Shlomo Carmi, dean of the College of Engineering and vice president of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers' (ASME) International Board on Engineering Education, spoke at the State of Technology in Maryland 2002 Summit on February 4. Other speakers included the Honorable Leonard Teitelbaum, Maryland Senate; the Honorable Kumar Barve, Maryland House of Delegates; Casper Taylor, speaker, Maryland House of Delegates; the Honorable Paul Sarbanes, U.S. Senate; and the Honorable Barbara Mikulski, U.S. Senate.

Good morning, I am Shlomo Carmi, vice president of ASME's International Board on Engineering Education, and the dean of engineering at UMBC. It is my pleasure to welcome all of you to the Fifth Annual State of Technology in Maryland Summit. This meeting is being hosted by the Maryland Speaker of the House, the Honorable Casper Taylor, and the Maryland Senate President, the Honorable Mike Miller, and we have just heard from the Honorable Leonard Teitelbaum from the Maryland Senate and the Honorable Kumar Barve from the Maryland House of Delegates. The summit is organized in conjunction with the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Greater Baltimore Technology Council, the High Technology Council of Maryland and the Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies. I would like to acknowledge my colleague Kenneth Kroos, ASME's regional vice president, who joined us today from Villanova University.

For those of you not familiar with ASME, let me give just a brief background. ASME is a 130,000-member professional engineering society focused on technical, educational and research issues. It conducts one of the world's largest technical publishing operations, holds 30 technical conferences and 200 professional development courses each year, and of course, sets many industrial and manufacturing standards.

You might ask why ASME is co-hosting a meeting of this nature. The answer is both historical and pragmatic. ASME has been providing technical advice to policymakers since it was founded 121 years ago. It is interesting to note that one of the very first things that the Society did was to champion the establishment of the U.S. Department of Commerce, so we have been in this business for a long, long time.

In 1973, our interactions at the federal level were extensive, and it became desirable to open an office in Washington. That office maintains a continuous dialogue with the executive and legislative branches, operates a Washington visitation program that brings members into contact with federal policymakers and, also since 1973, conducts a Federal Fellow program, which selects ASME members to serve as engineering fellows in the legislative and executive branches. In 1985-86 I was a congressional fellow myself, and spent my sabbatical as a science and technology advisor to Senator Carl Levin of Michigan. It was a very rewarding experience. Finally, the Washington Center conducts continuous policy analysis and formulates and disseminates position papers on funding proposals for NSF, NASA, NIST and many other agencies.

In 1986, it was decided that providing technical advice to lawmakers should go beyond the federal level and become a resource for state governments as well. With that in mind, ASME initiated a State Fellow program in order to establish a pipeline via which ASME, and other professional organizations, could provide relevant technical information, so important to state policymakers. Maryland universities are also full partners in these endeavors. Academic institutions in Maryland, like UMBC, in addition to being heavily involved in education and research, are actively promoting technology transfer and commercialization. At the same time, they are involved in K-12 outreach projects, in order to attract the most talented students to engineering and technology, especially from underrepresented groups (minorities and women). One such project is the introduction of engineering as a discipline in high schools. Another important state program in which many Maryland universities are partners is MAITI, the Maryland Applied Information Technology Initiative, which we hope will continue to enjoy strong support from lawmakers. Educating a highly qualified workforce is the key to future economic development in the state, and is a goal shared by industry and universities.

That is the historical perspective. On the pragmatic part, we are interested in these programs because industry is a very important part of ASME. About 90 percent of its members work in industry and the Society is committed to industry. As the state-federal partnerships evolved, it became apparent that there was a need for knowledge about technology development opportunities within our own membership and the industry at large. The answer was to develop meetings such as this one, to help fill that need. We hope that, by bringing the various organizations together, as we have done today, we can all network and learn what these programs offer, and what they have accomplished. And, more importantly, you may identify opportunities that can assist you, or your company or organization, to become more competitive.

Thank you very much.