San Jose Branch Director

U.S. Concrete National Research Lab Manager

6 years as a licensed PE, 10 years working at US Concrete

ASCE involvement was a significant part of my college years. As a member of the San Jose State student chapter, I competed for 4 years in the concrete canoe competition, served one year as Treasurer, and in graduate school I helped host the Mid-Pacific Regional Conference of 2013. The relationships I made through that involvement have been very important to me and are a primary reason of how I progressed onto the board of the San Jose Branch.

Being an ASCE member has helped improve my networking skills and expand my perspective beyond my career-specific discipline of concrete.

The 2010 concrete canoe competition where SJSU's team competed in the National Competition in San Luis Obispo!

I'm a big fan of fresh pasta and the San Jose Sharks.

Building technical expertise, communicating data, and hands-on tasks.

Coming up with a plan to celebrate my 10-year work anniversary!

The Legislature has focused entirely on preliminary budget hearings for the 2020-21 fiscal year. While the Legislative Analyst and the Governor disagree on how much of a surplus of taxpayer dollars the State will enjoy, the Governor proposes to budget more than $19 billion in new spending for schools and community colleges. He offers to spend most of this amount on three main priorities:

by Elias Karam, ASCE R9 Governor & Membership Committee Chair

Contact Email: GOV.SAC@ASCE-R9.ORG

In December 2020, Director Toks Omishakin of the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) became a member of ASCE and signed a partnership agreement that provides membership discounts to Caltrans employees. This is available to all Caltrans Employees at all member grades. An announcement went out to all 20,000+ Caltrans members in January 2021. This opens the door for Sections and Branches to find new leaders within Caltrans by reaching out to their Caltrans Partners. Some existing Caltrans members may not have received this benefit and I encourage them to reach out to me via email GOV.SAC@ASCE-R9.ORG or directly to ASCE Society via email memapp@asce.org.

Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) is being used more commonly in construction disputes both by choice and by statute. ADR is essentially a process for resolution of disputes by means other than through the courts.

The traditional lawsuit starts with the filing of a complaint where the claimant in a dispute seeks recovery from the parties against whom various legal theories may indicate liability. The parties who are sued, in turn, may cross-complaint against the other parties and against others not initially named as defendants who they feel should stand or share the liability that may eventually be proven. The typical construction lawsuit, therefore, may easily become very complex, including virtually all the parties involved with the construction of the project out of which the litigation arose and relying upon a judge or jury that may have no knowledge whatsoever of construction for a decision.

The potential complexity and expense inherent in the traditional, lawsuit approach to resolving disputes has led to the popularity of ADR to construction cases. ADR includes, negotiation, mediation, arbitration, partnering, establishment of dispute review boards, mini-trials, and a variety of other processes that may be employed during and after the construction of a project to quickly and efficiently resolve disputes.