National has developed Action Items for the goals developed in the latest strategic planning process. A few of the end products that are envisioned include:

— a permanent ASCE Leadership Development Academy

— a global "Center of Excellence for Sustainable Development"

— review of Society governance, consideration of other organizational structures, and reorganization recommendations to the Board.

— Institutes will introduce a series of new products and services

— offer at least five new Specialty Conferences and Managed Conferences

— a recommendation from the Task Committee on the First Professional Degree detailing the plan, budget, and timeline to implement the vision of ASCE Policy 465 will be submitted for Board approval (NOTE: not "consideration")

— Evaluate the acquisition of the Institute of Professional Practice, or create a business and implementation plan to build one in CPP (an action item)

To get a copy of the entire plan, contact Susan Gardner or, ideally, it will be available at National’s web site, although that is not the case at the time of article submission. Tom McDonald will be the point person for Section comments which may merit meetings to solidify constructive input. Although National’s timing for the process or input is unknown, one forum for responses will be the Pacific Northwest Council’s February meeting. Contact Tom McDonald at 425-519-6500 or tfm@deainc.com.

Margaret Hahn, now a graduate student at the University of Washington, launched the Section into cyberspace with our very own website, hosted by National. (Our very first on-line visibility was via a Shannon & Wilson webpage.) If you visit the website at www.asce.org/gsd/sections/seattle/, you will see multiple pages and numerous links. Margaret set up these pages to help members and visitors navigate to relevant information. Because of her ASCE involvement and knowledge, she produced and maintained the pages in a user-friendly format. The webpage is a living entity which is changed or enhanced as Section members provide input.

Margaret is turning over her duties to Brenda Carlson, but the Section should be proud of and grateful for Margaret’s contribution to the Section. Thank you very much, Margaret.

Attendees: Ron Leimkuhler, Susan Gardner, Don Northey, Linda De Boldt, Stan Boyle, Phil Cohen, Ron Borowski, Steve Hart, Shannon Kinsella, Ted Bell, Dave Schwegel, Ann Epler, Bob Boudinot, Arthur Fleming.

Section President Ron Leimkuhler called the meeting to order at 4:05 p.m. The meeting was held at the Yankee Grill in Ballard.

Corrections to September meeting minutes: Second Paragraph of Treasurer’s Report should read: - Susan Gardner noted that we have sufficient funds in the account for the R.H. Thompson Committee to consider either increasing the amount of the award or making two awards.

The September minutes were approved as amended.

Treasurer’s Report: Phil Cohen reported that a check for ~$3,574 was sent out on October 11, 2000, to the State Lifeline and Earthquake Engineering Committee for a State Public Affairs (Lifeline Engineering) Grant. This is the final payment on that grant.

Ford Graphics, the newsletter publisher, overbilled and was overpaid ~$400. This has been corrected and we are within the budget for newsletter publication.

Phil Cohen presented the proposed budget for the 2000-2001 year. All budget requests by technical and standing committees were met. Some of these budgets were satisfied by reducing newsletter publication costs — ASCE has switched to a new printing firm.

A request by Seattle University for additional funds beyond those normally allocated for student activities was turned down. The proposed 2001 budget was amended to include $175 in the Student Budget line item in accordance with the bylaws. The issue of funding for student activities was proposed to be addressed at future meetings.

The Board was advised that Margaret Hahn has resigned from her position as the Section Webmaster. An agreement has been reached with Brenda Carlson to take over this position. The Board passed a motion approving a rate of $10/hour for Ms. Carlson’s services, for a maximum of $120/month and $1,500/year. The 2001 budget was amended to reflect this change. The board will reconsider this arrangement in January 2001.

The October treasurer’s report was approved. The 2001 budget was approved as amended.

Phil Cohen will turn over the treasurer’s duties to Arthur Fleming this month.

Contact information for committee chairs is available on the Section web site. Please contact the committee chairs if you would like to participate or for additional information.

Shannon Kinsella reported that the technical committees are still ramping up for the coming year. She is organizing a meeting with committee chairs to discuss activities for the coming year.

Linda De Boldt presented the standing committee report.

— Professional Practices Committee is currently dormant.

— Tim Lowry of the Management in Engineering Committee has a busy agenda set up for the following year and has already scheduled topics for each monthly meeting.

— The History and Heritage Committee did not report; however, the Cedar Falls Hydroelectric project has been recognized as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. Comm-emoration ceremonies are scheduled for October 13 and next week at the national conference.

— Ray Walton will chair the University Advisory Committee this year. Their first meeting will be October 13.

— Dan Dixon of the Legislative committee is looking for additional volunteers to keep tabs on, review, and comment on proposed legislative actions. Dan has proposed that those who wish to get involved could do so via the internet, without the need for meetings.

David Schwagel reported on activities of the Public Relations Committee. He has been working closely with ASCE National regarding press releases for activities associated with Convention 2000, Building Big, and the Cedar Falls NHCEL designation.

Bob Boudinot reported that the Kitsap Branch would like to participate in this year’s joint meeting with the Tacoma Branch. This is scheduled to be held in Tacoma in December.

AMF Report: Ann Epler presented the AMF report. She reported that AMF now has approximately 50 active members!

AMF has been busy helping with the National Conference and Building Big. They have also set a goal of getting more AMF members to attend the Section meetings.

Contact AMF President Mary Holland (mary_holland@urscorp.com) if you would like to participate in AMF activities or to get more information on AMF.

Conference 2000: Ted Bell gave an update on the Conference 2000 preparations. He expressed his appreciation for all the help that has been received from the Board, general membership, ASCE National staff, and many others.

PSEC Update: Nominations for Engineer of the Year are due by December 31. An electronic nomination form can be obtained from Shannon Kinsella.

Volunteers are needed for the Engineer’s Fair booth. The Engineer’s Fair will be held on February 17 and 18, 2001. Please contact Don if you would like to help out.

Dave Crippen will be ASCE’s repre-sentative to PSEC.

Volunteers are needed for two mentoring sessions scheduled at Seattle University (October 26) and University of Washington (November 14). On these evenings practitioners are invited to make themselves available to students to answer questions about their career paths and provide guidance for students that will soon enter the profession. Contact Don Northey for more information. Volunteers can attend one or both events.

Building Big: Susan Gardner announced that there is still an opportunity to get involved in the Building Big program to do pre-sentations at middle schools. Please contact Susan for more information.

A Build-a-thon media event is scheduled in conjunction with the National Conference next week.

Fall PNC Conference: Ron Leimkuhler and Susan Gardner attended the Fall PNC Conference in Gig Harbor. An item raised at the meeting is whether to raise our Section contribution to PNC from the current $1.75/member to $2.00/member. This topic will be discussed at a future Board meeting.

Old Business: Susan encouraged committees to apply for State and Public Affairs Grant money and ASCE Opportunity Grants. These are sources of money that committees can access to fund public relations-type activities and ASCE public-awareness raising projects. APPLY NOW.

Ron Leimkuhler will head up the creation of an Awards Program to provide an opportunity for the Seattle Section to recognize a greater number of outstanding local projects and the corporations, agencies, contractors, and members that made them happen. The feedback that he has received so far for implementing this program has been positive. He requested that the committees each submit projects related to their field for consideration. Several categories of projects would be considered. A subcommittee to the standing Awards Committee would select the top 5 projects in each category. The information on these projects would then be sent to the Portland Section, who would select the top project in each category.

The board discussed selecting the Local Outstanding Civil Engineering Award (LOCEA) project from the list of projects submitted. It was generally agreed that the LOCEA guidelines and forms would be used to submit information for projects to be considered, EXCEPT that the LOCEA cap on the project value would not be applied.

NEW BUSINESS: How to charge for employment advertising in the Section newsletter and the appropriateness of accepting advertisements from outside the region were discussed. It was generally agreed that advertising should at least pay for the cost of publishing it. Additional discussion on the appropriate type and length of advertisements and the rate to charge for advertising will be taken up at future board meetings.

Shannon Kinsella proposed that an email contact tree be set up to disseminate general information, requests for volunteers, and legislative information to members on a more timely basis and to facilitate getting information to a broader member base than those who are active on committees and attend monthly meetings. A designated single contact at each organization was proposed; that contact would be responsible to disseminate the information to others within their organization who are interested in receiving this type of info. Implementation considerations and how to set up and maintain the tree were discussed. The proposal was tabled without a decision.

Phil Cohen said that a $2 per Section member student allocation is currently budgeted as an expense for 2001. Section dues currently have a surcharge included in them for this allocation. Additional discussion on how to distribute this money will be discussed in a future Board meeting.

The meeting was adjourned at 6:10 p.m.

Meeting minutes prepared by Stan Boyle.