SidePlate Supports ACE
SidePlate encourages our team members to get involved and give back. One of our Senior Project Engineers, Andy Kim, really took it seriously and over the last four years has stepped in to be the ACE Team Leader for Valley High School in Santa Ana, California.

ACE Los Angeles has enabled over 1,500 high school students to discover the exciting potential of careers in Architecture, Construction and Engineering (ACE) since 2002. ACE brings Architecture, Construction and Engineering professionals into high schools twice a month to teach students and mentor them. They recruit mentors from nearby architectural, engineering and construction firms. A typical team matches half a dozen professional mentors with two dozen students in grades 10 through 12. They meet after school every other week, approximately 16 times during the academic year. Several hundred "alumni" are currently in college and dozens have graduated. Most of these graduates are working in the design and construction professions and some have returned to mentor at ACE high schools. The ACE scholarship program has grown, and to date, has awarded over  $1M in scholarships  to local ACE students in support of their pursuit of A/C/E careers.

Twice a month Andy, along with fellow mentors Jeff Calveat from Balfour Beatty, Stephanie Kruep (another SidePlate Senior Project Engineer), and Valley Higher Education Coordinator April Gibbs, taught the students about concepts from all three fields of ACE, then students apply what they learn in a final project. Kim’s team focused on a change they could implement in their school—and created a new cafeteria design. Using SketchUp design software, the team created a virtual model of their cafeteria and gave a short presentation to the entire ACE Los Angeles group. The year ended with both seniors at Valley winning scholarships totaling $3000.

Andy will be reprising his role of Team Leader for the upcoming year and is looking forward to trying some new things and taking next year’s class even further.  
SidePlate Successful Test
HSS Columns with B/T Ratio of 21 On Field Bolted Bi-Axial SMF Connection
SidePlate Systems, the industry leader and expert in steel building design optimization, is proud to announce a huge step forward in steel moment frame connection testing by successfully completing four full-scale tests on one HSS 20x20x7/8 column and one SidePlate Bi-Axial connection.

Over the course of the last two months, SidePlate has had a 20”-square HSS column—available through Atlas Tube—set up at the UCSD (University of California at San Diego) test lab with a SidePlate Field Bolted Bi-Axial connection on it. The tests were done to validate extensive FEA (Finite Element Analysis) done in the SidePlate R&D Department that suggested a new connection configuration using HSS columns would allow SidePlate designs to offer even greater flexibility and versatility for open space areas along with an increased resiliency effort.

When the tests were completed, four beams of varying dimensions were successfully deformed with no discernible column deformation. As President/CEO Henry Gallart explained, “we can confidently state that our field bolted SMF connection can work, resiliently, even in jumbo HSS sizes like the all-new HSS 20x20x7/8 column without concrete infill.”

While high seismic testing may not be a factor in every area of the country, SidePlate conducts our validation at the highest levels, ensuring the safest, strongest and surely, the most resilient connection designs in the industry .
TWO LAKESHORE
Bridgewater, MA
SidePlate had a chance, although late in the design build bidding process, to do a study on potential savings on the Two Lakeshore project located in Bridgewater, MA. Our team turned the study around in one day and the Engineer of Record, RRC Engineering was impressed enough to move our design right into motion.
The schedule required really fast movement and with SidePlate field-bolted connections, things did happen quickly. Within four weeks of starting to assemble the steel frame, Dacon Corporation, the General Contractor, Norgate Metal, the Steel Fabricator, and Brouchard Steel Erectors, the Erector, were thrilled with their first SidePlate project.


We know we are constantly talking about the difference SidePlate can make in a job, but this is what four weeks later looks like. 
USC JIMMY IOVINE AND ANDRE YOUNG HALL
The Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Hall at University of Southern California (USC) is one of the first SidePlate SMF bolted designs approved by the city of Los Angeles! Entrepreneurs Jimmy Iovine and Andre “Dr. Dre” Young gifted $70 million to this academy to teach critical thinking and creativity in four essential areas: Art and design; engineering and computer science; business and venture management; and communication. Standing three stories tall, this 40,000 sq ft building contains 34 special moment connections is set to open in 2019. This building will serve as the hub for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation – a new model for training and inspiring young innovators.


This was the perfect first project for Guadalupe Leon, one of our newer team members here at SidePlate.
University of Southern California
Guadalupe Leon
Who Are You Going to Call?
A few changes in the Regional Engineer and Marketing Department have taken place recently. Sadly we didn’t organize our group photo to make it easy to understand who is who.

Buddy Burks, Southeastern Region (right side, rear row) (850) 206-3313
Tim Carroll, Northwestern Region (center, rear row) (435) 830-1579
Jason Hoover, Midwestern Region (left side, rear row) (773) 655-9152
Sunup Mathew, Central Western Region, (right side, front row) (916) 708-9306
Dave Eckrote, Northeastern Region, (right side, middle row) (610) 529-6629
Ryan Smith, Southern California Region, (left side, front row) (805) 801-9580
Howard Kelly, Marketing Manager, (left side, middle row) (949) 238-8904

So if you are thinking about optimizing your steel building with SidePlate, give your representative a call and see how our team can save you steel tonnage, erection time and provide all of our expertise on your project. 
SidePlate Systems
25909 Pala, Suite 200
Mission Viejo, CA 92691
949.238.890