Enterprise Tech My Pursuit Of Happiness In The IEEE By Thomas Coughlin ,
Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Covering Digital Storage Technology & Market. IEEE President in 2024 Follow Author Jun 22, 2026, 10:42pm EDT --:-- / --:-- This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more . This voice experience is generated by AI. Learn more . Summary A former IEEE President, who led the organization in 2024 following decades of dedicated volunteer service, has released a "First-Person Narrative" titled "The Pursuit of Happiness" through the IEEE History Center. This comprehensive document details his extensive leadership journey, including roles as IEEE-USA President and Region 6 Director, alongside their education and career. The narrative, inspired by a past IEEE-USA tee-shirt promoting "Technology for the pursuit of happiness," compiles articles, blogs, and personal stories. Its purpose is to share experiences, acknowledge collaborators, and encourage others to leverage technology for humanity's benefit, aligning with IEEE's mission. The document is freely accessible online.
My Official IEEE Photograph IEEE I was President of the IEEE in 2024 after being President Elect in 2023 and Past President in 2025. I served other leadership roles in the IEEE before that, including as IEEE-USA President, IEEE Region 6 Director and Chair of the Santa Clara Valley IEEE Section. I have also been active in various IEEE Technical Societies. I have been a member of the IEEE for almost 50 years and I have been an active IEEE IEEE volunteer in one way or another for over 35 years.
In the course of these various roles, I wrote a number of articles about things I thought were important at the time. In 2023-2025 I wrote some blogs at forbes.com about my various IEEE Presidential experiences.
Having this collection of writings helped me put together a document about me, my education, my work, and my IEEE experience which is available as a First-Person Narrative in the IEEE history center. I called this document, The Pursuit of Happiness. IEEE has a number of interesting First-Person Histories here: https://ethw.org/First-Hand:List_of_First_Hand_Histories
I began to organize this document during the last months of 2025 and I worked with Mary Ann Hellrigel from the IEEE History Center in the first two quarters of 2026 to prepare it for publication. Nathan Brewer from the History Center uploaded this content to the history center web site.
When I was IEEE-USA president in 2019, we created a red, white and blue tie-dyed shirt that had written on the back, “Technology for the pursuit of happiness.” This was meant as a reference to the US Declaration of Independence from July 1776, which stated that people have inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
I was very glad and grateful to have been able to participate in IEEE activities and to have served as a leader in the organization. Since I had a good record of what I was thinking and what I was involved in during my various roles I wanted to organize this and share it with others. Much of what I included in this narrative are stories about what I experienced in these various roles.
I tried to include as many people, both IEEE staff and volunteers, as well as others, who I have interacted with over the years, but I know I didn’t capture all of them or all of our stories. I mentioned at the start of the document that there were simply too ma…