he 2012 Planning Meeting will take place on Saturday September 29 in the Seaview A Room at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Long Beach, CA. The meeting will start at 12 Noon and all members are invited to attend and to offer their inputs and suggestions for the projects and activities the Association should focus on in the coming year.

The Board of Directors relies on the inputs generated at the annual planning meetings to identify, consider and select programs for the following year that will bring benefits to the PSMA membership. For example, initiatives generated at previous planning meetings have resulted in the Power Technology Roadmap Reports, the Power Supply in Package and Power Supply on Chip project, the Energy Efficiency Database project and supporting the Industry Initiatives at APEC.

This year’s meeting will begin with a brief review of the year to date accomplishments and summary of ongoing activities by Carl Blake, Chairman of the PSMA. This will be followed by an update of the six quarter financial forecast and brief status reports from the active PSMA committees.

Most of the meeting will feature an open forum to introduce and discuss possible special projects, initiatives and priorities for the coming months. All PSMA members are encouraged to provide inputs even if they cannot attend the meeting in person. Please email your suggestions to power@psma.com and they will be considered and included in the discussions.  After the meeting, the Marketing Committee will summarize the results and prepare a survey of the membership to solicit their priorities on which of the projects and initiatives should be the focus in the next year.

Attending members and guests are invited to remain after the Planning Meeting to participate in the September meeting of the Board of Directors, which will take place immediately following. After the board meeting, interested individuals are invited to tour the exhibit area space in the Long Beach Convention center and the meeting room facilities planned for APEC 2013

If you do plan to attend these meetings, please call or e-mail the Association Office at power@psma.com.  

The APEC 2013 Technical Program Committee will meet the following day, Sunday September 30, to select the technical papers and to organize the technical sessions, professional education seminars, rap sessions and special presentations for APEC 2013 in March. PSMA is a co-sponsor of APEC and all members are invited to participate in this important activity.

The call- in number to make hotel reservations for the planning meeting is 1-800-233-1234. Please reference the Applied Power Electronics Conference Planning Meeting to receive the group rate of $149 plus taxes.

We look forward to seeing many of you at these important meetings.

If you or anyone in your company is interested in getting on the distribution list for future issues of PSMA UPDATE, please send e-mail to: power@psma.com. Be sure to include your name and the name of your company.