Hello,
Many of you may have noticed Sandra Unger's message posted on May 31, 2000 (as her "last official act as Chair of PIUG, Inc.") to the discussion list where she announced the new PIUG Board Members and Officers. I am Lucy Akers, the new Chairman, and can be reached on my personal email account at ltakers@pdq.net, or alternatively at lucia.t.akers@exxon.com. For a short time, I am also the editor of the PIUG newsletter. The next issue of the newsletter is ready for printing and is a special tribute issue dedicated to Dr. Sandra Unger. In the May 2000 issue of the newsletter, those of you who are PIUG members will see examples of Sandra's many accomplishments as PIUG Chair and will even get to see some great photos from our most recent PIUG 2000 Annual Meeting held the first week of May. Below is a brief preview, portions were taken from Sandra Unger's - Message From The Chair - in the newsletter, provided especially for those of you who may not receive the print version.
Dr. Sandra Unger has been the Chair of PIUG since 1998 and Vice-Chair from 1996-1998. However, she has been contributing her time, energy and enthusiasm to the organization for many, many years. She remains completely dedicated to fostering the growth of the organization and has worked very hard to make the PIUG Annual Conference an important international event... as the world's premier patent information conference. This has provided great benefits to the patent information profession, including opportunities for continuing education, knowledge sharing and networking.
Sandra has demonstated the importance of communication, recognition, commitment, dedication, negotiation, vision and focus as the means to foster our growth.
Her specific accomplishments include:
· PIUG Annual Meeting - focused meeting themes promoted growth and international perspective
· PIUG incorporated as PIUG, Inc.
· PIUG Business Credit Cards
· PIUG Service Awards
· PIUG Officers Archive CD-ROM
· 1999 Salary Survey
· PIUG Membership and Participation / Volunteer Growth
During her terms as both Chair and Vice Chair, she ran the annual meetings in 1998, 1999 and 2000 taking it from a small meeting of 50 people in 1997 to 140 in 1998, 186 in 1999, and finally to an international conference of 227 people in 2000. She lead PIUG through incorporation as a non-profit organization and acquired the organization's first small business credit cards. The PIUG 1999 Salary Survey was published just a few months ago and provided an update to the previous one, done in 1994. During her term as Chair, the organization membership and participation increased dramatically as was evidenced during the PIUG 2000 Annual Meeting which had many volunteers actively engaged in the processes required to conduct such a large scale event. In addition, as of the PIUG 2000 meeting, we have over 400 PIUG members and over 900 subscribers to our email list. She initiated the PIUG Service Awards, this year given to Elyse Turner and Bill Murray for their efforts with PIUG electronic communications. Sandra also created a CD-ROM archive of important PIUG documents for use by future PIUG Officers and meeting planners (and these have already been very useful to me!). And now to quote her directly..."Most importantly, I had the opportunity to work with an incredibly talented group of patent searchers who contributed their time, talents and creativity to making PIUG an internationally recognized organization".
Sandra’s efforts have been crucial in defining PIUG over the last several years and, I expect, into this next century. All is not lost, however, as she will continue to play a key role in PIUG as a board member, mentor and advisor for at least the next two years (and I don’t know what I would do without her continued involvement!).
THANK YOU SANDRA!
I sincerely look forward to working with all of the volunteers in PIUG, including the other newly elected officers, board members and committee members, as we strive to continue in Sandra's footsteps.
Lucy Akers, PIUG Chairman
ExxonMobil Chemical Company
5200 Bayway Drive
Baytown, TX, USA 77520
Phone: 281-834-0315
Fax: 281-834-2495
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Aug 10 2001 - 15:58:25 EDT