Greetings Vanguard Region,

My name is Christian Eldridge, and I am your Region V Chairperson for the National Society of Black Engineers. For a little more on my background, I am a first-generation college student from Houston, TX majoring in Mechanical Engineering at the illustrious Prairie View A&M University.

Before this opportunity to serve as your Regional Chair, I was afforded the opportunity to have served many positions within NSBE; most notably as Chapter President and Vice President as well as Regional Membership Chair and Vice Chair. Through these roles I have learned a lot about this organization, and I can say that I believe that the most important role that I have been fortunate enough to serve is being a member of this wonderful organization. When I got introduced to NSBE, I did not have any background on what college had to offer or what engineering had to offer. Throughout my academic career, the NSBE community has given me the opportunity to acquire that knowledge and grow as a leader, professional, student, engineer, and person. This realization reminded me that when I first got involved that I had no clue what to do here. In reality not many people understand what all NSBE has to offer, and that is what brought me to the core of my Regional Directives.

This year I want The Vanguard Region to “Play Chess, Not Checkers: Maximize Your NSBE Experience”

The idea behind this platform is that we help our members understand how they can take full advantage of what NSBE has to offer. I have many different goals for how we can improve as a region this year, and I would like to share with everyone an overview of those goals:

Connection: To better understand the current needs of our chapter members and their leaders, I look to heighten the engagement between the Regional Executive Board and our Chapter Executive Boards. Through creating intentional communication lines and consistent meetings amongst our leaders, our Administration Team and our Membership Team look to foster an even greater sense of connection and community across Region V!

Awareness: To boost awareness across the Vanguard, we will also look to enhance and diversify our media content to enlighten members of the opportunities we will provide. This not only means that you can expect to see engaging posts, but also you will see some informative posting across multiple platforms including a consistent Newsletter, LinkedIn, Discord, Instagram, X, and more! Follow us on these platforms (@r5nsbe) so that you can see what our Communications Team is cooking up for us!

Preparation: NSBE has so many opportunities to provide to our members that we want to make it clear as day what they are! Our Programs Team will be working diligently to plan events that provide opportunities in professionalism, leadership, academia, community outreach, and personal development. As we do that, we will work to market these opportunities to allow members to look for what they want to experience and prepare to take full advantage!

Intentionality: When it comes to professional opportunities, our Financial Team will be working with the intention of finding sponsors who have opportunities for all demographics of the Vanguard Region. That includes opportunities for all majors, opportunities for our international and domestic students, and opportunities for all classifications of undergraduate and graduate students. As this is a steep goal, we will look to not only providing as many of these opportunities as possible but also to making it clear enough for members to know what companies they should target at our Fall Regional Conference!

Pipelining: NSBE is built on the foundation of being a pipeline organization. This means that we not only have goals and objectives for our collegiate members, but we also have them for our pre-collegiate members and professional members. On the pre-collegiate side, we will collaborate to build stronger relationships with our NSBE Jr. Chapters so that those members can be involved with some of the major programming and initiatives across NSBE. I and Jabreel Walker, Region V Professionals Chairperson, will also look for ways to strengthen the pipeline from collegiate to professional membership status. In terms of networking, professional development, and guidance on navigating our professional careers there are so many reasons for us all to become professional members of NSBE. In turn, we can help put NSBE in an even greater position to carry out our mission!

With all this said, I will leave you with this nugget. If you read through this address enough, you will notice that I use the term “Vanguard” a few times. I do this because Region V is known as the Vanguard Region due to us leading the way in new developments and ideas, and our history backs that up! Let this title of recognition reign through what you do individually and what we do as a region. The Vanguard is going crazy this year so when you hear that “HOOOWWWW DEEEEEPP?” coming from this year’s outstanding Regional Executive Board, just know we have arrived! We look forward to engaging with everyone this year!