Dear Fellow Members of ASCE,

First, I want to start by thanking you for being a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers. I initially became aware of the Society in 1998 when I became a member of the Student Chapter at West Virginia University. After joining our AISC-ASCE Steel Bridge Team and assisting in the design, fabrication and construction of the Department's steel bridge entry, I immediately knew that civil engineering was the right profession for me. 

Regardless of your standing in our Society, as a student or a professional, I hope that you are benefiting from the many opportunities being a member of ASCE provides: whether it is taking advantage of the many the leadership opportunities, networking opportunities, educational opportunities, obtaining professional development hours, or personally committing to support the civil engineering profession. 

From time to time you may ask, what does the American Society of Civil Engineers do? The formal answer is that we promote civil engineering professional practice with programs in licensure, ethics, business practices, career development, community service, leadership & management, diversity awareness and mentoring. More specifically, our Section also strives to advance ASCE's three strategic initiatives that serve as guidance to further the Society's mission to, in part, build a better quality of life. These three initiatives are Infrastructure, Raise the Bar and Sustainability.
 

  • ASCE focuses on increasing the safety and reliability of the Nation's infrastructure through two documents: the Report Card for America's Infrastructure and the Failure to Act study. The Report Card, which is issued every four years, assigns letter grades from A-F to assess 16 sectors of civil engineering from Roads and Bridges to Drinking Water and Wastewater. The four Sections of ASCE in Pennsylvania last released a state-specific Report Card in June 2014; which is available here. The National Report Card was last released in 2013 and is available here. The second document is the Failure to Act study which describes the adverse impacts on America's economy if the current investment levels are maintained; you can read more about this study. I highly recommend that you take a couple moments to review the main aspects of the Report Card and Failure to Act and share their contents with your co-workers, families and friends since infrastructure investment (or lack thereof) affects us all. 
     
  • The Raise the Bar initiative strives to elevate the educational requirements for licensure of future professional engineers by requiring a Masters Degree or 30 credits of equivalent post graduate education in order to obtain professional licensure, and
     
  • As stewards of society's infrastructure, civil engineers must take the lead in developing sustainable practices that are applied throughout planning, design and construction that balances environmental, economic as well as social conditions.

Locally, within the boundaries of the Central Pennsylvania Section, we will continue to educate our members with what the Society is doing to serve our fellow engineers and to serve our communities and will continue to seek more ways to provide value to our members through professional development, networking, social events and more. If you have any questions, require additional information about the American Society of Civil Engineers, or want to get further involved with the Society, please contact me directly or through our Section's official email. 

 

Sincerely, 

Christopher W. Smith, P.E., M. ASCE
ASCE Central PA President 2015-2016