President's Blog

A Transportation Research Board committee chaired by ASCE Past President Henry "Gerry" Schwartz has produced a report, Potential Impacts of Climate Change on U.S. Transportation, which I learned more about recently.

Although engineers have believed that climate change would be a gradual long term process, unfortunately Schwartz's report "suggest[s] that the impacts are going to be more serious and more of a surprise than transportation officials realize." Many of these are exacerbated on days of hot weather and during extended above-normal heat periods. Other problems relate to the potential impact of Arctic temperatures, sea level rise, intense precipitation and possible increases in hurricane intensity. Coastal flooding is another major possibility that could have a significant effect on U.S. transportation infrastructure.

TRB's report presents 14 recommendations. They begin with creating an inventory of critical infrastructure that might be affected by climate change projections. Schwartz presses the need for public and private infrastructure owners to incorporate this analysis in capital and renewal planning. The decision should be based on the current probability of an event, rather than on historic data. The "hundred-year" storm of yesterday may only be today a 50- or 20-year event.

Some examples of rising sea levels combined with storm surges can produce inundated roads, rail lines and runways with significant erosion of road base and bridge supports. The effects of extreme temperature events could include thermal expansion of bridges and paved services and concerns regarding pavement integrity. The report goes on to cite many other examples. You can read TRB's summary of their report here (PDF document.)

Past president Schwartz believes that we may not be 100 percent accurate about the potential threat, but if we wait until we are sure, we may be too late. "Do we want to wait 50 years to find out those guys 50 years ago were dead right?  It is better to do something over 50 years and perhaps they weren’t quite right?" he asked.

What is your state agency doing to prepare for potential impacts from global climatic changes?

I would like to credit the National Society of Professional Engineers' PE Magazine as the source of some of the material for this blog.

I recently read the Summer 2008 edition of Texas Civil Engineer, a quarterly magazine published by the Texas Society of Civil Engineers.  It included an article by Melinda Luna entitled, "The Texas Five: Five ASCE Presidents from the Texas Section."  We know that Wayne Klotz, our current president-elect, will be installed in early November as president of ASCE.  Many of you have heard Wayne’s vision regarding his "ABCs of Civil Engineering," which translate to advocate, benefit and change. But were you aware that Wayne is the fifth in a line of ASCE national presidents from the Lone Star State?

The first was Mason G. Lockwood, who served in 1956. One of his goals was to have the Society establish policies to financially help younger members join ASCE as well as student membership at the national level. While an electrical engineering graduate of Rice, he established his own firm, Lockwood, Andrews & Newman, which after more than 50 years is still going strong within the Leo A. Daly Company. Following in his footsteps was one of his partners, Frank H. Newman, who served as Society president in 1969. Before teaming with Lockwood, Newman worked for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Texas Highway Department.

The third Texan, and member of the Texas Section, was Jim Sims, who served in 1982.  Another Rice graduate, he worked as a consultant to Humble Oil Company and spent the majority of his career at Rice in various positions, including professor and vice president of campus business affairs. As ASCE president, Sims focused on organization, administration and operation of technical activities.

The fourth to serve was John Focht Jr. in 1990. Many of us know John, who is still active within ASCE.  He was a graduate of both the University of Texas and Harvard, and worked with McClelland Engineers.  He also worked at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Waterways Experiment Station in Vicksburg, Miss. At the national level, he focused on educating the public on how their quality of life was improved by civil engineers.

All of these gentlemen, besides being from the Texas Section, have in common a deep and devout devotion and dedication to service in the civil engineering profession. In their own ways, they all contributed to the advancement of the profession and ASCE. It is also interesting to note that two individuals from the same Texas engineering firm became president, Lockwood in '56 and Newman 13 years later. This is a unique occurrence and shows the dedication that the firm’s founders had to the profession. 

I salute the Texas Section for sending forth these five eminent individuals.  I also wonder if any other Section can lay claim to having five or more ASCE presidents. Let me know in the comments section below.

We only have to look at the prices at the gas pump to know that we have an energy crisis in this country. It extends not just to the United States, but worldwide. On my recent visit to Canada, their news programs were filled with the rising cost of gasoline. Currently is it about $1.50 per liter Canadian, which equates to more than $5.68 per gallon here. It was not that long ago that gas prices in Canada were on a par with or even lower than the United States.

The National Society of Professional Engineers' annual meeting in late July had energy as its major focus. There were a number of presentations on wave energy, emerging technologies of hybrid vehicles, the critical role of innovation in energy and microbial fuel cells, to name a few. As a backdrop to their conference, a recent edition of their magazine included "The Evolution of Energy," an article by Eva Caplan-Leiserson. A number of officials from the U.S. Department of Energy were quoted in the article, including current department Secretary Samuel Bodman, who made the situation plain: "Securing our energy future is one of the most pressing challenges of our time."

At a recent National Academy Summit on America's Energy Future, Bodman got more specific. "We need transformational discoveries that fundamentally change the rules of the game," he said, since the current solutions of biofuels and expanded "plug-in" hybrid vehicles raise additional concerns about the loss of food supply and increases stress on our electrical system. To promote new innovative solutions, the Energy Department started an Energy Frontier Research Center program that will provide grants to organizations to pursue basic research in solar energy, electrical energy storage, biofuels, hydrogen production and more.

Robert Marley, P.E., deputy director of the U.S. Climate Change Technology Program, believes that we can improve technologies based on past successes. He is confident that we can find better methods of converting cellulose into fuel, more efficient means of making hydrogen using photons from solar energy, better energy storage for hybrid electric cars and improved means of using coal without CO2 emissions.

Stephen Specker, president of the Electric Power Research Institute, believes that our message to the public should be "We can do it, but it won’t be easy." My challenge to civil engineers is for us to get into the game. We need to be working with other engineers and planners in whatever way possible to foster the concept of energy independence.  My challenge to you as ASCE members is this: what should we be doing?

As you may know, ExCEEd stands for Excellence in Civil Engineering Education. The program has its roots in recommendations developed and issued during the 1995 Education Congress conducted by ASCE. One declared a need for more education in order to practice at the professional level. This led directly to ASCE’s Policy 465 a few years later. Another recommendation was that civil engineering professors needed more training in how to become better teachers. Fortunately ASCE had on staff some former professors from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and they were familiar with a program that had been developed to help Army officers be effective teachers. ASCE adapted their program and turned it into a weeklong workshop.

The successful workshop is now in its tenth year, with nearly 500 professors (out of 3,500 nationwide) having had ExCEEd training. Each year, two workshops are conducted.  One is held in the West or Midwest. Last year, I attended the one in Flagstaff, Ariz. The other is held at West Point, which I had the pleasure of attending the last weekend of July. In order to be a participant, a professor has to submit an application for approval. The success of the program has grown to the point where ASCE has more applicants than the 24 slots available in each workshop.

The workshop is a very rigorous boot camp on how to be an effective teacher. The professors work with mentors and actually prepare and give a lesson. The first time, they ready and deliver that lesson just as they would have done it prior to coming to ExCEEd. They receive real-time feedback from an audience composed of their peers and mentors. The lesson practices are then given two succeeding times, and the level of improvement and change is dramatic. Interspersed with the lesson presentations, there are lectures on principles of effective teaching, communication skills, learning styles, teaching with technology and interpersonal rapport with students. This year's class at West Point included professors from as far away as Hawaii and Afghanistan. The program can claim credit for having trained the majority of engineering professors at a number of universities.

If you are involved or know the department head at your alma mater, I would encourage you to have their professors apply for next year's workshops. The effectiveness of our civil and environmental engineering professors is paramount. The future of the civil engineering profession depends upon it.