President's Blog

I recently returned from the EWRI Congress in Tampa where I had the opportunity to mingle with the 800-plus attendees, which included a good number of faculty members and students ranging from undergraduates to Ph.D. candidates.  I chatted with Downey Brill, the former chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at North Carolina State University, and with several of his grad students.  This reminded me of the benefits students get by attending ASCE conferences and events. They have the chance to work the room and make connections with working professionals. 

Through participating in student competitions, students can develop key leadership skills in a team environment, which will be central to their success as they grow into their professional roles.  The upcoming Concrete Canoe competition at the University of Washington in Seattle in mid-June is a prime example of an event that balances fun with leadership development.  Before and during this event, students lead their teams in determining the best ways to build their canoes, test them and ultimately participate in this national competition.  Leadership skills are the foundation of professional success. ASCE events offer unique settings for developing these skills. After you graduate, it is important to continue to engage in these events and to network as a young professional.  ASCE realizes the importance of supporting Student Chapters and wants to reward your Student Chapter for its instrumental efforts at helping you develop these leadership skills.  When you upgrade from student member to a full ASCE membership, a portion of your dues goes back to your Student Chapter to help other young civil engineering students realize their professional goals. You can find out more by visiting http://www.asce.org/inside/stud_chapacts.cfm.

What are you doing to develop your leadership skills and what are you doing to make a difference in your Student Chapter? Please remember there is no "I" in team.

Over time, many inventions have shaped the way we all live our day-to-day lives.  As civil engineers, some inventions have been instrumental in how we do our jobs.  These inventions have influenced productivity, efficiency and most importantly safety! Civil engineers are charged with protecting the safety and welfare of citizens, so it is imperative that what we build and construct is state-of-the-art and use the most innovative techniques to get the job done.

The whole notion of invention in civil engineering goes way back to the days of John Roebling, who in the 1840s, invented wire cables for suspension bridges.  Roebling saw this building material as a safer and more economic alternative to commonly used hemp ropes and in 1841, filed a patent application for a cable made of parallel wires.  These wire cables allowed for diagonal stays that protected suspension bridges from falling. This resulted in a thriving business venture for Roebling who would later go on to work on other suspension bridges in Pittsburgh and the famed bridge connecting New York City and Brooklyn-the Brooklyn Bridge.

Civil engineers continue to invent mechanisms and tools to make our jobs better and the lives of those we serve safer.  I recently learned that two civil engineers are among the 25 Semi-Finalists in the Modern Marvels Invent Now Challenge, which seeks to find America's next great invention idea.  John Hillman is a structural engineer from Illinois whose invention, the Hybrid-Composite Beam, is a new type of structural beam for use in highways and railroad bridges. The other Semi-Finalist, David Jensen, is a civil engineering professor at Brigham Young University.  His invention, Continuous Fabrication of Complex Composite IsoTruss® Structures is an automated process for continuously manufacturing composite grid structures.  The winner of this competition will be announced during Modern Marvels Invent Now Week on The History Channel_® May 15-17.  You can learn more about all 25 Semi-Finalists by going online to History.com/invent. I sure hope that one of our civil engineers will continue the great tradition of noted civil engineer inventors and their invention will be named the 2007 Modern Marvel of the Year.

What do you think are some of the greatest inventions to affect the civil engineering profession?

I recently returned from this year's Outstanding Projects and Leaders (OPAL) Gala.  This is certainly the premier civil engineering event in our country. Winning an OPAL award is one of the highest recognitions that a person or project can receive on a worldwide scale. OPAL presents an excellent annual opportunity to celebrate the civil engineering profession and bring the status of civil engineers to the forefront of our country's professionals.

During the gala, we celebrated engineering achievements including the OCEA Award finalists and winner-the Golden Gate Bridge Seismic Retrofit Project, in addition to honoring five individuals for their lifelong contributions to the civil engineering profession. I believe it is important that our professional colleagues participate in this type of event because in a sense, this event allows us to tell the world what we do, how it is important and its impact on making the world a better place.  Without our ports, international commerce would be greatly reduced.  Without airports and highways, travel would come to a screeching halt.  I think that when concluding an awards ceremony such as this, it is important to not only look at whose names appear on the plaques, but in the overall, collective contributions to society that we in the design and construction industry make each and every day.  As civil engineers, we should look to the future with great anticipation...to dreams not yet built, to projects not yet conceived.

What do you think are some of the leading contributions that civil engineers have made to society?