President's Welcome

President's Welcome

Welcome all Professional Engineers (PE), those soon to become PE’s and future engineers now in college!   Franklin County Chapter (FCC) of the Ohio Society of Professional Engineer (OSPE) in conjunction with OSPE commenced the current year on July 1, 1912.  I express my gratitude for the hard work of last year’s team, particularly our outgoing Chapter President, Devon Seal, PE, who did an outstanding job leading the Chapter.  I commend our Treasurer, Steve Day, who has performed the outstanding task of arranging our treasurer’s report to be compatible with the Society’s requirements.  I thank Howard Jones, as Secretary, for keeping the records of FCC Board meetings and activities, and Tim McCarthy, last years Editor, for making the Columbus Engineer (CE) newsletter a publication of interest for all our members.  I thank all our past Vice Presidents, Trustees and Chairs, for their continued dedication to our Chapter and to the State Society.

Franklin County Chapter had a great 2011-2012 year. Looking back it was full of activities with our outreach programs, including awarding scholarships to talented high school seniors, visiting schools for the imagine engineering coloring contest, judging projects for special awards at the District Science Fairs, hosting students for Engineer For A Day, coordinating Engineers Week luncheon and the Regional MATHCOUNTS competition..  In addition, FCC hosted the annual convention in June 2012, “Powering Ohio’s Economy, Tapping Ohio’s Vast Energy Resource”.  Congratulations to all the FCC members that participated, in achieving an outstanding program.

In addtion, FCC had intriguing luncheon programs, including subjects such as  “Engineer with out Borders”, “Ohio Building Code”,  “Legislative and Government Affairs” and “Establishing an Environment Professional Network”.  Last years fall seminar “Rebuild You and Your Business” was a great success. Even with all of our work putting together the monthly Columbus Engineer, our ongoing membership campaign, supporting the State Society’s work, and balancing the books, we found time to have fun with our family-bowling event.

Now, the coming year promises to be even busier for our chapter, and we need the help of all of our members to make it as intriguing and successful as last year. All the above activity programs are also active this year as they are every year. The first two luncheons have outstanding speakers in their fields: Professor Halil Sezen, Ohio State University, “How to Read and Communicate with Engineers Effectively” and from Alexandria, Virginia, Ms. Cyndi Reichardt, Sr. Quality Manager, Transporstation Security Administration, “An introduction to Quality Assurance ”.  She will follow the luncheon with a four hour seminar “Quality Assurance – Predictive and Strategic”.  Please refer to the September and October CE issues, respectively, for their bio and greater detail of the subject matter. 

We are in negotiation with other speakers, and will confirm at a later date.  However, should you have a concept/speaker that you would like to have for a luncheon presentation, contact Program Chair Richard Smelker ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ).  If you gave a presentation recently on a topic the Chapter might be interested, we would love to have you share it with our members. Just contact Richard or myself ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ; 614-395-8249).  

As I look forward to the coming year, I encourage you to get involved in some of the many activities we have planned.  Working with your fellow chapter members is a great way to network and have fun. Finally, as your Chapter Board we are here to serve our members and your input is vital to the success of our organization.  If you have any questions or suggestions for the FCC, please contact me or any of our officers/trustees/chairs.  Contact information for all our officers may be found in the September Columbus Engineer, Page 5.

If you wish more information regarding NSPE, OSPE or the Franklin County Chapter, please contact me or visit the national (http://www.nspe.org), state (http://www.ohioengineer.com) or Franklin County website (http://ohioengineer.com/index.php/Become-a-Member/Franklin-County)

Leon Winget, Ph.D, P.E.

FCC President