things off with the first USTEAA Dinner Dance. Having no funds to start with, we used our own resources to issue our first journal. We hired a DJ using contributions from our Foster Wheeler friends. We appointed ourselves interim officers of the fledgling association and did all the preparations ourselves. As the interim secretary, I put together a list of invitees and potential members with names that we had gathered from various sources.  To our surprise, the party was a success. It was well attended, and there was overwhelming support for the association among the attendees.

The USTEAA was formally incorporated and put in place as a non-profit organization under the leadership of Canuto Ciocon in 1996. It was followed by the finalization and adoption of the By-laws and Election procedures.  In 1997, our first election of officers was conducted by the Membership Committee chaired by Cita Tibay.  Toots Ciocon was elected President for a 2-year term. Toots, who had a lot of friends among Filipino engineers in the area, was an avid supporter of USTEAA from the beginning. To this day he is acknowledged as the ”Godfather” of the association. There are others whom I also consider as founding fathers: Nitoy Canete, Dan De Guzman and Bong Alcid.