President’s Message
Welcome to our Website!
I feel certainly honored to be serving as President this year and add my small contribution to an organization that already carries an outstanding legacy.
For those who are new to our organization, our mission is to provide essential value to our Orange County members and partners, advance civil engineering, and serve our local community.
Even during the pandemic, our Branch has been planning and hosting over 100 events a year. Our events cater to different audiences, including social gatherings, soft skills development, technical presentation and/or seminars, student outreach, community service, etc.
About Our ASCE Orange County Branch Leaders
These events would not be possible without the support from a stellar team. I am joined on the Executive Board by: Past President Clint Isa of Diaz Yourman & Associates, President-Elect Jennifer Marks of Psomas, Treasurer Nestor Godinez of SLR Consulting, and Secretary Regina Hu of SPC Engineering.
We are joined on the Board by the Chairs of our six technical institute chapters (the Construction Institute, the Environmental & Water Resources Institute, the aforementioned Geo-Institute, the Structural Engineering Institute, the Transportation and Development Institute, and the Utility Engineering & Surveying Institute) and our Younger Member Forum President, Ashlyn Alexander of Parsons. Our Board is supported by more than 15 active, impactful, and award-winning committees whose efforts I invite you to peruse under the Committees & Groups heading at the top of this page.
Our Goals for Fiscal Year 2021-2022
There are many goals to support our 22+ committees and institutes. All committees are incredibly proactive. Our primary goal is to help committees grow organically, and make sure that active members get their return on investment. That said, there are two goals that are worth mentioning:
First, we have been looking into avenues to resume in-person events, ONLY when it makes sense, where safety protocols can be implemented, always within the framework of Federal, State, and local requirements. In our implementation plan, one featured mean and method includes hybrid events that would allow remote attendees to get a quasi-similar experience to in-person attendees.
Second, we are working on hosting two soft skills development workshops this year. We believe that soft skills development is critical to support our members with career advancement and will largely be beneficial to our local community. Topics may include effective communication, creative thinking, adaptability or the willingness to face the unexpected, collaboration or the ability to work and interact with people from different backgrounds and personalities, time management leadership or the ability to assess risk, make decisions based on resource constraints, and successfully interacting with people, etc. Please stay tuned.
Beyond this concise message, if you would like to get involved or have any suggestions regarding our organization, please reach out to me or another one of our leaders.
I look forward to pursuing the mission of our Branch with you.
Remi Candaele, PE
ASCE Orange County Branch President
President@ASCEOC.org