President

Geoff Peyton

If given the ability to be President of Engineers Without Borders, I hope to work closely with other executive officers to expand the organization and solidify its presence on campus. As President, my main goals would be to increase active membership, increase external funding, and complete the current project and begin another soon after.

In terms of membership, we currently have a little over 10 active members. I would like to see the organization grow to 20-30 active members so that we can expand outside of international projects and begin doing research and local projects as well. To achieve this, we need to actively market ourselves to both the campus community and the larger Cleveland community. It is important for us to get our name out there and make it known what we are doing.

Regarding funding, we currently get nearly 100% from the Case Alumni Association. While we certainly appreciate this generosity, it is dangerous for us to put all our eggs in one basket. By actively approaching companies outside of the University not only will we increase our funding, but also have access to tools materials, and professionals who can also help us.

Finally, our international projects are central to EWB; they are what sets our organization apart and really makes it memorable. However, we cannot lose focus and slow down. We must challenge ourselves to cut down the cycle time for our projects and, if membership goes up enough, begin secondary projects that would run concurrently.

I feel these are some general goals, but they represent something that I hope everyone can agree on. In going forward, I would ensure that every active member shared their opinion and had their part in shaping the organization as they thought it should be.

Thank you,
Geoff Peyton

Vice President

Jenny Nelson

If elected to the position of Vice President of Engineers Without Boarders, I would be very excited! Being a part of this organization has been the highlight of my semester. I have met amazing people and been part of amazing things. That being said, I would do my best to make sure others know about our organization. Recruitment and active membership have been areas we would like to see improve. I have experience in event planning and public relations from past leadership positions in college and high school. I feel that it would be very advantageous for us to host a cultural dinner and present our past projects for faculty and students of various departments. I feel that this organization is unique and has many things going for it, but has the potential to do much more. Although I am probably one of the newest members of the group, I feel I have a good grasp of its mission. I am specifically interested in the position of VP because of its role in overseeing local and international project leaders. Although that currently involves just Cruce De Blanco, that in itself is a huge undertaking! The next steps will need a lot of time and dedication, and also someone who is positive and good motivator to keep up the good work. It will be very easy to loose focus and touch now that we are so far away. However, I feel that I would be good at continuing all the hard work we have done thus far, and boosting moral when necessary. I am easily approachable and like to make sure everyone feels involved. In conclusion, this organization has given so much to me this semester, I would like the chance to give back and I feel the best way for me to do that is through this position.

Thank you,
Jenny Nelson

Treasurer

Kate Bobak

My name is Kate Bobak. I am a third year undergraduate and am running for the position of Treasurer. After becoming involved in EWB-Case this year, I am interested in taking a more active role in the group. As for experience with financial issues, I will talk about my experience being a recipient of the Experiential Learning Fellowship last year. To obtain this reimbursement-based grant, I wrote up a proposed budget and this budget was approved by the ELF committee. I received the ELF for research in Psychology and it has allowed me to travel to a national conference in Chicago, present at Research ShowCASE and the SOURCE symposium, and soon I will be sending off a poster to be presented at an international conference in Rome, Italy. In order to be reimbursed for my research and travel expenses, I have to keep copies of all receipts and make sure that I do not go over my budget. I have successfully stayed within my budget for the past two years and I have been reimbursed for all of my expenses, so I hope this shows that I could do the same for EWB-Case. For fundraising, I would work with the Secretary to publicize fundraising events. For all areas I would consult with the rest of the executive committee before making important decisions. I look forward to having a more active role in EWB, if you give me the opportunity. Thanks!

Secretary

Brian Tietz

If elected Secretary of Engineers Without Borders, I would work with the other members of the executive committee to achieve both their goals and the broader goals of EWB. My goals, as secretary, would include increasing the membership of the organization, promoting our presence on the CWRU campus, increasing the speed and ease of communication within the organization, and fulfill the duties of webmaster.

I believe that recruitment should focus both on general membership and on recruiting students with technical expertise. For general membership, I would work for towards a strong push at the beginning of next semester, involving both freshman at the activities fair and all students through fliers, chalkings, and other means. To recruit students with technical expertise, I would be willing to make the contacts in the appropriate departments and recruit through professors.

I would promote our presence on the CWRU campus in similar ways. Any time EWB planned an event, such as the cultural dinners we discussed at the strategic planning meeting, there would be an appropriate amount of promotion to coincide with it.

To accomplish both this and the recruitment goals I stated above, I plan to establish and chair a public relations committee, as described in the constitution. The committee would consist of all interested members of EWB, and they would assist in the planning and execution all promotional activities. I feel having a committee for this explicit purpose is superior to the current system of PR activities being dealt with at general meetings, since it will be far more organized and focused. Also, I am lacking in artistic skill, so I will need assistance for those aspects of PR campaigns.

Finally, I would increase the speed and ease of communication within the EWB organization. Minutes were rarely available for meetings that occurred this year, and as secretary I would both take these and promptly post them on the website. The website was not utilized as a communication tool this year, and I intend to utilize it for that purpose. In addition, I would look into other means of communication, such as online forums, that would increase productivity between meetings.

I would also be open to other ideas for public relations and communication, and would do my best to serve the interests of EWB in other ways.

Thank you,
Brian Tietz

Emily Newton

To the Members of Engineers Without Borders,

In order to work as an organization I believe it necessary to work as an ensemble and so in working with the rest of the board I believe we could significantly improve our organization. If elected Secretary of Engineers Without Borders I would work to increase the current membership of our organization. I believe that our projects are extremely important and we need a large group of people with a wide range of capabilities to complete them properly.

I would begin next semester by putting up fliers advertising our first general body meeting and emphasize the fact that you do not need to be an engineer to join. I believe it is extremely important to enlist freshmen into the organization and to do this I would make fliers to put in their orientation packets. I would work to get a write up in the Observer as well as have a paragraph in the first year newsletter that is e-mailed every month. To further the enlistment I would work to organize a table at the student activities fair that would attract attention and truly explain our goal as an association. There are so many ways to get the word out about our organization and I aim to take advantage of all of them.

I would work to improve the history of meetings. As of now, we have no information on the organization except for word of mouth. I would like to begin a log of our meetings as well as to document meetings and events through pictures in order to have a concrete background of our work as EWB. I believe this would also help with recruitment, the pictures we have from our trip to the Dominican Republic will be a nice beginning for this.

I would also like to increase the use of our website. College students go to the internet for everything and I believe that this tool should be used for information on our organization as well as a way for current members to stay up to date on current projects.

I will be open to any suggestions by the committee and members of EWB. I hope to broaden the group not only in size but also in ideas. If we gather a broad range of members then we will be able to properly provide for every project we take on.

I will put all my time and effort into this organization in hopes of increasing membership, number of projects, and an accurate history of our organization.

Thank You,
Emily Newton