March 2015

REGION 1 NEWS Boston and Maine selected as ASCE’s most outstanding Sections for 2015 The Boston Society of Civil Engineers Section and the Maine Section have been singled out for honors as the year’s best Sections across all of ASCE in their size categories.  Boston is the winner of the 2015 Outstanding Section and Branch Award for very large Sections, while Maine is the winner of the 2015 Outstanding Section and Branch Award for medium Sections. Each Section also received an ASCE Diversity Award Honorable Mention. The awards were given at the 2015 Multi-Region Leadership Conference for Regions 1, 2, 4 and 5, held in Miami. Congratulations to Boston and Maine!   BSCES website>>  Maine website>>

BOSTON SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS SECTION Boston engineer named one of ENR’s Top 25 Newsmakers BSCES member John Struzziery, P.E., M.ASCE, of Kleinfelder has been selected by Engineering News-Record magazine as one of its Top 25 Newsmakers for 2014 for his design and management of the Alewife Stormwater Wetland Project in Cambridge. Read more about what made Struzziery deserving of the honor.

NEW HAMPSHIRE SECTION Burned bridge in New Hampshire offers clues to behavior of Howe trusses A railroad bridge in Gorham, NH, destroyed by arson in 2004 gets a second life, providing researchers with insights into the behavior of posttensioned wood structures. Learn what they've discovered in ASCE’s online edition of Civil Engineering magazine.

BOSTON SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS SECTION Section’s ‘Failure to Act’ report to explore blizzards’ toll on aging infrastructure As the Northeast slowly emerges from a brutal winter, the Boston Society of Civil Engineers Section is planning to raise awareness of the need to invest in upkeep and expansion of Massachusetts’ aging transportation system. “If four blizzards can cause over $500 million in economic loss in just one month in large part due to aging and inadequate infrastructure, just imagine how much is lost throughout the rest of the year from other weather-related events, accidents, congestion, and insufficient capacity,” writes Matthew Bosch-Willett of the Section’s government affairs and professional practice committee, in the March issue of BSCES News. “Just as the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) did with the national Failure to Act economic reports, the Boston Society of Civil Engineers Section/ASCE (BSCES) is producing a similar report at the state level entitled Failure to Act in Massachusetts,” he said. Read Bosch-Willett’s commentary.   Section website>>

METROPOLITAN SECTION ASCE Long Island Branch briefed on repairs to major thoroughfare The Gowanus Expressway, a 3.7-mile long viaduct comprised of 322 spans connecting the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, is undergoing interim repairs overseen by WSP USA Transportation and Infrastructure, and the Long Island Section recently invited the firm’s director to talk about the challenges in repairing the bridge deck without impeding traffic. The completed project has extended the life of the viaduct for another 15-20 years.  At right, ASCE LIB Vice President Adam DeVito, right, welcomes Steven Smith, director of WSP USA Transportation and Infrastructure.  Branch website>>

NEW JERSEY SECTION Paulus, Sokolowski and Sartor partners with ASCE Warren, NJ-based Paulus, Sokolowski and Sartor, LLC has signed on with ASCE as an official Partner, providing PS&S’s civil engineers with valuable networking and business development opportunities, resources, and top-quality training courses. PS&S joins AECOM, Boeing, the Federal Highway Administration, and Hatch Mott MacDonald as Partners that benefit from significantly reduced bulk-purchasing rates on ASCE memberships, training courses, conference registrations, and technical resources. Read more in ASCE News.

BUFFALO SECTION Engineering researchers studying elasticity win ASCE’s Moisseiff Award An upstate New York research team of ASCE members has received the Society’s Moisseiff Award for 2015 for the paper “Simulated Bilinear-Elastic Behavior in a SDOF Elastic Structure Using Negative Stiffness Device:  Experimental and Analytical Study,” published in the February 2014 issue of ASCE’s Journal of Structural Engineering. The team was based largely at the University of Buffalo’s Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering. Meet the individuals and discover more about their award-winning work 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 March If you live adjacent to a Section in a different Region, or are merely interested in the other Region reports for March, 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 1 update? See the February edition of  News Around Region 1  Share this page via social media and email:

IN ASCE’s CIVIL ENGINEERING ONLINE MAGAZINE Construction slated to grow as economy expands Modest economic growth is predicted across a broad range of nonresidential building categories this year, including transportation, lodging, and health care, according to the architecture, engineering, and construction consulting firm FMI Corporation. Explore the forecast in ASCE’s online edition of Civil Engineering magazine.

IN ASCE’s CIVIL ENGINEERING ONLINE MAGAZINE College graduates face brighter future An analysis of Census Bureau data finds that the employment picture is brightening for recent college graduates, though a full economic recovery is likely still years away. Consider the prospects in ASCE’s online edition of Civil Engineering magazine.

IN ASCE’s CIVIL ENGINEERING ONLINE MAGAZINE Reports explore potential effects of climate intervention The National Academy of Sciences has released two reports that examine whether climate intervention can help resolve the globe's changing climate. Examine the findings and consequences in ASCE’s online edition of Civil Engineering magazine.