To: Attendees of the 31st Electrical Insulation Conference [welcome message]

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the 31st Electrical Insulation Conference. The EIC has been continuously held every two years since 1958. It is the premier applications oriented conference in North America and is the only conference of its kind sponsored by the Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Society of the IEEE. As such, the papers presented are oriented to the new and improved insulation systems and related diagnostics for electrical equipment A major change in the EIC was implemented this year by the IEEE Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Society. The IEEE EIC will now be an annual event since it was decided to merge the EIC with the IEEE International Symposium on Electrical Insulation. This merger was implemented since many attendees were sometimes confused by the slightly different objectives of the two conferences.