Thursday, 4 January 2007
Best in Show
A while back, I entered our pet bulldog, Bentley, in a dog show in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Despite his name, I don't know that I'd call him the Rolls Royce of the breed. But he did manage to walk away with the "best of breed" award. After the show was over, I took Bentley home with his prize ribbon and the first thing my wife asked was: "How many other bulldogs were there?" Sure enough, there were no other bulldogs competing in the show. So the way I look at it, I ended up with a dog with a prize, not a prize-winning dog!
Certainly this story makes me realize that awards are much more meaningful when there is a bit more competition. ASCE has 80 Society awards that draw a wide array of applicants from seasoned professors to students. While every award given out by ASCE meets the technical and professional criteria deemed necessary for the award, it is good to know that the award recipients were selected out of a large group of qualified applicants. With that in mind, I believe it is important for our members to think about those professionals around them who would be excellent nominees for one of ASCE's awards. If everyone did this in their respective Sections, we'd have volumes of competition, making these already prestigious awards all the more valued and cherished.
Recently ASCE took the guesswork out of figuring out who is available for which awards, by creating a document that outlines reward requirements. This tool makes it that much easier to nominate a qualified engineer in your area. Visit http://www.asce.org/pressroom/honors/ to see which awards you or your colleagues are eligible for. Who knows, maybe you could walk away with the prize this year and be a prize-winner.