SWE

Orange County

Save these upcoming events to your calendar:

> Professional Development Conference - April 18th

> Work/Life Balance Workshop - April 29th

> SWE-OC 30th Anniversary Celebration - June 11th

> SWE-OC Scholarships Open! Due 04/24

> SWE-OC Certificate of Merit: Seeking Nominations by 04/17

> Sponsor our Professional Development Conference!

> Join the Region B Mentoring Program

> WE15 Hotel Block Open

> SWE's New Outreach Program for Girls K-12

> United States Academic Decathlon - Volunteers Needed 04/16 - 04/17

> Johns Hopkins Engineering Innovation Summer Program

Upcoming Events and Opportunities:

CONGRATULATIONS TO SWE-OC

Winning Several Awards

SWE

Orange County A P R I L 2 0 1 5

S P E CI A L

P O I N T S O F

I N TE R E S T :

Annual

Professional

Development

Conference is

this month!

Check out

our new

website:

www.swe-

oc.org

President:

Nadia Bess

Vice President:

Tasha Kamegai-

Karadi

Treasurer:

Yvonne Huynh

Secretary:

Sandra Thompson

Newsletter Editor:

Cynthia Carter

Section

Representatives:

Paola Chavira,

Kim O'Rourke,

Rachael Lomax

P A G E 2

SWE-OC Dinner Meeting: Increase Your

Productivity and Profitability: The Power

of Clear Communication By: Roxana Carrillo

On February 5th, SWE-OC hosted the "Increase Your Productivity and Profitability:

The Power of Clear Communication" dinner meeting. The speaker was Dr. Patty

Malone, an expert in the field of communication with over 25 years of experience.

She gave an interactive presentation showing how to communicate effectively and

clearly between individuals and across teams, explaining how to improve

communication habits, and highlighting the three most costly communication mistakes

and how to avoid them.

Overall, attendees learned how clear communication can increase productivity, reduce

mistakes, build trust, foster happier employees, and ultimately increase profits for their

company.

SWE-OC has begun

collecting applications

for the 2015 Graduate

and Undergraduate

Student Scholarships!

Do you know of a local

college student who you

think would be a good

applicant? SWE-OC

collects scholarship

applications from both

g r a d u a t e a n d

undergraduate female

students studying in the

field of engineering.

Applicants must be

attending either CSU

Fullerton, CSU Long

Beach, UC Irvine, or UC

Riverside and have a

minimum 3.0 GPA.

Three scholarships will

be given to both graduate

and unde rgraduate

appl icants in the

amounts of $200, $400,

and $650.

Graduate and Undergraduate

application information can be

found at the following link:

h t t p : / / w w w . s w e - o c . o r g /

scholarships.html

For additional questions or to

request an application by

email, please contact Cynthia

C a r t e r a t s w e - o c -

scholarship@swe.org. Please

return or submit form no later

than Friday, April 24th, 2015.

Awards will be distributed in

June 2015.

FY 15 SWE-OC Scholarships

are now open!

K-12 Outreach: Currie Middle School

P A G E 3 A P R I L 2 0 1 5

By: Paola Chavira

Paola Chavira attended Currie Middle School to promote engineering careers. She was welcomed by a

group of 32 students attending their STEM class. The students were very happy to find out how much

engineers made and how many jobs they could find after college. Following the presentation, Paola lead

the a group design activity in which the students built a race car out of cardboard, rubber bands and other

office materials. The kids loved the engineering presentation and activity and will now all be engineers...

or we can only hope.

Spring Collegiate Training

By: Emily Nguyen

On March 7th, 2015, SWE-OC hosted a day long training for the 5 chapters (UCI, UCR, CSULB, CSUF,

and SAC) at the Santa Ana College Campus with the help of SWE's CLCC, we were able to provide 2

training modules. Students were encourage to talk and share ideas from each other, plan the rest of the

year, and set goals for the next year.

SWE-OC Dinner Meeting: "Climate Change: Another

Factor in Managing California’s Water Resources"

By: Roxana Carrillo

On March 24, 2015, SWE-OC had a

successful dinner meeting where we discussed

California climate and weather, current trends

and observations, greenhouse gas emissions,

and projections and impacts. Our guest

speaker for the evening was Lauma Jurkevics,

Senior Environmental Scientist and Climate

Change Specialist for the California

Department of Water Resources. The March

dinner meeting was sponsored by Incledon

Consulting Group, a civil engineering firm

that provides design, surveying, planning, and

water resources services for the public and

private sector.

STEM U Late Pi Day @Moreno Valley College

SWE-OC Technical Tour: ChocXO Chocolatier Factory

By: Paola Chavira

Paola attended the STEM U Late event at Moreno Valley College in celebration of Pi Day. She and her

coworker from SoCalGas demonstrated to the attendants how natural gas works and some safety measures to

follow. Paola also encouraged the visitors to engage in STEM and explained the different possibilities to

follow a career in STEM at SoCalGas.

By: Mica Lee

SWE-OC took a technical tour of ChocXO's chocolate factory in Irvine to learn about the chocolate making

process. An Operations Manager walked us through the machines and processes used to make their chocolate

products. We sampled cacao pulp, cacao liquor, cacao nibs, cacao flakes, a chocolate shot, truffles, and bark.

P A G E 4

Member

Spotlights

P A G E 5

SWE-OC would like to congratulate the recipients

for winning the Orange County Engineering

Council’s

Outstanding Young Engineers:

Cynthia Carter

Paola Chavira

Tasha Kamegai-Karadi

Mica Lee

Outstanding Engineer Educator Award:

Dr. Judith Forbes

Outstanding STEM Program Award:

SWE-OC K-12 STEM Outreach

She currently works for Altura Associates on building energy efficiency

projects. As an analyst, she takes large datasets and turns them into

useful results - her favorite part of her job is the variety of projects they

have, as no two clients are the same. She loves being able to

simultaneously make a building less wasteful and improve the comfort

of those working inside of the space, because she knows that if the

occupants are happy their changes will persist long after their contract is

over. Previously, she has worked on airplane climate control systems

and large infrastructure projects.

Julia Diaz

P A G E 6

Do you have any exciting news to share? Please send an email to swe-oc-president@swe.org

The new SWE-OC year begins on July 1, 2015 and volunteer opportunities are open! We are looking for

people to help organize and plan the exciting events for FY16. The SWE-OC leadership consists of the

Executive Council (EC) and Committee Chairs who meet once a month to discuss business and plan events.

Volunteering for a position is fun, rewarding, and a great way to expand your leadership skills.

Have you ever considered volunteering with SWE-OC but are unsure what is involved? Feel free to email

Nominating Chair Kathleen Monk at kathleen.monk@fluor.com or SWE-OC President Nadia Bess at swe-oc-

president@swe.org for more information!

SWE-OC Executive Council Officer Nominations

If you are interested in holding an officer or committee chair position for FY16, please fill out the interest

form here by April 17, 2015:https://docs.google.com/…/1voz26BJZx1qxDkJEdi52QWf…/viewform

The FY16 org chart is available here for you to review:http://issuu.com/sweoc/docs/fy16_org_chart

More information on each position's responsibilities can be found in the Officer and Committee Chair Man-

ual: http://issuu.com/sweoc/…/swe-oc_officer___committee_chair_ma

Save the Date! SWE-OC will be celebrating our 30th anniversary

at our Annual End of Year Banquet on Thursday, June 11th. We

will distribute membership awards, give out scholarships to local

college students, recognize our volunteers, and reminisce about

our past 30 years.