“Help you matter more and enable you to make a bigger difference”
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Region 8 Director's Column
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Aloha and mahalo for your membership in ASCE. Your membership dues support the civil engineering profession and the development of leaders to help us all matter more.
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Board of Direction meeting at Society Headquarters in Reston, VA
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Your Board of Direction met on July 12 and 13 at Society Headquarters in Reston, VA. Out of the limited handful of Board meetings that I have participated in as Director, this one had the most engagement, as there were many high profile topics on the agenda. Highlights from the meeting are indicated below.
After much discussion, the Board approved a fiscal year 2020 budget that maintains the current dues rate despite increasing costs and program growths. The budget implements recommendations for several revenue-generating ideas as proposed by a task committee. The Board tasked Executive Director Tom Smith and his staff to present to the Board at its October meeting a three-year budget plan along with plans for growing and engaging dues-paying members.
The Task Committee on Younger Member Board Engagement was formed in April to develop ideas of how Younger Members can have improved interaction and an increased voice with Society leadership. The task committee reported its recommendations to the Board at the July meeting. The Board approved numerous ideas including the ones listed below.
- Require at least one Younger Member on each Board and Society-level committee and their constituent committees.
- Add the two At-Large Directors as non-voting members to the Committee on Younger Members to create greater interaction between Younger Members and Board members
- Add a Younger Member as a voting member to the At-Large Director Review Panel which sets criteria for and recommends the selection of the Board At-Large Directors
- Empower the three Younger Member Councils to submit candidates for the At-Large Director position
The Task Committee on the Code of Ethics proposed a new format for the Code of Ethics that emphasizes ease of use and enforceability and defining engineers’ ethical responsibilities through the stakeholders they serve. The new code would include concise, readable and modern language, allowing for more flexibility, relevance and a higher likelihood of use in these rapidly changing times. The Board approved continued progress by the task committee. To refresh our knowledge of the current Code of Ethics, Governor Larry Magura prepared an article that is included in this newsletter issue.
The Board approved continued market research by the Task Committee on Credentialing to Raise the Bar to help determine the viability of a comprehensive credentialing system for the profession that would signal a civil engineer’s competence in their chosen specialty.
Let’s turn our attention back to the growth of our Society membership. For the last 10 years, our Society’s dues paying membership count has decreased by over 10,000 members to its current count of 66,284. The reduction is membership has resulted in a great loss of revenue for our programs. The Board has a goal of increasing our dues-paying membership by 40,000 members by our Society’s 175
th
anniversary in 2027 to help us raise the revenue to continue and grow our programs for the profession. To do our part, the Region 8 Board of Governors is implementing a Region 8 membership drive contest to inspire our Section, Branch and Younger Member leadership to market ASCE to their fellow engineers who are not yet a part of our great organization. The details of the Region 8 membership drive contest will be presented to your Section officers at our Fall Assembly meeting in Reno, NV on September 6 and 7.
Make plans to attend the ASCE Annual Convention in Miami, Florida, from October 10 to 13. Let’s support our fellow Region 8 member Guna as he is installed as our next Society President. For more details on the Convention, visit
https://www.asceconvention.org/
. Early bird registration deadline is August 21.
Mahalo for being a member of ASCE and for all that you do to help our great profession. Let’s increase out numbers so others can also realize that #Region8isgreat!!!
Mahalo and Aloha,
Tony C.G. Lau, P.E., ENV SP, F.ASCE
Society Director, Region 8
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ASCE’s Board of Direction adopted the Society’s first formal code of ethics on September 2, 1914 in response to the realization that in order to prosper and grow, the Society needed to establish standards of conduct by which all members agree to be governed. As with any living document, the code has evolved over time, and currently consists of eight canons. The current version of the code of ethics appears below:
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- CANON 1: Engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public and shall strive to comply with the principles of sustainable development in the performance of their professional duties.
- CANON 2: Engineers shall perform services only in areas of their compentence.
- CANON 3: Engineers shall issue public statements only in an objective and truthful manner.
- CANON 4: Engineers shall act in professional matters for each employer or client as faithful agents or trustees, and shall avoid conflicts of interest.
- CANON 5: Engineers shall build their professional reputation on the merit of their services and shall not compete unfairly with others.
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- CANON 6: Engineers shall act in such a manner as to uphold and enhance the honor, integrity, and dignity of the engineering profession and shall act with zero tolerance for bribery, fraud, and corruption.
- CANON 7: Engineers shall continue their professional development throughout their careers, and shall provide opportunities for the professional development of those engineers under their supervision.
- CANON 8: Engineers shall, in all matters related to their profession, treat all persons fairly and encourage equitable participation without regard to gender or gender identity, race, national origin, ethnicity, religion, age, sexual orientation, disability, political affiliation, or family, marital, or economic status.
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Cannon 8 was added by the Board of Direction in 2017 in recognition of the need to put the Society formally on record regarding our position on racial, religious, age, ethnic and gender equality.
Having a formal code of ethics that all members will be governed by is one thing, but how do you ensure compliance? The ASCE Official Register states that “… it is the duty of every Society member to report promptly to the
Committee on Professional Conduct
(CPC) any observed violation of the Code of Ethics.” Once a complaint is received, it will be reviewed by the CPC, which will undertake, at its discretion, one of the following courses of action:
- The complaint may be determined to be without merit and will be dismissed.
- The complaint may be advanced for informal action by the committee where committee members will interview both parties (the complainant and the alleged offending member) and either reach an informal settlement between both parties that ends the complaint (i.e., an apology and a promise by the offending member to avoid any repetition of the offending act); OR the committee may refer the matter to the Board of Direction’s Executive Committee (consisting of all third year Society Directors, the three Society Presidential officers, and the Society’s general council, Tara Hoke).
- Tara Hoke commented that CPC typically receives about a dozen complaints in a year, but it varies
The Executive Committee will review the complaint referred by the CPC and may, at its discretion, elect to take one of the following actions:
- Dismiss the complaint after due consideration.
- Issue a negotiated Consent Decree to the offending member.
- Issue a Letter of Admonition to the offending member.
- Issue a Suspension from Society membership to the offending member.
- Publish a notice of the action taken by the CPC in Civil Engineering magazine.
- Or forward the complaint to the full Board of Direction for its consideration.
If a complaint is forwarded to the Society’s full
Board of Direction
for consideration, after reviewing the matter, the board may, at its discretion, decide to take one of the following courses of action:
- Dismiss the complaint after due consideration.
- Draft a letter of admonition to the offending member for the Society President to sign.
- Suspend the offending member from the Society for a period of time the Board feels is appropriate, or
- Expel the offending member from the Society.
- Any disciplinary action taken by the full Board of Direction will be published in a future issue of Civil Engineering magazine, and will also be referred to the offending member’s state board of registration for possible additional disciplinary action.
According to the July 2019 Leadership Letter from ASCE Executive Director Tom Smith, “The
ASCE Code of Ethics
has served as the civil engineering profession’s guide to performing duties with integrity since it was adopted 105 years ago. We’ve made incremental changes to the code over the years, such as the addition two years ago of Canon 8 on diversity and inclusion, but the code hasn’t had a comprehensive update since 1974. That’s about to change.
At its July meeting, the Board of Direction gave the go-ahead to continue work on revisions under development since last fall. The new format proposed by the Task Committee on the Code of Ethics emphasizes ease of use and enforceability, defining engineers’ ethical responsibilities through the stakeholders they serve. The new code would include concise, readable and modern language, allowing for more flexibility, relevance and a higher likelihood of use in these rapidly changing times. The task committee will share an update on its progress at the Board’s October meeting.”
Larry Magura,
P.E., D.WRE
Governor, Region 8
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In 2018 and 2019, we took advantage of a couple of interesting projects that are under construction by organizing site tours. The construction tours were popular and well attended.
In October 2018, the City of Richland and Apollo, Inc., provided our members with an opportunity to tour the Duportail Bridge construction site. The project includes construction of a 770 foot long bridge over the Yakima River, sound walls, roadways, signalized intersections, water main (from 8" to 42" including 24" pipes on the bridge), sewer lift station, and CID canal reconstruction. We saw the sound walls, in-water work berm, bridge piers, roadway subgrade, the partially completed sewer lift station, and preparations for the CID canal replacement were underway including excavation and demolition of the existing steel flume in preparation for construction of a concrete canal.
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In January 2019, the City of Walla Walla gave us a tour of their Water Treatment Plant upgrade construction project. The City was upgrading the treatment plant including replacement of the ozone disinfection process with UV disinfection in order to comply with new EPA guidelines. Thanks to Nathan Black, with the City for leading our group of 17 people around the water treatment plant and providing detailed descriptions of the design and construction challenges and solutions incorporated at various locations.
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In April 2019, we returned to the Duportail Bridge project site to see the progress of the girder set which incorporated the use of a Lampson Transi-Lift LTL-1100 with 380’ of boom and 1,600,000 lbs of counterweight. Thanks to Andrey Avetisyan with the City of Richland and to Apollo for accommodating our group of nearly 60 people on the construction site. On the morning of the tour, the City learned that the girders had not been delivered the night before, so we were not able to watch the placement of a girder. However, due to the fact that the crane was not active, this allowed us to see it up close.
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Marcus Miller
Columbia Section
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Region 8 Calendar of Upcoming Events
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- Region 8 Board of Governors Fall Meeting, Reno, NV, September 5, 2019
- Region 8 Fall Assembly Meeting, Reno, NV September 6 – 7, 2019
- 2019 Society Leader Orientation , Reston, VA, September 20 -21, 2019
- 2019 Society Presidents and Governors Forum, Reston, VA September 22 – 23, 2019
- 2019 Society Annual Convention, Miami, FL, October 10 – 13, 2019
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