Atlanta Macintosh Users Group - Election 2003 Candidates

2003 Election Candidates

Board Nominees
Lee Hoong for Secretary

I am an organic/medicinal chemist currently making a career transition into patent law. My first exposure to a Macintosh was during graduate school, in the late 80's, which began a long-term love for the platform. I even wrote my 170-page doctoral thesis on a Mac Plus using MS-Word and ChemDraw. Throughout the course of my graduate and postdoctoral tenure, I became "the Mac Guy" who provided maintenance and support for various Macs clusters in the research groups I worked in.

When I ventured out into the "real world" and got a job at AtheroGenics (an emerging pharmaceutical company here in Atlanta) as a research chemist, my Mac skills played a valuable role in getting the IT infrastructure up and running at the company, and I was their "IT Guy" for their first few years.

I first joined AMUG in the mid-90's and quickly found it to be a wonderful resource for Macintosh users. I initiated and chaired the FileMaker SIG for a time, and it became quite a popular group/resource.

Then my career became more demanding. I got too busy, and my AMUG membership lapsed. I missed being part of the organization, and several years passed.

Earlier this year, I renewed my AMUG membership. I spoke with Kathleen Innes and found that there was a need for volunteers to fill some vacancies on the Board of Directors (BoD). I was appointed Secretary in April. When I stepped in, there was quite a backlog of meeting minutes that had not been completed for ratification, some dating back to 2001. I worked to get as many as possible of these outstanding minutes completed and posted -- a total of 14, including the minutes since April of 2003. Currently, with a few exceptions, the minutes for the BoD meetings are pretty much up to date. Many thanks to the BoD of 2003 for assistance in making this possible. In addition, all available meeting minutes from 1990 to present were converted into PDF for archiving purposes and are posted on the Online Community. There is still much to be done. AMUG has a lot of paperwork and records accumulated over the years. I've begun the process of sorting, organizing, and culling all this material, but it will take some time due to the volume.

I would like the opportunity to continue in my role as Secretary on the Board of Directors for a number of reasons. Firstly, I feel it is important to make sure that the keeping of records is kept up diligently. Secondly, and more importantly, the timely dissemination of pertinent information from these records to the membership should occur to keep them appraised of developments. Thirdly, my experience leading workgroups as part of my career and chairing the FileMaker SIG previously will provide an added perspective on setting priorities, organizing activities, and meeting goals. Finally, I have received much from AMUG in the past and feel strongly about "giving back" to AMUG in recompense.