April 2010 Volume 35, Number 4
ASCE and ASFE, Inc., invite you to submit a nomination for the Professional Practice Ethics and Leadership Award. The award recognizes an engineering leader for a particular accomplishment or for lifetime achievement that has been characterized by sound leadership and a commitment to ethical principles in professional practice or service to the public. There is no membership requirement for nomination. The recipient will be presented with a certificate and an honorarium. For more information about the award or to obtain a nomination form, send an e-mail to awards@asce.org by July 1.
For the first time, the American Institute of Steel Construction and ASCE’s Structural Engineering Institute are combining their annual conferences. NASCC: The Steel Conference/The Structures Congress will be held May 12–15, 2010, in Orlando, Florida, and is expected to draw more than 4,000 industry professionals. It will feature more than 200 educational seminars and 85 technical sessions, and its nearly 200 trade show exhibits will showcase products and services ranging from engineering software to the latest fabrication equipment. For more information about the event, including registration details and a full agenda, visit http://www.aisc.org/form.aspx?ekfrm=18232. For more information about committee meetings or other activities pertaining to the Structural Engineering Institute, visit http://content.seinstitute.org.
With the help of ASCE, 3,000 copies of Ethicana, an educational and training film produced in an effort to combat corruption in engineering and construction, are being distributed to organizations and firms worldwide at no cost. The film, which was sponsored by ASCE and such other organizations as Fluor and the United Engineering Foundation, will be distributed to firms, international organizations, schools, sponsors, and ASCE sections, branches, and groups. Approximately 1,000 copies will be provided to firms identified as preeminent by Engineering News-Record, and roughly 500 have been sent to members of such international organizations as the International Federation of Consulting Engineers and the World Federation of Engineering Organisations. More than 600 copies will be directed to engineering schools accredited by abet, Inc., and their associated schools of construction and to engineering schools in countries outside the United States. Sponsors and other firms will be given more than 700 copies, and ASCE’s sections, branches, and groups will be provided with approximately 200 copies. For more information, or to purchase a copy of the film, visit www.ethicana.org or contact Michael R. Sanio, M.ASCE, ASCE’s project manager for this initiative, at msanio@asce.org.
ASCE recently met with Jo-Ellen Darcy, the assistant secretary of the army for civil works, to discuss topics of mutual concern. The assistant secretary for civil works is responsible for all functions of the Department of the Army relating to the civil works program, including the work done by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. ASCE focused its meeting with Darcy on levee safety and sustainable development in relation to civil works projects. ASCE supports the enactment of federal and state legislation for preventing levee failures and protecting citizens from the effects of such failures, and it is working with Congress to establish a national levee safety program modeled on the successful National Dam Safety Program. The support of Darcy signifies that a levee safety program is one step closer to becoming a reality. ASCE also reviewed its concerns with the revised economic and environmental principles and guidelines for water and related land released by the White House Council on Environmental Quality in December. ASCE briefed Darcy on its key strategic issues relating to infrastructure and sustainable development and discussed how partnerships with the Corps could advance these important initiatives.
Through consortium arrangements with academic institutions worldwide, ASCE’s publications division continues to widen the audience of civil engineers who have access to the state-of-the-art research and practitioner-oriented articles published in the ASCE Online Research Library, www.ascelibrary.org. The Society currently has licenses in 25 countries around the world. These programs ensure that the technical and professional knowledge contained in ASCE journals and proceedings volumes is disseminated as widely as possible. To meet the needs of people in developing countries, ASCE will continue its efforts in this area so that academic institutions in those countries will have access to core civil engineering course material. ASCE’s publications division recently signed licenses with library consortia in Egypt and Turkey.
In a recent interview conducted by the American Academy of Water Resources Engineers, the current chief of engineers and commanding general of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Lieutenant General Robert L. Van Antwerp, Jr., P.E., D.WRE, shared his thoughts on the progress of the Corps’s civil works programs, outlined his views on leadership and success, offered advice to aspiring military personnel, and expatiated on his sources of motivation. Van Antwerp serves as the senior military officer overseeing military construction and a significant part of the nation’s civil works infrastructure. As the Corps’s commanding general, he is responsible for the approximately 36,000 civilian and 600 military employees who provide project management and construction support to 250 U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force installations in nearly 100 countries. To read a transcript of the interview, visit www.aawre.org/van-antwerp-robert.cfm.
The newly created Academy of Coastal, Ocean, Port, and Navigation Engineers (ACOPNE) will conduct its inaugural induction ceremony on April 25 as part of the conference Ports 2010, which will be held in Jacksonville, Florida. The ceremony will mark the launch of the new academy and honor its first diplomates. Established to complement ASCE’s Coasts, Oceans, Ports, and Rivers Institute, acopne formally recognizes those who have excelled in one or more of the institute’s subdisciplines. acopne has defined subspecialty fields of expertise consistent with the subdisciplines encompassed by the institute: coastal engineering, ocean engineering, port engineering, and navigation engineering. It began operations in October 2009, and it is the third specialty certification program created under the auspices of Civil Engineering Certification, Inc. For more information about Ports 2010, visit http://content.asce.org/conferences/ports2010. For more information about ACOPNE, visit www.acopne.org.
ASCE, in conjunction with other engineering organizations, will offer a third year of Emerging Leaders Alliance training workshops to provide rising leaders with tools designed to help them lead their organizations more effectively and adequately respond to the needs of the 21st century. This year workshops will be offered in the United States and Europe. The workshop in this country will be held in Denver November 4–6 at the Renaissance Denver Hotel. The European workshop will be held in the Netherlands and will run from November 30 to December 2. Attendees will gather at the Dutch Design Hotel Artemis, in Amsterdam. ASCE will select a total of 12 members to attend the workshops. The other participating engineering organizations are the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical, and Petroleum Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the Association for Iron and Steel Technology, the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, the Society of Petroleum Engineers, the Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society, and ieee. Interested members should e-mail professional@asce.org by June 1. For more information, visit www.emergingleadersalliance.org.
Please note that two new podcasts in our series Insights are now available at www.asce.org/insights. The first features Bill Wallace, A.M.ASCE, an industry leader in the field of sustainable development, who discusses some of his career experiences at CH2M hill, of Englewood, Colorado, and from when he started his own business. He also recounts his work with the Committee on Sustainability—a body under the purview of ASCE’s Technical Activities Committee—and the initiatives the Society is conducting in this area. The other podcast features Nick DeNichilo, the president and chief executive officer of Hatch Mott MacDonald, of Millburn, New Jersey, who discusses some of the global threats and opportunities facing the civil engineering industry, as well as the attributes and abilities that make certain engineers stand out and succeed.
Last year, with the downturn in the economy, ASCE launched a new Web site—www.asce.org/surviveandthrive—to help you not just weather the storm but also succeed. Although the economy appears to be on the upswing, we have continued to add resources to this site for engineers at every career stage so they can set themselves apart, keep their careers on track, continue their professional development, and manage their personal finances. Now, thanks to ASCE’s partner Grogan Advisory Services, the webinars Retirement Planning for Young Engineers and Roth ira Conversion—Is It Right for You? may be downloaded at no charge.
The Society’s Architectural Engineering Institute has been seeking ways of engaging its 4,000 student members through a student competition comparable to those offered to civil engineering students. Thanks to a generous grant from the Charles Pankow Foundation, the institute has established the ASCE Charles Pankow Foundation Annual Architectural Engineering Student Competition. The competition challenges students to consider the design and construction management of the engineered aspects of a building project, including the structural systems, building envelope, mechanical systems, and electrical systems. It offers students from the nation’s 20 architectural engineering programs accredited by ABET, Inc., an opportunity to compete for the $1,000 that the winning team receives. For more information about the competition, visit http://content.asce.org/studentcompetition/competition.html.
I am pleased to announce that ASCE will be offering a series of webinars on the ASCE standard Minimum Design Loads for Buildings and Other Structures (ASCE 7-10) this spring and summer to help members become familiar with the changes and new provisions in the standard. The following webinars will be held beginning in April: An Introduction to ASCE 7-10 Wind Loads (Three-Part Series); An Overview of Seismic Design for Buildings according to ASCE 7-10; ASCE 7-10 Snow Load Provisions; A General Overview of ASCE 7-10 Changes to Wind Load Provisions; and Changes to the Nonbuilding Structures Provisions in ASCE 7-10. For more information about these webinars, including dates and times, visit https://secure.asce.org/asceWebsite/Webinar/ListWebinar.aspx or call (800) 548-2723.
—Patrick J. Natale, P.E., F.ASCE
Executive Director