April 2015 |
| REGION UPDATE—MARCH 2015 BOARD MEETING HIGHLIGHTS Strategic Planning Reboot; Board Starts Scan of Key Issues  Kenneth
B. Morris, P.E., PTOE, M.ASCE, your Region 6, Director, is a member of
the Oklahoma Section and is president of KME, LLC in Edmond, Oklahoma.Ken represented you at the ASCE Board of Direction meeting held March 27-28 at the Renaissance Capital View Hotel in Crystal City, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C. As in recent years, the meeting was held in conjunction with the ASCE Legislative Fly-in and the OPAL Awards Gala, allowing board members to support those events. With the March meeting, the board relaunched its ongoing strategic planning process, first instituted in 2006. Over time, that process led to ASCE’s current strategic initiatives of Infrastructure, Raise the Bar, and Sustainability. An advisory council made up of four Board members, chaired by Region 8 Director Kristina Swallow, has been working with staff to create a preliminary list of “strategic issues”—states of affairs, developments, or trends that could have a major impact on civil engineering, ASCE members, and ASCE as an organization. Board members received this list of strategic issues and topics in advance of the March Board meeting and were asked to think about what might be missing. During the meeting, members divided into breakout groups to share their thoughts on gaps, as well as provide input on relevancy, clarity, and issue consolidation. The same question--what’s missing?--was asked of the chairs of the ASCE Society and Strategic Initiative Committees and, following the Board meeting, of an expanded group that includes Region Governors and Section Presidents, Institute leaders, and the ASCE Industry Leaders Council. During a full-day strategic planning session at its July meeting, the Board will consider this input and work to better understand the issues and begin the process of refining the list. Then, at an October Board session an updated ASCE “radar screen” of strategic issues will be created. Such a radar screen represents the 10 to 20 issues the Board feels are most important for ASCE to either act on or monitor. In subsequent planning, the Board must then decide which of the very highest priority issues should be addressed as strategic initiatives. Once the top few issues are identified as strategic initiatives, the Board will establish desired outcomes and will charge the relevant committees to present action plans to achieve those goals. Finally, such initiatives will need to be launched through the budget process. Over time, the Board will monitor progress on the initiatives and will later return to scanning the environment for major trends that could require more focused attention down the road. Among the other items on the Board’s agenda were:
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 Ken. |
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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 April If you live adjacent to a Section in a different Region, or are merely interested in the other Region reports for April, 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 6 update? See the March edition of News Around Region 6 Share this page via social media and email:  |
| REGION 6 NEWS 15th Fly-In enables ASCE members to brief lawmakers on key issues A total of 13 ASCE members from all three states in Region 6 traveled to Washington, DC, in late March to take part in the Society’s 15th annual Legislative Fly-In. Members engaged with their elected senators and/or representatives or their staffs about infrastructure investment and other policy issues affecting civil engineers, notably the need for a financing solution to the nearly depleted Highway Trust Fund. Read Fly-In details as reported by ASCE Government Relations, organizer of the Fly-In. Thanks to the following members from Region 6 for taking part: Allen Beene, Dallas Stephen Crawford, Grand Prairie, TX Patricia Frayre, Houston Walter Gerstle, Albuquerque, NM Crespin Guzman, Austin, TX Carol Haddock, Houston Martha Juch, Round Rock, TX Kenneth Morris, Edmond, OK Audra Morse, Lubbock, TX Jason Peek, Stillwater, OK Douglas Smith, Arlington, TX Robert Stevens, Keller, TX John Tyler, San Antonio, TX |
| REGION 6 NEWS New Mexico State University takes Rocky Mountain Conference Concrete Canoe title New Mexico State University’s Student Chapter Concrete Canoe team came in first among the universities competing to win the regionals competition at the 2015 ASCE Rocky Mountain Conference. This year’s event was hosted by the University of New Mexico’s Student Chapter at its Albuquerque campus. ASCE’s 2015 National Concrete Canoe Competition will take place June 20-22 at Clemson University, Clemson, SC. |
| TEXAS SECTION ASCE member selected as president of the University of Texas at Austin Professor, civil engineer, and ASCE member Gregory L. Fenves, M.ASCE, has been named president of the University of Texas at Austin by the university system’s board of regents. The only finalist considered for the position, Fenves has served as UT Austin’s provost and executive vice president since 2013. He began his career at UT Austin as an assistant professor in civil engineering from 1984-87, then over the course of more than 20 years, ascended to chair the University of California, Berkeley’s civil and environmental engineering department. He earned his bachelor’s degree at Cornell and a doctorate at UC Berkeley. Fenves has been an ASCE member since 1983. Learn more at the university’s website. |
| NEW MEXICO SECTION ASCE presents Bechtel vice president with 2015 OPAL Award for construction Andrew K. Phelps, P.E., M.ASCE, of Los Alamos, NM, who has led a wide variety of large capital projects over the course of more than 35 years in engineering, was presented ASCE’s 2015 Outstanding Projects and Leaders lifetime achievement award for construction at the Society’s 2015 OPAL Gala March 26. Principal vice president and manager of operations for Bechtel Mining & Metals, Phelps oversees the execution of 10 major capital projects valued at $25 billion in Peru, Chile, Argentina, Canada, and the U.S., and has helped lead Bechtel’s expansion in Latin America Discover more about what made Phelps worthy of the honor in ASCE News. |
| TEXAS SECTION University researchers explore geothermal energy to melt ice from bridges A team of researchers from The University of Texas at Arlington is exploring ways to use geothermal energy to make bridges and overpasses safer during winter weather. Xinbao Yu, P.E., M.ASCE, an assistant professor of civil engineering, is the lead investigator on a 17-month, $193,000 grant from the Texas Department of Transportation that will determine the feasibility of using geothermal energy to melt ice and snow from Texas roads. Anand Jagadeesh Puppala, Ph.D., P.E., D.GE, F.ASCE professor of civil engineering and associate dean of research in the College of Engineering, is co-PI and will work with Yu in exploring geothermal technologies for potential implementation in field projects. |
| TEXAS SECTION Prairie View A&M professor elected ASCE Fellow Raghava Rao Kommalapati, Ph.D., P.E., BCEE, F.ASCE, director of the National Science Foundation CREST Center for Energy and Environmental Sustainability, and professor of civil and environmental engineering at Prairie View A&M University, has been elevated to Fellow status by ASCE’s Board of Direction. Kommalapati joined the university’s Roy G. Perry College of Engineering in 1998 and has served as interim department head. Discover his Fellow-worthy achievements in ASCE News. |
| IN ASCE’s CIVIL ENGINEERING ONLINE MAGAZINE Cities pursue successful sustainability efforts Cities across the world are pursuing a broad range of strategies to increase the energy efficiency of their buildings. Explore the solutions a study found in ASCE’s online edition of Civil Engineering magazine. |
| IN ASCE’s CIVIL ENGINEERING ONLINE MAGAZINE Market for renewable energy grows across the globe According to a pair of new reports, the global wind industry is growing, as is the overall climate-change industry. Plug into the trends in ASCE’s online edition of Civil Engineering magazine. |