IEEE Houston Section Teachers In­-Service Program (TISP) Committeeman and Life and Senior Member Freddie Wong has been awarded the Outstanding Individual Achievement Award (for Region 5).   This award is designed to recognize long term service and achievement to IEEE and Region 5.

Freddie, now retired, completed a 30-year Project Management career with Saudi Aramco.

Freddie has been an active Houston Section member of IEEE since 1975.  His first volunteering post with IEEE was to represent the Houston Section at the annual Offshore Technology Conferences (OTC) with the IEEE Oceanic Engineering Society.  The IEEE Houston section is one of the OTC sponsors, and the section staffs a booth every year at the OTC.

In 2007, Freddie answered the call for volunteers to be trained for the Teachers In­-Service Program (TISP).  TISP provides pre-­university teacher in-service programs, standardized lesson plans, and general IEEE member support to help improve interest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, and to encourage careers in STEM fields.  Freddie helped form a committee and started the TISP program in Houston, and it is open to any teachers or school administrators involved in any discipline in grade K-12.  Freddie vastly increased the size of the TISP workshops when he arranged for all participants to be able to receive continuing education credit.  A task he accomplished in an astounding 4 days.  Thanks to Freddie’s efforts, the Houston Section of IEEE is an approved Continuing Professional Education (CPE) Provider for the State of Texas.  Since 2007, Freddie has almost singlehandedly trained over 1,000 teachers in the greater Houston area.  He also has expanded TISP and the continuing education credit certification to other IEEE sections, such as Dallas Ft. Worth.

Also, since 2006 Freddie started a long term (3rd through 12th grade) mentoring program for disadvantaged minority students (all Title I students) in the Houston area with a focus on completing their secondary education with an eye toward potential STEM careers. This is a program in partnership with a local alumni organization. The program serves about 300+ students and have graduated 3 classes from high school and many of those graduates are pursuing STEM related studies with some enrolled in trade schools.

Freddie’s award will be presented at the 2019 IEEE Region 5 Annual Conference during the Awards Banquet April 6, 2018 held at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Lafayette, LA.  See http://r5conferences.org/ for details and registration.

Article by Vincent Palughi

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