ASME held the First Annual Leadership Training Conference (LTC) in Houston, Texas on March 3 - 5, 2006.

More than 220 unit volunteer leaders attended the conference. These delegates represented 100 sections, 32 technical divisions, the International Gas Turbine Institute, the International Petroleum Technology Institute, the Center for Reserarch and Technology Develolpment, the Young Engineers Correspondents, the Centers Sector, the Codes and Standards Sector, the Strategic Management Sector and 3 student sections

The LTC has replaced the Technology Executives Conference (TEC) and the regionally based Management Training Seminars (MTS) as the primary venue for volunteer leadership training.

The primary purpose of the LTC was to provide the unit leaders with a comprehensive view of the Society’s organization, activities and resources to help them succeed in leading their ASME units. Great emphasis was made in creating opportunities for the delegates to network with each other, the ASME leaders in attendance as well as the ASME staff. The intent was to better enable the interchange of ideas that may lead to changes in Society operations consistent with ongoing changes in the engineering workplace.

President Gene Feigel opened the conference by providing the delegates with an update on the current status of ASME and an overview of the Society’s main strategic objectives. President Feigel was joined by President-Elect Terry Shoup and ASME Executive Director Virgil Carter in welcoming the delegates and kicking off the conference.

During the conference, delegates had the opportunity to attend a series of workshops on leadership tools as well as applications. The delegates also particpated in a series of exercise scenarios that were designed to provide real-life situatiuons that could be encountered as unit leaders. The intent of these exercises was for leaders to gain practical operational and planning expereince that could be applied to the development and execution of actual unit programs.

A highlight of the conference was the “Networking by Design” exercise that enabled the delegates to develop new contacts and relationships and identify opportinuites for collaboration on future projects. Delegates used posters from the divisions and districts, that described major products and services, to facilitate the interchange and networking.

The conference closed with a series of workshops that provided global and technical community leaders with a forum to summarize the topics discussed at the LTC, review challenges remaining and to develop action plans to put all of the new ideas into operation.