Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1098973
APRIL 2019 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 25 the speakers associate with if they are willing to provide some level of financial support to the conference. Corporate outreach and solic- iting sponsors is a learning process for all of the young professionals. When we started the conference, the organizing committee was a mix of experienced professionals and young professionals. Tom and I were the program drivers. Over the years, we have morphed the committee to be driven by the young profes- sionals. I am still actively working on the committee. We try to make sure that the young professionals do the majority of the work. I still communicate with all of the speakers and companies. This year, I had one of the young professionals make some corporate contacts and sponsor requests. We secured the speaker, and now, that contact is warm sales call for financial support. Johnson: A very warm sales call, indeed. Andrews: Make it happen. We didn't secure many corporate sponsors as we wanted, and that's okay. Next year, I will work with the committee members to do a little bit more. They need to become comfortable making direct contact with decision makers. The committee is more confident in talking to decision makers and putting together propos- als; now, it's a matter of executing and taking it one more step. Every year, we use a very purposeful growth and improvement process. We have a group of young professionals build- ing this conference and working hard on it as volunteers. Johnson: Did they start as attendees? Andrews: Yes. At one point or another, they all attended the conference. Johnson: That's a great next step by getting involved in leadership. They can come to the conference and learn, and then they can apply what they've learned at the conference for the conference. Andrews: What's funny is the last two people I talked with were from San Diego and were so excited after attending the conference. When I told them, "If you're interested, here's how we put together the program. We get your feed- back. You tell us what kind of topics you're interested in and what kind of speakers and companies you'd like to see; we try to refine that a bit, and then pursue that." We actively pursue anybody that we think makes any sense to be here. My phone calls are to the C-suite. If you look out here, we have CEOs, company presidents, and directors—not only engineers. Johnson: You have a VP of R&D, for example. Andrews: We have good, solid folks out there. And when I spend time with the speakers, I tell them who their audience is and what to expect; all of the little things so that there are no surprises. You've seen how our speakers and the audience interact; it's dynamic, and we're pleased and proud of exactly what happens here. There are a lot of moving parts, and it looks a little chaotic sometimes, but that's the nature of the beast, and if you're in the young professional arena, you expect it. You and I will run at the door and make it through, a young professional might run at the door and hit it. If they do, they will get up and run at it again until they get through it. One of the numerous panel discussions at the IEEE Rising Stars Conference. L to R: Mario Milicevic, moderator; Lay Guo (Lam Research); Kathy Murphy (management consultant); Ravender Bhojwani (Amazon.com); and Sanna Gaspard (Rubitection Inc.).