April 2015 |
| REGION UPDATE—MARCH 2015 BOARD MEETING HIGHLIGHTS Strategic Planning Reboot; Board Starts Scan of Key Issues  David
B. Peterson, P.E., F.ASCE, your Region 4, Director, is a member of the
North Carolina Section and is a Senior Manager for Rummel, Klepper &
Kahl, LLP, in Raleigh, NC.David 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 David. |
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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 4 update? See the March edition of News Around Region 4 Share this page via social media and email:  |
| REGION 4 NEWS 15th Fly-In enables ASCE members to brief lawmakers on key issues A total of 26 ASCE members from states in Region 4 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 4 for taking part: Charles Black, Hollywood, SC Brad Bobich, Indianapolis, IN Bradley Clark, Maumelle, AK Andrew Cohn, Memphis, TN Gregory Cols, Garner, NC Brandie Cookston, Whitwell, TN Stephen Curtis, Chesapeake, VA David Devine, Fort Wayne, IN Christyn Fertenbaugh, Raleigh, NC Jaysson Funkhouser, Mayflower, AK Robert Garner, Waynesboro, TN David Gehr, Leesburg, VA Corey Knight, Wilmington, NC David Peterson, Raleigh, NC Fernando Pons, Reston, VA Aaron Robinson, Jacksonville, AK Ernest Rojas, Vienna, VA Thomas Slater, Raleigh NC Stephen Stewart, Norfolk, VA Jon Stolz, Indianapolis, IN Kevin Sutterer, Terre Haute, IN Clyde Tant, Knoxville, TN Daniel Tegene, Louisville, KY Allen Townsend, Virginia Beach, VA Dennis Warner, Falls Church, VA Robert Warren, Norfolk, VA |
| REGION 4 NEWS Western Kentucky University takes Ohio Valley Conference Concrete Canoe title Western Kentucky University’s Student Chapter topped 16 friendly rival chapters to win the overall Concrete Canoe regional competition at ASCE’s 2015 Ohio Valley Conference. This year’s event was hosted by the University of Cincinnati Student Chapter at its main campus. ASCE’s 2015 National Concrete Canoe Competition will take place June 20-22 at Clemson University, Clemson, SC. |
| Fairmont State University wins Virginias Conference Concrete Canoe regional Fairmont State University’s Student Chapter Concrete Canoe team came in first among 14 other universities to win the regionals competition at the ASCE Virginias Conference for 2015. This year’s event was hosted by the Virginia Military Institute Student Chapter at its Lexington, VA, campus. |
| The Citadel wins Concrete Canoe regional at Carolinas Conference The Citadel’s Student Chapter Concrete Canoe team came in first among the universities competing to win the regionals competition at the 2015 ASCE Carolinas Conference. This year’s event was hosted by the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Student Chapter at its Atlanta campus. |
| INDIANA, NORTH CAROLINA SECTIONS Notre Dame doctoral candidate and ASCE member named a 2015 DiscoverE New Face of Engineering For applying her engineering acumen to make the world a better place, Maria Gibbs, S.M.ASCE, was chosen by the DiscoverE Foundation to be the civil engineering representative among its a 2015 New Faces of Engineering. Gibbs is in the third year of a five-year Ph.D. program at Notre Dame researching bridge aeroelasticity, which focuses on wind induced effects on suspension footbridges. She has worked on several footbridge projects in Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Rwanda and performed dynamic tests on a dozen more. She earned her undergraduate civil engineering degree at Duke University. Get to know this New Face better. |
| KENTUCKY SECTION Senior bridge engineer in Lexington elected ASCE Fellow Dipankar Chandra, Ph.D., P.E, F.ASCE, of Lexington, a senior structural engineer with lengthy achievements in bridge engineering, has been elevated to Fellow status by ASCE’s Board of Direction. Chandra, who works in the Lexington office of Stantec Consulting Services Inc., has designed several complex bridge projects in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Kentucky. Author of numerous articles on structural mechanics and bridge engineering, he has developed efficient and useful software systems used in concrete and steel bridge design and analysis. Discover Marhaba’s other 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. |