruitment process. Another area I worked hard on was to get more advisor participation with our chapter. Their appearance at officer, candidate and general meetings really improved the faculty/student relations that our chapter is striving to achieve. The vice presidents and I also changed the candidate process quite a bit this semester. Tutoring was much more organized, new fun activity requirements were instituted, more candidate meeting to increase officer/candidate relationships were planned, more community service events were scheduled for the convenience of candidates, and finally, tons and tons of fun activities (up to 5-6 a week!) were planned so you can get to know the officers better.

Finally, one project I tried to start but didn't really get it off the ground was to make a TBP server. Either that or have an alias for TBP so we can give out accounts to our officers. This will simplify all the problems of having different e-mail domains for different officers. For example, HKN, ASME, and UPE all have their own domain name, therefore adding to the uniformity of their officer contact lists. I hope the server will be up in the near future (maybe in Jokay's term)!

I hope this and the other presidents' accounts will help any future presidents/officers in their quest to make our chapter the best there is in the nation!

Best Wishes
- Bernie

Traditions Bernie Started and Important Contributions:
- Dramatic increase in quantity and quality of Chapter events
- Improved Publicity of TBP in COE thru sponsoring college wide events and working with Engineering News
- Began "inter-societal" cooperation with ASME, EJC, and HKN.
- Drew up ideas for the TBP T-shirt (Completed in Jo Kay's term)
- Created Officer Position Manual (for continuity)
- Created Past Presidents' Theme Page (this page)
- More Fundraising Projects, better treasury bookkeeping
- Increased involvement of Chapter advisors in chapter activity
- Changed candidate process with VPs
- Introduced TBP Server Project (completed successfully during Jo Kay's term)
- Revived Engineering Futures (with 50+ people turnout!)
- Industry Speakers/Sponsors at General Meetings
- Berkeley Neighborhood Computing as a key service project
- Swing Dance(New Projects Idea), Participation in EJC sports/Broomball Tournament
- Began nomination of Raymond Wang and Leland Chang for TBP Laureate Program (Completed in Jo Kay's Term)
- Introduced the TBP Standard of Excellence Award to CA A Chapter and suggested nomination of Former Berkeley Chancellor Tien for it
- Kept "Little Axe" for the *5th* straight year
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