November 2016 President's Report

October brought a number of great events for BSCES, which were hosted by our technical groups and institute chapters. I would like to use this message to highlight a few activities that BSCES recently hosted such as the Younger Member Group’s (YMG) annual ASCE Student Chapter Officers’ Caucus Fall Kickoff Meeting, which brought together leaders from area college and university ASCE Student Chapters. Alyson Stuer, PE, from Alfred Benesch & Company, who chairs the YMG, did an excellent job putting the event together. The highlight of the evening was a group activity, which focused on an opportunity to problem solve issues that the students face in school and in their ASCE student chapters. This event helps student chapter leaders share ideas and the YMG’s efforts go a long way to encouraging students to become members after graduation. If you are a member below the age of 35, be sure to attend the YMG Holiday Party on December 8th to have fun and learn more about upcoming activities and how you can get involved.

One focus for this year is to provide a wider variety of BSCES events including online learning, varied networking opportunities and site visits. Aligned with this initiative, the Transportation and Development Institute (T&DI) held a great webinar in October on Infrastructure Needed for Self-Driving Cars. With over 150 participants, the event was a great success. Additionally, BSCES is focused on developing greater collaboration between the institute chapters and technical groups. For example, the Construction Institute and T&DI co-hosted its first social of the year in October at the Atlantic Beer Garden. On September 27th, the Coasts, Oceans, Ports and River Institute (COPRI) and Environmental & Water Resources Institute (EWRI) Boston Chapters combined to hold a joint program at CDM Smith’s offices titled “Climate Resilience in Boston and Beyond:  Practice, Policy and Corporate Partnerships,” which featured speakers from The Nature Conservancy. Upcoming, on December 7th, the EWRI Boston Chapter and BSCES Committee on Sustainability are co-sponsoring a tour of Fraunhofer CSE’s Living Laboratory for Sustainable Energy Systems at the Fraunhofer Center in Boston.

BSCES continues to set the standard in ASCE. In addition to receiving the 2015 Outstanding Large Section and Branch Award this past June, BSCES was recently selected to receive the 2016 Outstanding Section and Branch Web Site Award in the “very large” Section and Branch membership category (>2,500 members). Past President Ellen White led the charge to update our website. Be sure to visit our new website (http://www.bsces.org) and use it as a resource to learn more about our various technical group, institute chapters and committees, along with the upcoming events. Whether you attend a presentation or join one of our volunteer groups, BSCES needs your involvement to build our Society’s community. 

One of BSCES’ recent undertakings is to strengthen the section’s ties with ASCE’s institutes. A few years ago, BSCES had ten groups focused on various technical areas (http://www.bsces.org/technical-areas) (nine technical groups and one ASCE institute chapter - the Geo-Institute). Over the last few years, BSCES aligned itself with ASCE’s institute chapter model and today we have eight groups, six of which are ASCE Institute Chapters. The leaders of these institute chapters are encouraged to align with ASCE’s national priorities. BSCES is thankful to Todd Clark, from Hoyle, Tanner & Associates, Inc., who attended the ASCE National T&DI Leadership Summit held at ASCE’s world headquarters in Reston, Virginia. The two-day event is held bi-annually to connect leaders at all levels within T&DI. Todd was invited to speak on behalf of T&DI’s Boston Chapter to present the Boston Chapter’s past, present & future mission to a room filled with 100+ national, council, committee and chapter leaders all seeking to better understand each other’s responsibilities and goals. Fellow attendees represented academia, public agencies, municipalities and private practice who travelled from all across the country to attend the summit. Todd provided comments on the past successes of T&DI Boston Chapter, the programs the Chapter has lined up for the year and how the Chapter intends to advance T&DI’s presence in the Boston area.  

The theme of this month’s newsletter is Structures and I urge you learn more about the BSCES’ Structural Engineering Institute Boston Chapter, which is chaired by Dennis Baker, PE of HNTB Corporation. This issue of BSCESNews contains a page 4 article that was written by Dennis. We are very appreciative of TranSystems Corporation, which is both a BSCE Society and Program level sponsor.  Please be sure to read TranSystems’ page 1 article written by Evan Lowell, PE, titled “Load Rating of the Waldrip Bridge by Field Load Testing.”

In closing, I would like to thank all of our Society and Program Sponsors, whose financial support helps enable BSCES and its committees, institute chapter and technical groups to host the numerous networking and professional development events that are planned for this year.