Carolina C. Desmone Recognized with the Society of Women Engineers' 2004 Distinguished New Engineer Award.

CHICAGO -- Carolina Desmone is recognized at SWE's annual conference for outstanding technical performance in the first 10 years of her career.

The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) announced today that Carolina Desmone, OS Technology Design For Six Sigma Blackbelt at GE Energy, is the recipient of the 2004 SWE Distinguished New Engineer Award for outstanding contributions to the military, aerospace, and energy industries in quality, innovation, and productivity, and for exceptional support of the mission and goals of the Society.

"Carolina Desmone's personal and professional commitment to the engineering profession is admirable," says Vi Brown, president of the Society of Women Engineers. "She has made a significant impact at both SWE and at GE Energy."

As a Six Sigma Blackbelt, Desmone is a consultant, mentor, and coach for the Optimization Services Technology team to efficiently and effectively execute new product development projects as well as utilize six sigma methods in driving continual improvements across manufacturing and engineering. She has led programs to drive the Six Sigma culture at GE Energy's Twinsburg, OH facility via a Six Sigma Reinvigoration initiative. Through team and individual mentoring, Desmone succeeded to deliver business savings in base cost productivity, cost-of-quality, and profitability. Desmone has also led the development of a "bus schedule" tutorial and tool during the business's first Lean Shingitsu event and developed tools to assist in the strategic positioning of new products. She instituted measurement systems and processes at the local engineering level to track engineering performance metrics while identifying solutions to standardizing technology processes across GE Energy.

"Carolina has done a great job as the Process Black Belt for GE Energy," says Eric Gebhardt, general manager, Global Technology, GE Energy. "In the past year she took on the challenge of integrating the New Product Introduction (NPI) processes of five recently acquired companies into one optimal process. This new process has increased the quality, customer focus and timeliness of our new product launches. This was accomplished through Carolina's strong engineering background and persistence."

Desmone has been extremely active in SWE. Her recent roles have leveraged her change agent skills and strategic perspectives towards moving the society to achieve its long-term vision. She was the first interim leader of the National Council of Representatives Transition Team, the Region G Director in FY02/03, and currently leads the National Membership committee in transitioning it to a strategic-minded body. At the local level, Desmone has supported and led programs in Career Guidance, Professional Development and Communications. Her career guidance activities include New England Shoreline's Newton's Gig, South Ohio's Career Day and Girl Scout Aerospace Badge Workshop, and Northeastern Ohio GIRLS programs. In her current position as Northeastern Ohio Section president, she continues to rebuild SWE visibility in the local area through the participation in the RAISE Consortium to develop joint programs focused on young women in the greater Cleveland area. She attracted 80% of the mentors (from SWE) to share an engineering perspective with local Girl Scout troops through the GIRLS program and designed the final event that allowed the girls to experience a day in the life of an engineer. Other positions Desmone has served within SWE include New England Shoreline and South Ohio Section representative, New England Shoreline Section professional development co-chair, and a member of the New England Shoreline & South Ohio Section Career Guidance Committees.

Desmone received B.S. degrees in mechanical and aerospace engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1995, and received an MBA from Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio in 2002.

The Distinguished New Engineer Award will be formally presented Friday night, October 15 at the Society of Women Engineers' National Conference Awards Banquet in Milwaukee, Wis. The National Conference, "Engineers Leading Change," is being held at Milwaukee's Midwest Airlines Center on October 14-16. The more than 3,000 attendees include professionals from every discipline of the engineering profession and a large number of engineering students and educators. The 2005 Conference is scheduled for November 3-5, in Anaheim, Calif.

About SWE

The Society of Women Engineers (SWE), founded in 1950, is a not-for-profit educational and service organization. SWE is the driving force that establishes engineering as a highly desirable career aspiration for women. SWE empowers women to succeed and advance in those aspirations and be recognized for their life-changing contributions and achievements as engineers and leaders. For more information about the Society please visit www.swe.org or call [phone].