Learn through Participation with the Vibration Institute
**This is the Letter from the Manager of Operations from Vibrations Magazine – Summer 2022, Volume 39, Issue 2
A little about me….
I have been employed with the Vibration Institute now for three and a half years. Graduating with a BA in Sociology from DePaul University in 2002, I really had no idea what I wanted to do and given the job market at the time, I figured I would just fall into something as I was open to all different areas. Healthcare and Education were two of my top interests and I landed a job in early 2003 at a start-up company that ran a for-profit online MBA program. Online learning was very new at that time. After spending over two years in that role, I moved on to work at my alma mater in the online program in the School for New Learning, which was the adult program where the average age at the time was 35. After spending almost ten years working at DePaul, teaching in the program I worked for both in-person and online, while earning my MS in Management of Public Service, which we referred to as the MBA for the Non-Profit sector I moved on and combined my previous work
experience and education to work in education at an Association. In 2015 I landed my first Association job at the DuPage County Bar Association (DCBA) (the same county the VI office currently resides in). In my role of Continuing Legal Education Manager, I grew their online/on-demand program in collaboration with the Illinois Institute of Continuing Legal Education, implemented “CLE on the Road” where the DCBA went out to different areas of the county to provide programming to our lawyers and paralegals, and my last year we hit a record of over 165 education programs which included hour-long lunch programs, half-day seminars, collaborative programs with other local bar associations, and our annual day and a half conference known as “Mega Meeting”. Based on my past work experience and current role at VI assisting in starting our online training courses, I wanted to focus my first letter for Vibrations on education as a huge reason an individual joins a professional organization is for continuing education in their industry.
I came across the Letter from the President in a past issue of Vibrations Magazine – Fall 2014, Volume 31,
Number 3 written by Past President, Dave Corelli. I made a photocopy, and it has been sitting in a file folder
in my office for months. I decided this was the best time to resurrect what Dave mentioned in his letter and
re-share it with our current readers:
If you go to the gym and exercise one time, it does you some very short-term good but certainly
not enough to matter in your life. However, if you go regularly, it starts to pay off in conditioning,
energy, weight, and even frame of mind. In other words, you build yourself up through continued
participation. Among us regulars at the gym, the big joke is the people that buy membership to
support their New Year’s resolution. They literally come once or twice, if at all, and then disappear.
We regulars love them because they help pay the gym expenses and don’t take up exercise machine
space. It’s easy to say you will get out of bed an hour earlier to exercise, but we all know it’s hard to
do. It takes commitment.
The same is true with training and education. You can certainly go to a presentation or class and
take away some useful information from it, but overall, it’s probably not enough to make any sort of
long-term improvement in your skills, or to help your career. It is only through continued participation
in classes, presentations, meetings, committees etc. that you build upon your knowledge base, improve
your skills, and open up new opportunities. An additional benefit, missed by many when it comes to a
professional organization like the Vibration Institute, is the opportunity to network with other people
in your field, establish enduring friendships, and be able to call on people later for assistance because
they are your friends and colleagues.
The mission of the Vibration Institute is to disseminate practical information on evaluating the behavior
and condition of machinery without commercial interest. The Vibration Institute Office is always working on
increasing member participation and engagement with us by providing training and professional development
opportunities to our members and our industry. As adults, we are lifelong learners. We have a number of
opportunities for our members to learn by participating in several ways through our organization:
• Committee Involvement: We invite our membership to assist us with our association governance
by servicing as a volunteer leader by serving on one of our committees. Joining a committee
helps build stronger relationships with others in the industry, contributes to the growth and future
success of the Vibration Institute, and through active participation, the opportunity to someday
join our Board of Directors. To learn more, click HERE.
• Webinars: This year we rolled out monthly webinars which are free to all members (both live and
recorded). We are always looking for volunteers to speak at an upcoming webinar and already
building our calendar for 2023.
• Attend an Event: We have in-person training courses, our Annual Training Conference and other
small-scale education events with endless opportunities to network with others in the industry.
Keep an eye on our events calendar for events we’re holding or participating in.
• Vibrations Magazine: Write an article for THIS magazine by sharing knowledge with our readers!
You will also receive points toward recertification by writing an article for Vibrations.
All of these are ways to meet colleagues while assisting the vibration analysis and condition monitoring
community. As Dave mentioned in his article back in 2014 in his comparison to gym membership, which
still holds true today – One encounter may dismiss your potential in the industry, stay involved with VI and
progress with us and as a professional.
If you’re reading this, odds are you are already a member. If not, I hope I have convinced you enough to join us a member! For those of you who ARE members, be sure to take advantage of the resources available to you through your membership such as our free webinars, training videos, technical articles,
discount on training courses, discount on our Annual Training Conference (which will be in Niagara Falls,
NY in July 2023), and discount on all mini-conferences and events that we hold. I’m sure you know of
someone, or possibly a few people who could benefit from membership with the Vibration Institute. Please
send them our way! Learn more HERE.
If you’re looking to join a committee or looking to get involved, feel free to contact our office at information@vi-institute.org or 630-654-2254 at any time!
All members are welcome to get involved and participate at any time!
