SAWE Wichita Chapter

Minutes June 25, 2007

Prepared by Stephen Demarest

The Wichita chapter of SAWE met Monday evening, June 26, 2007 at the Whiskey Creek Steakhouse.  Sixteen members and guests were in attendance.  It was decided that this would be the last meeting until the picnic in the fall.  There were a couple of surprise awards handed out.  Doug Cekal received the title of Fellow.  Wesley Kleinschmidt received the President’s Service Award.  Pat Brown accepted both awards on their behalf at the International Conference in Madrid, Spain.

Vic Graham reminded those in attendance that we will be hosting an International Conference in 2009 and that we need to get our committees organized and start planning for that conference.  It was announced that several spouses were interested in forming the Spouse Events Committee.  It was also announced Gopal will be reporting to work at Cessna on July 9^th.  He is planning to head the vendor committee.  A new secretary was appointed due to Ed Chrisco job change to FalconJet.  Stephen Demarest took over his duties that night.

After we enjoyed the meal Arif Zaidi gave a presentation on his experience at the International Conference.  There were approximately 300 people in attendance at the conference.  There were quite a few papers on shipbuilding and several more on aircraft.  There were also quite a few activities for the spouses and sites to see around the countryside.  Quite a few pictures of their trip were shared.  Arif was amazed by some of the software, Optistruct, which was being utilized in aircraft like the A380.  This software performs several stress functions to help reduce weight and optimize the structure.    We learned of Pat’s “luck” traveling to and from Madrid.  His luggage was lost both times.

The meeting was adjourned about 9:10 pm.