October 2015

REGION UPDATE Highlights of October’s ASCE Board of Direction Meeting  Constantine Memos, Ph.D., P.E., F.ASCE, is your Region 10 Director.  Constance 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. 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 Constantine.

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 10 update? See the September edition of  News Around Region 10  Share this page via social media and email:

REGION 10 NEWS International members well-represented at ASCE 2015 Convention Photos: 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 10 was well-represented, including ASCE members of the Nigeria Section (pictured above) Odaye Young-Harry, Adedayo Obada, and Abusemi Ngei, as well as members from Japan (pictured below) Takashi Imamura, Yoshihiro Katsuhama, Tatsuya Inokuchi, Noriaki Hirose, Yukihiro Tsukada, Yukiko Shibuya, and Kenichi Horikoshi. Read more about the Convention in ASCE News.

REGION 10 NEWS Turkey university graduate working in California named Fellow Osman Pekin, Ph.D., P.E., G.E., F.ASCE, a graduate of the mechanical engineering program at Bosphorous University in Istanbul, Turkey, has been named a Fellow by the ASCE Board of Direction. Pekin is a principal geotechnical engineer with CDM Smith, in Irvine, CA. Find out what made him worthy of the honor.

REGION 10 NEWS Founder of ASCE Ecuador Group elected Fellow Hugo E. Landívar-Armendáriz, F.ASCE, a consultant and professor in the field of geotechnical engineering, has been elected a Fellow by the ASCE Board of Direction. Landívar-Armendáriz was on the faculty of the civil engineering department at Santiago de Guayaquil Catholic University in Ecuador between 1981 and 1991, then started his own consulting company, with which he’s been involved as geotechnical engineer or project director on a wide range of civil engineering projects developed in several provinces of Ecuador. See what made him worthy of the honor.

REGION 10 NEWS Nigerian professor named Fellow Kolawole J. Osinubi, C.Eng., F.ASCE, a registered engineer and professor of civil engineering at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria, has been elevated to Fellow status by the ASCE Board of Direction. Read more about what made Osinubi worthy of the honor.

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 findings in an exclusive article for ASCE’s Civil Engineering online.

IN ASCE’s CIVIL ENGINEERING ONLINE MAGAZINE Research identifies changing coastal flooding risk Two separate studies find a compounding effect between climate change factors that are often researched separately. Consider the storm surge findings in an exclusive article for ASCE’s Civil Engineering online.

IN ASCE’s CIVIL ENGINEERING ONLINE MAGAZINE Meet the inflatable concrete building Inspired by plaster casts, a British company has developed a concrete-impregnated fabric that can be used to create inflatable buildings. Discover how they did it in an exclusive article for ASCE’s Civil Engineering online.