The President's Message 
It's hard for me to believe that my two-year tenure as your Society President is fast approaching its end so that this will be my last opportunity to write this Newsletter column. It has been an exciting time for me personally, and all PELS members can take significant pride in the progress we have been able to make together towards strengthening our Society. I hope you will indulge me if I use this column to review some of these accomplishments and to highlight some of the future challenges.
As many of you may already know, one of the high-priority objectives we set for ourselves during the past two years has been to streamline the Transactions paper review process so that readers and authors will look to PELS as the best source for timely publication of important new technical work in our field. Based on a combination of qualitative and quantitative measures, we have made a lot of progress towards achieving this key objective through the concentrated efforts of Transactions Editor Dick Hoft and his expanded staff of Associate Editors. There is still more we can do, but I salute all participants editors and reviewers alike who have invested their energies into polishing this crown jewel of our Society so that it really shines again.
Continuing with the topic of communications, the successful launch and continuing growth of our PELS Home Page on the World Wide Web also ranks high on my list of recent Society accomplishments. A lot of valuable information about PELS-sponsored conferences, publications, and other activities is now available to Society members right off the Web (as well as some not-so-valuable information such as this Newsletter column), but I am convinced we are only scratching the surface of what this new resource will eventually become. I thank Kevin Hurst, Glenn Skutt, and all of the other student chapter members at Virginia Tech who have played such important roles in getting our Home Page on-line in such a professional manner.
The Awards Committee and its Chair Tom Wilson Sr. have had a busy agenda during the past two years keeping up with a string of new award programs that the Society AdCom has agreed to initiate. The fruits of these ongoing labors will soon become apparent as calls go out for nominations for these new awards including the Outstanding Young Power Electronics Engineer Award and the PELS Distinguished Service Award. The Awards Committee has also played a critical role in reinvigorating our Distinguished Lecturers program with the help of our Chapters Development Committee Chair Bill Dunford. In addition, serious discussions are now under way regarding the initiation of some form of annual Transactions prize paper awards, providing a welcome avenue for recognizing the important role which these authors play in the technical life of our Society.
One of the other Society highlights of the past two years has been the continuing string of successful PELS-sponsored conferences and workshops. APEC continues to surprise and impress a lot of people, growing in both size and technical quality each year. This year's PESC in Italy was a real treat, and INTELEC maintains an enviable track record of successful conferences both here in North America and in Europe. I am also pleased that PELS is now taking a more aggressive role in supporting and cosponsoring regional power electronics conferences around the world including PEDES in India, PEDS in Singapore, CIEP in Mexico, and PEMC in China.
Given these successes, what can we collectively do for an encore? Truth be told, there are still plenty of challenges awaiting our attention as PELS members. Lest any of us become too self-satisfied, we need only look at one of the most important barometers of Society health PELS membership numbers. It is sobering to note that membership totals have been relatively flat for the past three years between 5000 and 6000 members following impressive growth during the early 1990's. While these PELS numbers mirror the same trends within IEEE as a whole, they are a clear reminder to all of us that we ultimately vote with our pocketbooks each year to register our level of satisfaction with Society performance. Membership drives can encourage new enrollments, but the long-term health of the Society ultimately depends on how well PELS meets its members' needs and expectations. Recent PELS membership numbers tell us that we can't afford to be complacent in our continuing efforts to strengthen Society activities and services.
This quest for increased member loyalty challenges us to find better ways to meet member professional needs all around the world. I believe that chapters and student branches can provide the critical vehicles for achieving these critical objectives if we can be more creative and aggressive in finding ways to support these organizations. Current programs such as the Distinguished Lecturers provide important avenues for providing this assistance, but there are many other possibilities including educational videotapes and local workshops which we need to explore. Given the importance of students as the future lifeblood of our Society, activities such as the new Student Contest which we are sponsoring at next year's PESC demand our active support. Not all of these initiatives will succeed, but we have to keep trying until we find the ones that work.
While recognizing these continuing challenges, we should be justly proud of all we have accomplished together during our Society's first decade. It has been a real honor for me to have the opportunity to cheer things along in my role as PELS President during the past two years. It has been particularly stimulating for me to work with the PELS AdCom members during this time to take advantage of their collective wisdom and enthusiasm for launching new Society activities. I am sure the next President who will be taking over the Society reins next January can look forward to this same dedication to making things happen. I only hope my successor will enjoy the experience as much as I have. Thanks to everyone for your support during the past two years.
T. M. Jahns, President, Power Electronics Society, e-mail t.jahns@ieee.org
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