January 2015

REGION DIRECTOR'S REPORT Highlights of January’s ASCE Board of Direction Meeting Jay Higgins, P.E., F.ASCE, your Region 9 Director, is a member of the Los Angeles Section and recently retired as a Senior Project Manager after 22 years with URS Corporation in the Construction Services Division. Your newly installed board member, Jay represented you at the ASCE Board of Direction meeting on January 8 in Miami, held in conjunction with the first of three Multi-Region Leadership Conferences. These conferences bring together Section, Branch and Region leaders, along with leaders from student chapters and Younger Member Groups. Vibrant, sunny Miami proved to be an ideal location for the MRLC, which offered sessions aimed at improving management of ASCE entities and on developing leadership skills for all career phases. Board members appreciated the opportunity to hear firsthand about challenges, concerns and aspirations from so many different ASCE members, and found the conference environment to be energizing. After welcoming its newest board members, installed at the ASCE business meeting in October, and its new executive director, Tom Smith, the board worked through an agenda that included both business actions and strategic discussions. Among the business conducted, the board: Was notified by the Nominating Committee that two official nominees were selected for the upcoming election for the office of ASCE president-elect:  Norma Jean Mattei, PhD, P.E., F.SEI, M.ASCE, and Thomas R. Walther, P.E., F.ASCE  Approved two new Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks Approved the establishment of two new ASCE awards honoring achievement in the fields of risk analysis and management and failure and damage prevention Approved rules to establish a new technical division on infrastructure resilience FA substantial portion of the board’s agendas have been devoted to strategic discussions with Society Committees. During this meeting, the board heard from the chair of the Committee on Education, Norman D.  Dennis, PhD, P.E., F.ASCE, who identified a number of issues related to the future of engineering education. Most significant were proposed changes to ABET governance that, if approved, could greatly diminish ASCE’s influence on civil engineering program criteria in the future. The board will conduct a more extensive discussion of this issue at an upcoming meeting. The board also spent some time developing and discussing a set of core values that would guide its interaction as a board. Civil engineering is a profession grounded in ethical practice and professionalism, and ASCE is well-served by its Code of Ethics, vision, and mission. A set of core values would complement these by establishing a common understanding of how the board pledges to function in its work together and with constituents throughout the Society to cultivate a climate of excellence, teamwork and integrity. Based on the positive discussion at this meeting, the board expects to adopt a set of core values at a future meeting.n ASCE News.         Board members are interested in your views on the issues they are considering. To share your views, or other ideas on how ASCE can better serve its members and the profession, please email Jay.

SAN FRANCISCO SECTION Section’s Younger Member Forum wins first ASCE Music Video Contest The San Francisco Section’s Younger Member Forum more than met the goal of ASCE’s first Music Video Contest – to prove that it’s possible to create a great song about civil engineering. If you haven’t seen it yet, watch the fun video that earned them $5,000 as a contest winner. ASCE’s Student Chapter at the University of Nevada, Reno also created a winning video. See both winners, plus a selection of entertaining entries from among the nearly three dozen videos submitted.   Section website>>.

SAN FRANCISCO SECTION Deputy design manager for Panama Canal expansion elected ASCE Fellow Mary Williams Goodson, P.E., F.SEI, M.ASCE, an engineer with Brown and Caldwell, was previously deputy design manager for CH2M-Hill’s design and construction of the Third Set of Locks for the Panama Canal Authority. This $5.2 billion design-build project for the Panama Canal Expansion includes design of the lock structures, gates, and filling-and-emptying system. Previously, principal structural engineer and design technology lead in the Structural Engineering Department at CH2M-Hill’s Oakland, CA, office, Goodson has 25 years’ experience in structural design, structural analysis, and computer programming for structural engineer applications. Active within ASCE, Goodson served on the Board of Directors of Civil Engineering Certification Inc. and ASCE 11. Discover more about what made Goodson worthy of election as an ASCE Fellow in ASCE News.

SAN DIEGO SECTION Geo-Institute board member and UC–San Diego geotechnical professor elected ASCE Fellow Patrick J. Fox, Ph.D., F.ASCE, is a professor in the Department of Structural Engineering at the University of California–San Diego, with specialization in geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering. Fox, who has a broad range of expertise in the areas of consolidation, slope stability, retaining walls, landfills, geosynthetics, and earthquake engineering, has published over 180 technical papers on his research. Currently on the Board of Governors of ASCE’s Geo-Institute and editor-in-chief of ASCE’s Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, Fox is a member and past chair of the Geo-Institute’s Technical Publications Committee, and past chair of the GeoFlorida 2010 ASCE GeoCongress. Discover more about what made Fox worthy of election as an ASCE Fellow in ASCE News.

Great outreach event or other activity? Let the whole Region know! If you’re a local ASCE leader and your Section, Branch, Younger Member Group, or Student Chapter has staged any special events, engaged in outreach from grade-school kids to lawmakers, done charity work, fund raising or anything of the sort, let ASCEnews Weekly know and we may include it in next month’s Region report. You may already have written about it and posted pictures in your newsletter, website, or social media. Share the details and any photos at asce.org/localnews. Got questions? Write to submissions@asce.org. See the other Region reports for January If you live adjacent to a Section in a different Region, or are merely interested in the other Region reports for January, click on each to view them:   Region 1   Boston Society of Civil Engineers Section, Buffalo Section, Connecticut Society of Civil Engineers Section, Ithaca Section, Maine Section, Metropolitan Section, Mohawk-Hudson Section, New Hampshire Section, New Jersey Section, Puerto Rico Section, Rhode Island Section, Rochester Section, Syracuse Section, Vermont Section Region 2   Central Pennsylvania Section, Delaware Section, Lehigh Valley Section, Maryland Section, National Capital Section, Philadelphia Section, Pittsburgh Section Region 3   Akron-Canton Section, Central Illinois Section, Central Ohio Section, Cincinnati Section, Cleveland Section, Dayton Section, Duluth Section, Illinois Section, Michigan Section, Minnesota Section, North Dakota Section, Quad Cities Section, Toledo Section, Wisconsin Section Region 4   Arkansas Section, Indiana Section, Kentucky Section, North Carolina Section, South Carolina Section, Tennessee Section, Virginia Section, West Virginia Section Region 5   Alabama Section, Florida Section, Georgia Section, Louisiana Section, Mississippi Section   Region 6   New Mexico Section, Oklahoma Section, Texas Section Region 7   Colorado Section, Iowa Section, Kansas City Section, Kansas Section, Nebraska Section, South Dakota Section, St. Louis Section, Wyoming Section Region 8   Alaska Section, Arizona Section, Columbia Section, Hawaii Section, Inland Empire Section, Montana Section, Nevada Section, Oregon Section, Seattle Section, Southern Idaho Section, Tacoma-Olympia Section, Utah Section Region 9   Los Angeles Section, Sacramento Section, San Diego Section, San Francisco Section Region 10   All International Sections, Branches, and Groups Missed last month's Region 9 update? See the December edition of News Around Region 9  Share this page via social media and email: