April 2015 |
| REGION UPDATE—MARCH 2015 BOARD MEETING HIGHLIGHTS Strategic Planning Reboot; Board Starts Scan of Key Issues  John
A. Frauenhoffer, P.E., S.E., M.ASCE, your Region 3 Director, is a
member of the Central Illinois Section and is the Senior Structural
Engineer of Engineering Resource Associates, Inc., a full service civil
engineering firm located in Warrenville, Chicago, Geneva, and Champaign,
Illinois.The ASCE Board of Direction meeting was 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:
Read more on the Board’s meeting in ASCE News. |
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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 3 update? See the March edition of News Around Region 3 Share this page via social media and email:  |
| REGION 3 NEWS 15th Fly-In enables ASCE members to brief lawmakers on key issues A total of 24 ASCE members from states across Region 3 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 3 for taking part: Thera Baldauf, Chicago IL Craig Bursch, Duluth, MN Zachary Carr, Grosse Pointe Farms, MI Marsia Geldert Murphey, Glen Carbon, IL Jennifer Gora, Park Ridge, IL Christopher Gross, Fargo, ND Clyde Hadden, Mentor, OH Martin Hanson, Eau Claire, WI Theresa Harrison, Niles, MI Chuck Hookham, Ann Arbor, MI Jerod Klabunde, West Fargo, ND Sanjeev Kumar, Carbondale, IL Patrick Lach, La Grange, IL Michael MacKinnon, Winfield, IL Jason Stoops, Northville, MI Christopher Owen, Canton, MI James Pajk, Dublin, OH Jeffrey Peltola, Minneapolis, MI David Pritchard, Columbus, OH Michael Schipper, Lakewood, OH Seth Spychala, Minneapolis, MN David Swiger, Painesville, OH Brooks Vogel, Dublin, OH Thomas Walther, Eau Claire, WI |
| MICHIGAN SECTION Michigan voters to decide whether to back infrastructure funding plan Rough winters and underinvestment for the past 50 years have led the Wolverine State to have what some have called the worst roads in the nation and a backlog of needs and safety issues. Last December, the state legislature decided to put the infrastructure funding decision before the voters in a referendum that will be held May 5. If passed, Proposal 1 would raise $1.2 billion per year to be used exclusively for transportation needs. Learn how it would be funded, and why ASCE has joined a wide range of groups in supporting Proposal 1. |
| CLEVELAND SECTION ASCE’s 2015 Pankow Award for Innovation winner made in Cleveland The Thermal Integrity Profiler, developed by Pile Dynamics Inc. of Cleveland, is the winner of ASCE’s 2015 Charles Pankow Award for Innovation. TIP is based on a technology that uses the heat generated by curing cement (hydration energy) to evaluate the integrity of cast-in-place concrete foundations such as drilled shafts, bored piles, micropiles, augered cast-in-place, continuous flight auger piles, and drilled displacement piles. The technology also can evaluate the shape of slurry walls, for example, in addition to other concrete structures. Read more about why the made-in-Cleveland innovation deserved the award in ASCE News. |
| MINNESOTA SECTION Challenges abound in state’s effort to move a highway Minnesota’s transportation department is racing the clock to move a one and a half mile section of highway in iron ore country after its easement expires. Consider the difficult options in ASCE’s online edition of Civil Engineering magazine. |
| 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. |
| REGION 3 NEWS Congratulations to Western Kentucky University, winners of the Ohio Valley Conference Western Kentucky University’s Student Chapter topped 16 friendly rival chapters to win the overall ASCE Ohio Valley Conference competitions for 2015. This year’s event was hosted by the University of Cincinnati Student Chapter at its main campus. The ASCE-AISC 2015 National Student Steel Bridge Competition will be held May 22-23 at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. ASCE’s 2015 National Concrete Canoe Competition will take place June 20-22 at Clemson University, Clemson, SC. |