Elected Region 8 Director
Lawrence M. Magura, P.E., F. ASCE, BC.WRE(Ret.) is the Region 8 Director on the ASCE Board of Direction. He began serving his 3-year term in this role in October 2021. He presides over the Region 8 Board of Governors, which consists of seven members serving staggered three-year terms of office. Region 8 comprises the 12 ASCE Sections and 26 branches in the states of Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Hawaii, Montana and Alaska, and the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Northwest Territories and Yukon with a total dues-paying membership nearly 12,000 and over 1200 student members. Mr. Magura is a member of the Oregon Section.
Mr. Magura is a graduate of the University of California, Davis (BS in Renewable Natural Resources) and holds two graduate degrees from the University of California, Berkeley (MS in Civil Engineering – Water Resources track, and a second MS in Watershed Management). He has been a member of ASCE since 1979 and is a registered professional engineer in the states of Oregon, Washington, and California. He has served the Society in many roles, including President of the Oregon Section, 1992, Region 8 Treasurer/Historian 2015-17, and Region 8 Governor 2017-19. He has also served on several Society committees including History and Heritage, the EWRI Urban Drainage Standards Committee, and the EWRI History & Heritage Committee. He also served as chair of the Local Arrangements Committee for the 2016 ASCE National Convention in Portland, OR.
Mr. Magura spent the early years of his career as a U.S. Government employee with FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He played a leadership role as Chief of the Emergency Management Branch in the Portland District, Corps of Engineers where he was involved with the Corps’ response to the 1980 eruption of Mt St Helens in Southwestern Washington before transitioning to the private sector in 1987. He worked for several Portland-area consulting engineering firms before joining Black & Veatch in 2000 as the firm’s West Coast Principal Water Resources Engineer, working on a variety of major water resources projects up and down the West Coast for over 14 years. He is now semi-retired but continues to work part-time on select consulting assignments.
