SEAOSC News - February 2021

SEAOSC NEWS

FEBRUARY 2021

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

Matthew Barnard, S.E.

President

Join us this week for the Empowerment by Design Leadership Symposium. This two half-day event sponsored by CSI and curated by our own Women In Structural Engineering is going to be a highlight of our year. The line-up of speakers and content is fantastic and touches on resilient management, diversity, mentorship, and more. This is an event that will benefit all whether you are just starting your career, a practicing engineer, a friend of the industry, etc. Through the generous support of CSI, we are able to keep the cost of attendance very reasonable. Register now! Do not miss this signature event. Do not wait until our next one; it will be two years before we offer the next edition of this Symposium. Sign-up by visiting the SEAOSC website.

SEAOSC MEMBER NEWS

Welcome New Members

Member SE

Leonard Knapp, Knapp & Associates, Inc.

Member

Adam Schnepple, Saiful Bouquet Structural Engineers

Mahdi Ebrahimian Dehaghani, HED Structural Engineering, Inc.

Marlon Calderon, City of Los Angeles

Pranav Gandhi, Stantec

Associate

Alejandro Contreras, AlexC Consulting

Young Associate

Benjamin Allen, Burns & McDonnell

Erik Petersen, Hopper Engineering Associates

Faizan Sidiqui, Englekirk Structural Engineers

Rory Lopez-Esce, Degenkolb Engineers

Industry Members

Dan Holmes, Thomas & Beers, LLC

Grant Donaldson, Building Point Pacific

Ken Sears, Eagle Rock Aggregates

Mark Johnson, International Code Council

SEAOSC Membership

Click Here to Renew Now

Thank you for your continued membership support!

SEAOSC has the professional distinction and influence it does today because of our past leaders, you and 1,200 of our colleagues. Your membership strengthens our organization and helps to position it as the premier professional organization to which local structural engineers belong. SEAOSC represents you in the noble profession of structural engineering by fostering and promoting the contributions of structural engineers to society.

To maximize your membership, we encourage you take advantage of the many of the member benefits intended for you and these are shown in our Make an Impact membership flyer. One of the benefits available to SEAOSC SE and PE members for a fee is the ability to participate in the online SEAOSC Member Search service. This service is intended to help the public find Structural Engineers and Professional Engineers specializing in a particular area of structural engineering.

Your membership and participation helps increase the visibility of our profession and its value as well as increasing our influence and impact to make a greater positive difference together than we could individually.

Renewals are now due on the anniversary of your join date so you will receive the full one-year benefit of your membership.

SEAOSC NEWS

Excellence in Structural Engineering 2021 Awards Program

Download: 2021 SEAOSC EiSE Awards Program Entry Instructions

Click Here for the EiSE Awards Program Entry Information

1971 Sylmar Earthquake was Wake-up Call for Building Safety in Los Angeles

SYLMAR, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Twelve seconds of shaking that felt like a lifetime. The Sylmar earthquake woke Southern California up to the dangers of construction that could not stand up to the 6.6 magnitude shaking.

As Southern California commemorated the 50 year anniversary of the 1971 Sylmar Earthquake ABC7 news ran a series of stories on the aftermath of the quake and lessons learned. SEAOSC was able to provide background and on camera commentary for the stories. As the Association continues to build connections with our local communities, it is our goal to be a valuable resource to stakeholders by sharing pertinent information. In bringing these stories forward it is incredibly helpful to have real examples to share. Simpson, Gumpertz & Hager, Inc. was able to offer one of their projects to be highlighted, and they, along with Buro Happold, who also offered up a project, are appreciated for supporting the reporter’s request to enliven the story with great context. You can view the broadcast story which focused on the Non-Ductile Concrete Ordinance here:

SEAOSC COMMITTEE NEWS

Sustainability and Resilience Committee Update

The Sustainability and Resilience Committee is seeking members to join our committee. We will be working with SEAOC and SEAOSD on SE2050 as well as discussing part 5 of SE Guide series – Economics of Resilience and the CALBO Resilience Toolkit Review. We understand everyone is full of virtual meetings on a daily basis but we would love you to join our committee. Our meetings do not last more than 45 minutes!

We will also be seeking a co-chair for our committee.

Should you have any questions or would like to join our committee, please reach out to me at tsaenz@rmacompanies.com

Young Members Committee Update

Thanks to all the hard work of our Scholarship Coordinators Keslyn Huntington and Julia De Hart, as well as the Scholarship Review Committee, we had a successful virtual celebration for the SEAOSC Foundation Scholarship awardees. Our Student Outreach Coordinator, Michael Falcone, remains in active contact with local Southern California student chapters, providing assistance especially throughout this unique job hunting season. We were also able to collaborate with our Northern California friends through the Joint Winter Social with SEAONC YMs and ASCE SF YMs for a fun Pictionary tournament.

Thank you our YMs for participating and we hope to be able to meet everyone in person soon this year!

DES (Disaster Emergency Services) Committee Update

Our SEAOSC members have been deploying to tag buildings after natural disasters for many years. Our own Doug Litchfield, DES Committee co-chair, was deployed right after the 1994 earthquake to tag buildings damaged by the strong earthquake. He and Matt Barnard, our SEAOSC President, were later on deployed to help with the aftermath of Katrina in 2005. Our volunteer work is very important to help communities bounce back after a disaster.

One of the DES Committee tasks each year is to organize a Safety Assessment Program (SAP) Evaluator class for our SEAOSC members. By providing the class annually, we hope that most, if not all of our SEAOSC members are trained and ready to be deployed when needed. This year the class was offered virtually on Saturday, January 23rd. This was the first time we offered the class in this format and also the first time we had this many experienced speakers! After completing the class, attendees received a link from CalOES to take an exam and obtain their SAP card.

The class to obtain the SAP training is offered to everyone, but engineers must have a current PE license to be on the registry and be eligible to be deployed. If you don’t have your PE yet, you may take the class, but CalOES will not issue you a SAP card until you get your PE.

SEAOSC Women in Structural Engineering (WiSE) Committee Update

One of the newer SEAOSC Committees, WiSE has over 40 people on our roster albeit as with all committees, there is a core group of people that drive the committee. In August, WiSE enlisted Ann Banning Wright, LEED, AP, CPSM – Bright Operations, LLC. to facilitate strategic planning for the future of the committee. The process brought various stakeholders together to officially strategize on the direction of the committee and come up with plans for implementation to benefit the committee and SEAOSC.

The Annual and now Semi-Annual WiSE Symposium is and will remain a high priority for WiSE but the strategic planning helped identify two main areas for WiSE to focus on which are Mentorship and Business Management Training. MENTORSHIP is led by Margaux Burkholder with participants: Xiaomi Mitsuhashi, Araceli Abanilla, Diane Duvand, Patti Harburg-Petrich and Minye Pak. BUSINESS MANAGEMENT TRAINING is led by Diana Nishi with participants: Taylor Funk, Cindy Qian, Vickey Rogers, Aileen Santos-Redman, Kim Caravalho and Sabrina Ketel. WiSE is also working with the SEAOSC Equity and Inclusion group and Vickey Rogers is our liaison to that group. All of these efforts will help not only the committee but all members of SEAOSC who engage in the resources being developed by WiSE. These topics are not ones that are typically provided to our profession, yet they are key to elevating oneself as well as the structural engineering profession.

February 24^th and 25^th – WiSE is currently curating the semi-annual EMPOWERMENT BY DESIGN SYMPOSIUM. https://seaosc.org/Leadership-Symposium WiSE is building off the committee’s strategic planning and concentrate on Mentorship and Business Management Training. Additionally, the SEAOSC Equity and Inclusion group will feature a panel discussion. An outline of the tops is below:

February 24th 8:00 AM

Mentorship Panel Discussion
Speed Mentoring
Embracing Diversity, Building Leaders Panel Discussion

February 25th 8:00 AM

How to Build Your Career and Grow a Firm: Lessons Learned from a Lifetime in the Business -Mark D. Aden, PE, SE - President/CEO, DCI Engineers
Unlock Your Inner CEO-Ann-Banning Wright, LEED-AP, CPSM, Bright Operations, LLC.
Strategies for Resilient Management - Panel Discussion
Networking scramble

In addition to assistance by the two break out groups mentioned above, other key contributors to the symposium include: Amber Zamora, Rachel Hadchi and Molly Pobiel https://seaosc.org/WiSE . For more information about the symposium, please click here. For more information about the committee, please contact Chairperson Michelle Kam-Biron, SE (805) 498-4864 arceconsulting@gmail.com

SEAOSC EVENTS

INDUSTRY NEWS

2021 SEAOC Convention Call for Abstracts

Abstracts are requested for papers to be presented as part of the Technical Program for the 2021 SEAOC Convention, to be held September 22 through 25, 2021. The convention planning committee is continuously evaluating state and federal guidelines to determine if the convention will be hosted in-person at the Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, CA, or virtually from the safety of your own home.

The Structural Engineers Association of California (SEAOC) is respected as an authoritative world leader in the practice of structural and earthquake engineering, as a nationally influential participant in structural code and standard development and as a valuable resource to practicing structural engineers in California. To this degree, we encourage those with educational topics to share with our engineering community with subject areas that include but are not limited to:

Building codes & standards
Cities & politics,
Business & economics
Legal, innovation & resilience
Recent project case studies,
Diversity, equity, & inclusion.

Abstracts can be submitted here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1jxvW95WnpPaY1trK0e2ort7cQxQpU8DocwezPxELfJQ/edit

If you have any questions, please email SEAOC2021@gmail.com We look forward to receiving your abstracts and hope to see you in Carlsbad in September.

Sincerely,

The 2021 SEAOC Convention Technical Committee

PARTNER ORGANIZATION INFO

Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER) - Latest PEER News

PEER-CEA Project: Publications and Data Now Available

PEER is pleased to announce the publication of reports and data from the major research initiative, “Quantifying the Performance of Retrofit of Cripple Walls and Sill Anchorage in Single-Family Wood-Frame Buildings,” henceforth referred to as the “PEER-CEA Project.” This was a multi-year, multi-disciplinary project coordinated by PEER and funded by the California Earthquake Authority (CEA).

NGA-East Ground Motion Models Validated by U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) just released a report that concludes that the NGA-East Ground Motion Characterization Model is robust, captures epistemic uncertainty, and provides regulatory stability for siting evaluations of nuclear facilities in the central and eastern United States (CEUS).

New PEER Report 2020/12: "Project Technical Summary (PEER-CEA Project)"

PEER has just published Report No. 2020/12: "Project Technical Summary," a report for the "Quantifying the Performance of Retrofit of Cripple Walls and Sill Anchorage in Single-Family Wood-Frame Buildings" Project. It was authored by Evan Reis, Reis Consulting in collaboration with Yousef Bozorgnia, Henry Burton, Kelly Cobeen, Gregory G. Deierlein, Tara Hutchinson, Grace S. Kang, Bret Lizundia, Silvia Mazzoni, Sharyl Rabinovici, Brandon Schiller, David P. Welch, and Farzin Zareian.

New PEER Report 2020/09: "Blind Prediction of Shaking Table Tests of a New Bridge Bent Design"

PEER has just published Report No. 2020/09: "Blind Prediction of Shaking Table Tests of a New Bridge Bent Design." It was authored by Selim Günay, Fan Hu, and Khalid Mosalam, UC Berkeley; Arpit Nema, Jose Restrepo, UC San Diego; Adam Zsarnoczay, Jack Baker, Stanford University.

New PEER Report 2020/08: "PEER Activities 2018—2020"

PEER has just published Report No. 2020/08: "PEER Activities 2018—2020." It was authored by Khalid Mosalam, PEER Director and Amarnath Kasalanati, PEER Associate Director.

New PEER Report 2020/07: "Comparison of NGA-Sub Ground-Motion Models"

PEER has just published Report No. 2020/07: "Comparison of NGA-Sub Ground-Motion Models." It was authored by Nicholas Gregor, Consultant; Kofi Addo, BC Hydro; Linda Al Atik, Consultant; Gail M. Atkinson, University of Western Ontario; David M. Boore, Geophysicist; Yousef Bozorgnia, University of California, Los Angeles; Kenneth W. Campbell, Core Logic; Brian S.-J. Chiou, California Department of Transportation; Zeynep Gülerce, Middle East Technical University; Behzad Hassani, BC Hydro; Tadahiro Kishida, Khalifa University of Science and Technology; Nico Kuehn, University of California, Los Angeles; Saburoh Midorikawa, Tokyo Institute of Technology; Silvia Mazzoni, University of California, Los Angeles; Grace A. Parker, University of California, Los Angeles (Now at the U.S. Geological Survey, Moffett Field, California); Hongjun Si, Seismological Research Institute Inc.; Jonathan P. Stewart, University of California, Los Angeles; Robert R. Youngs, Wood Environmental and Infrastructure Solutions, Inc.

New PEER Report 2020/05: "Conditional Ground-Motion Model for Peak Ground Velocity for Active Crustal Regions"

PEER has just published Report No. 2020/05: "Conditional Ground-Motion Model for Peak Ground Velocity for Active Crustal Regions." It was authored by Norman A. Abrahamson, University of California, Berkeley and Sarabjot Bhasin, Duke University.

New PEER Report 2020/04: "Partially Non-Ergodic Ground-Motion Model for Subduction Regions using the NGA-Subduction Database"

PEER has just published Report No. 2020/04: "Partially Non-Ergodic Ground-Motion Model for Subduction Regions using the NGA-Subduction Database." It was authored by Nicolas Kuehn and Yousef Bozorgnia, University of California, Los Angeles; Kenneth W. Campbell, Core Logic, Inc.; and Nicholas Gregor, Nicholas Gregor Consulting.

New StEER Report

StEER Preliminary Virtual Reconnaissance Report (PVRR): Aegean Sea Earthquake (M7.0), October 30, 2020

The Structural Extreme Events Reconnaissance (StEER) Network has issued a Preliminary Virtual Reconnaissance Report (PVRR) for the M7.0 Aegean Sea Earthquake that occurred on October 30, 2020.

ANNOUNCEMENTS & LINKS

MEMBER REFERRAL PROGRAM:

SEAOSC Members can opt-in to the Referral Program for $100 annually. You may opt-in anytime by contacting the SEAOSC office at seaosc@seaosc.org. A listing will appear on seaosc.org/Member-Services-Search which includes your name, license number, business address and your selected categories.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM:

While California not does have mandatory continuing education for your license renewal, SEAOSC created this voluntary program to recognize and record members’ seminar attendance. You can enroll for $50 annually during dues renewals. Credit is issued for your attendance at qualifying dinner meetings, seminars and educational events based on 1 credit for each contact hour of continuing education. Click Here to learn more.