Inaugural SAE Leadership Development Program Selects 25 Student Participants

PITTSBURGH, Jan. 12, 2005 -- Twenty-five SAE student leaders were selected to participate in the inaugural Leadership Development Program. This program is the first of many new offerings to the Society's younger members under the SAE Power Track. Power Track is a career pathway that is designed to help accelerate an individual's engineering experience beginning in grade school and continuing through his or her professional career.

Nominations for participation in the Leadership Development Program were based on current SAE involvement and future leadership potential. In particular, consideration focused on leadership skills that are demonstrated during the nominee's junior or senior year of undergraduate studies or in pursuit of a graduate degree. The program will be held in conjunction with the Section Officers Leadership Seminar (SOLS) on January 28 and 29, and its agenda will include networking opportunities, further leadership skills development, and joint sessions with the SOLS participants.

The Leadership Development Program recognizes some of the most promising SAE student leaders -- individuals who have exhibited outstanding leadership skills through SAE activities on campus. The program will work to further develop these skills for application to future leadership roles in both SAE and the individual's professional engineering career while demonstrating the value of continued involvement with SAE.

Following are the students who have been selected to participate in the Leadership Development Program:

Akilesh Vedartham California State University, Los Angeles Brian Dwornick Lawrence Technological University Caroline Linehan University of Massachusetts Amherst Cody Johnson Iowa State University Darrell Krueger Auburn University David DeJohn University of Pittsburgh David Rising Kettering University Derek Beebe Central Michigan University Derek Noce Temple University Eric Legg West Virginia University Eric Rybczynski University of Michigan - Ann Arbor Eric Schwartz University of Central Florida Gina Parodi California State University - Los Angeles Jonathan Dell Bradley University Joseph Labermeier Parks College of Engineering, Aviation and Technology Josh Fowler University of Central Florida Josh Heacock University of Iowa Lauren Stolar Columbia University Matt Zorn Auburn University Robert George Kansas State University Ryan Blanchard Brigham Young University Shannon Fehlberg Lawrence Technological University Thomas Pollock Kansas State University Troy Dorn University of Wisconsin - Stout Vasily Romanov Temple University

For more information on the Power Track program, visit powertrack.sae.org. For more information on the Society of Automotive Engineers, please call SAE World headquarters at (724) 776-4841 or visit the SAE Web site at www.sae.org .

SAE is a non-profit engineering and scientific organization dedicated to the advancement of mobility technology to better serve humanity. Nearly 85,000 engineers and scientists who are SAE members develop technical information on all forms of self-propelled vehicles, including automobiles, aircraft, aerospace craft, trucks, buses, marine, rail and transit machinery. This information is disseminated through SAE meetings, books, electronic products and databases, technical papers, standards, reports, and professional development programs.