LES Foundation Dissolution

At its February 14, 2018, board meeting, the LES board voted to dissolve the LES Foundation.

This decision was discussed and debated at length among the members of the board over a four-month period preceding the February meeting. The key consideration was whether the Foundation's work was providing sufficient benefit to LES members to justify continuing its existence and its work. The board concluded that the member benefits were not commensurate with the costs—in both dollars and volunteer and staff time—required to support the Foundation's work.

The Foundation was initiated by the LES board in 2000, when the society was running very healthy surpluses.

Over the years, the Foundation has done excellent work on the business plan competition, in which teams from universities all over the world competed. A whole cadre of dedicated LES mentors enthusiastically and selflessly coached the students on the importance of intellectual property and its proper protections in the success of the start-up enterprises that were the students' focus.

For many years, the Foundation was able to pay the transportation costs of the finalists to come to the Spring meeting, where the final stage of the competition took place. Particularly for the international teams, this was a thrill and a great learning experience.

The LES board noted in its deliberations and discussions at the February 14 meeting that while the Foundation and its many business plan competition mentors helped the students become savvy regarding intellectual property matters, they generally did not become LES (U.S.A. and Canada) members.

The LES board wishes to thank all the Foundation board members, mentors, and judges who served generously over the many years of the Foundation's existence. The board especially wants to thank the members of the Foundation board at the time of its dissolution:

• Ned Barlas
• Craig Cupid
• Don Drinkwater
• Pat Govang
• Annmarie Meike

The funds remaining in the Foundation's account at the time of dissolution—an amount of about $45,000—is earmarked for education.

In an era of membership challenges among all professional societies, LES needs to ensure that its precious resources are focused squarely on what is important to its members.

If you have a view as to what LES is doing that is not providing real benefit to members, or if you have a view as to what LES is doing or should be doing to provide meaningful benefit to its members, the board is anxious to hear from you.

If you have suggestions along these lines, please drop Bill Elkington an e-mail at bill.elkington@rockwellcolllins.com, or please givehim a call at 319-295-2290.