Orange County Branch Newsletter

October 2011

President's Message

The Latest ASCE Initiatives

By Joshua Nelson, PE

ASCE OC President

I heard a saying the other day that apparently is an Egyptian phrase that goes something like this: "the days pass slowly, but the years fly quickly". That couldn't be said any better. This can probably apply to a lot of things in life. I can say this about my kids growing up and my 10 years of marriage as well as a number of projects I am a part of at work. The same can be said of my years with ASCE Orange County Branch. I have spent quite a bit of my time with the branch making a number of changes to keep the branch connected technically which in turn has enabled us to save money when donations were down. It has sometimes felt like turning a large ship at sea, but when I look back at the past 6 years it actually feels more like a small jet boat the more I think about it.

With my first article, I would like to give you an encouraging update on the exposure our society has received recently outside of the Civil Engineering community. I had the opportunity to visit our society headquarters in Reston, Virginia in September for the annual society leadership training and was very encouraged with the progress our society has made and the initiatives it is promoting. Often times, as Civil Engineers we don't like to be in the spotlight. I think to some degree this has contributed to just average salaries of the Civil Engineer compared to other professionals.

I highly encourage you to keep your eye open for ASCE popping up all over the place. I am excited about a feature that CNBC has coming up called "“Race To Rebuild: America’s Infrastructure” . It premieres on Thursday, November 17th at 10 pm EST. They have set a website with a preview of the series: “Race To Rebuild: America’s Infrastructure”.

The preview video of the series is below. If you look closely, President-elect Andrew Herrmann is in the clip wearing an ASCE helmet. Expect him to show up periodically throughout the series.

Our current ASCE President Kathy Caldwell, P.E., F.ASCE was interviewed by MSNBC regarding the recent gas line explosions around the country. Here is clip from the interview. I encourage you to watch the whole segment if you have the time.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

During the media storm of clips regarding Hurricane Irene this past August, President-elect Herrmann was interviewed by MSNBC regarding our nations infrastructure and how many jobs we can create with infrastructure upgrades.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

So please spread the word when you see a Civil Engineer putting his/her neck out there like our society leadership has. Post these videos to your Facebook site, tweet links to them and give our profession some good PR!

I want to thank you all and the past presidents for giving me this opportunity and I look forward to the year ahead. I also want to run a little experiment here. First I want to see if any of you have read this far down my article and second, I want to make sure you know how to navigate our website. So somewhere on our website I have hidden the image below (the orange). If you find it, email me at president@asceoc.org and tell me where you found it. The first person to email me gets a free lunch at an upcoming luncheon, and the second through fifth members who find it get a coupon for $5 off a luncheon. However, board members and committee chairs aren't eligible (though you can email me for the volunteer coupon that we offer each month), but feel free to email me anyways and I will let you know what place you came in.