Women in Executive Leadership Panel Discussion held on April 30, 2019. It was a successful networking and professional development event, sponsored by SWE Tucson Section and hosted by Caterpillar Inc. This highly collaborative event was received with great delight and participation from 60 people representing 12 different academic and industry entities in and out of Tucson area.

Caterpillar Inc. hosted the event in it's new building: Caterpillar Mining Center. An organized tour showed off Caterpillar's Mining history and the building's many unique features, which include spaces that enable the employees to be innovative and collaborative, and leverage the latest technology.

All three panelists - Jean Savage (Caterpillar Inc.), Kim Ernzen (Raytheon) and Katharine Kent (The Solar Store), were highly engaged and gave the audience warm and relatable personal responses to questions on Diversity & Inclusion, Personal & Professional Development, Work - Life Balance and Brand Development.

SWE Tucson Professional Committee is looking into more ways to continue to engage our membership with more quality events, based on the encouraging and positive feedback received from this event.

The WE Local Denver Conference was held 15-16 March and attended by ~ 500 SWE members from across the country, even though the "bomb cyclone " created travel challenges for many.

The conference kicked off on Friday morning with The Wake Up, WE Local opening keynote, Erica Sodos. She shared her amazing magical talents as a woman magician and mentalist. Erica could relate to being a woman in a profession dominated by men. Her final act of tearing a piece of paper into smaller pieces while speaking to the challenges that women engineers experience in their careers and then turning the paper into paper birds was simply magical and inspirational. At the Saturday Local Power Hour, Jill Tietjen P.E., Past SWE President, shared her life story and discussed the importance of networking in how her career evolved. Jill is an accomplished engineer, author and advocate for women and a true inspiration. The WE Achieve Keynote Speaker, Jen Coken, comedian and life coach, shared her challenges as being an introvert and a comedian and provided tips on how to breakout of your self-made limitations and your negative self-talk.

In between the Keynote speakers there were panel discussions on the importance of cultivating inclusion and developing the women in leadership pipelines. Breakout sessions on a variety of topics including: Career Management, Strategic Leadership, Self-Management & Development provided many options to choose from for all in attendance.

SWE Tucson members Nicho Cusak, Laura Jones, and Carol Weber enjoyed their conference experience attending for professional development, networking and recruiting at the WE Local Career fair.

The 2019 SWE Tucson Distinguished Member recognition has been awarded to Joyann Hernandez for her dedication to K-12 Outreach activities on behalf of SWE Tucson. Joyann organized numerous outreach activities in FY18 and previous years including the Children Museum's SciFest, SARSEF's Future Innovator Night and monthly engagements at Casa De Los Ninos.

SWE Tucson EC met with Joyann to celebrate this award and thank her for her being a role model by volunteering her time to assist children learn about concepts that might spark their future career plans to consider engineering or other STEM related profession.

Congratulations to Joyann for this well-deserved recognition of her joy of working with children and sharing her love of STEM while supporting SWE's mission to stimulate women to achieve their full potential as engineers and leaders, expand the image of the engineering profession as a positive force in improving the quality of life, and demonstrate the value of diversity.

The SARSEF Future Innovator's Night was an opportunity for SWE Tucson members to share their love of STEM with children ages 4 - 12 at the Tucson Convention Center. The activity chosen for the event was the Marshmallow catapult design, build, test. The participants were very creative with their designs and some of the launches went into orbit! It was fun to see so many students from all over Southern Arizona participate in the event. Special thanks to SWE members Jennifer Davis, Tracy Doan, and Carol Weber for volunteering at this annual outreach event.

From SWE Tucson Member Jennifer Davis: SWE St. Louis Local 2019 was my 1st SWE conference. Not only was I engaged with peers from different companies across the world, I was also able to network with a host of collegiates just oozing with enthusiasm and excitement. The professional development seminars, panel discussions, and workshops all helped to develop my skills as an engineer. Special thanks to Peter Chang for getting together with the CAT Engineers for a couple hours of good 'olé fellowshipping. I can't wait for the annual conference in Anaheim.