October 2015

REGION UPDATE Highlights of October’s ASCE Board of Direction Meeting  Christopher J. Menna, Sr., P.E., M.ASCE, your Region 2 Director, is a member of the Philadelphia Section.  Chris represented you at the Oct. 10-11 Board meeting in New York City, held in conjunction with the new ASCE 2015 Convention. The Convention featured a new format – an array of tours, courses, sessions, and speakers focused on key themes vital to today’s civil engineer. The excitement of Times Square as well as the chance to see the many marvels of civil engineering achievement in the New York area made for a great week and further inspired the Board members’ work in guiding ASCE and the profession.. ASCE’s incoming officers participated in the meeting as observers and were formally installed Oct. 13 at the annual business meeting. Among the many issues discussed at the October Board meeting, the Task Committee on Governance Activity Review recommended and received approval on several actions aimed at improving and assisting ASCE’s work at the Region level.   The Board approved the creation of a new task committee to study the revision of ASCE’s Geographic Region boundaries. This will seek to more appropriately balance the number of members in each Region while better aligning communities with common experiences and common needs. Currently, the number of members assigned to each Geographic Region ranges from 9,688 to 23,917. The new task committee was also charged with bringing forward a proposal to reduce the total number of Regions by one (and thus the number of region directors by one) to allow for another technical region director to be added to the Board without increasing its overall size.  In anticipation of this eventual reduction in geographic regions and related Board seats, the Board authorized proceeding with putting the Constitutional amendment required to add a third technical region director on the 2016 election ballot. The Task Committee on Governance Activity outlined core activities for Geographic Regions and Geographic Region Directors and Governors. This list consolidates into one easily referenced document those activities, including those already underway in many Regions, such as hosting Region meetings, awards, developing future leaders, maintaining Region web pages, and nominating members for Society and Institute committees. The Committee also recommended that funding be built into the 2017 ASCE budget for an annual agenda of interaction and training options for ASCE Geographic Region Directors, who serve as the Geographic Region Board of Governors chairs. The Board also approved a new Region funding model for future years, including travel reimbursement and an annual allotment. Read more about the Board meeting, including its strategic planning actions, in ASCE News. To share your views, or other ideas on how ASCE can better serve its members and the profession, please email Chris.

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 October If you live adjacent to a Section in a different Region, or are merely interested in the other Region reports for October, 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 2 update? See the September edition of  News Around Region 2  Share this page via social media and email:

REGION 2 NEWS Region 2 represents at ASCE 2015 Convention Photo: David Hathcox for ASCE The ASCE 2015 Convention gathered civil engineers from around the world in New York City, Oct. 11-14, for a new format of sessions, tours, courses and networking events. Region 1 was well-represented, including Mousa Hejazi of the Maryland Section and Richard Steeg of the Philadelphia Section. Read more about the Convention in ASCE News.

PITTSBURGH SECTION Section installs new Board for the year Courtesy ASCE Pittsburgh Section The Pittsburgh Section recently installed its 2015-16 Board of Directors at its Kickoff Dinner. Keep up with the Section on Facebook.

LEHIGH VALLEY SECTION Lehigh University researchers receive ASCE’s Noble Prize Courtesy Lehigh Valley Section Lehigh Valley Section member Dan Frangopol, Ph.D., P.E., F.EMI, Dist.M.ASCE, F.SEI, of Lehigh University, and former Lehigh student Mohamed Soliman, Ph.D., A.M.ASCE, now a professor at Oklahoma State University, received ASCE's Alfred Noble Prize at the ASCE 2015 Convention in New York City. The Noble Prize honors researchers under 35 years of age who have written a paper of exceptional merit demonstrating a promising future in civil engineering.

CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA SECTION Appalachian transportation manager named Fellow Jason A. Snyder, P.E., F.ASCE, principal engineer and Appalachian Basin Surface Transportation Manager for the Harrisburg, PA, regional office of AECOM (formerly URS Corporation), has been elevated to Fellow status by the ASCE Board of Direction. Snyder has more than 20 years of civil, municipal, and transportation engineering experience, with an emphasis on secondary roadway and bridge reconstruction and replacement through the use of sustainable and innovative technologies. Find out what made him worthy of this honor.

IN ASCE’s CIVIL ENGINEERING ONLINE MAGAZINE Study of nation's growing traffic congestion suggests solutions The 2015 Urban Mobility Scorecard has crunched the numbers to determine just how bad traffic congestion has become across the nation, and while the numbers are sobering, the report offers five potential solutions. See what's being lost in time and fuel in an exclusive article for ASCE’s Civil Engineering online.

IN ASCE’s CIVIL ENGINEERING ONLINE MAGAZINE Good STEM jobs are indeed growing, researchers find The U.S. economy created a surprisingly high number of good jobs between 2010 and 2014, many in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields, a Georgetown University research team finds. Delve into the positive findings in an exclusive article for ASCE’s Civil Engineering online.

IN ASCE’s CIVIL ENGINEERING ONLINE MAGAZINE In a first, China overtakes United States in value of built assets According to an Arcadis analysis, decades of underinvestment in infrastructure in the United States have resulted in a net depreciation of built assets, suggesting weaker economic growth prospects. Explore the report's conclusions in an exclusive article for ASCE’s Civil Engineering online.