During President Luther Graef's address at the opening of the Boston Convention, he spoke about this past year's highlights and activities, which actually brought tears to many attendee. No one could ever recall such a passionate speech. He spoke about ASCE's report card on the condition of the Nations infrastructure; he spoke about the successful move of ASCE's headquarters from New York to Washington D. C. He also spoke about the incredible support he received from the membership at large and from many individuals. However, he received the loudest applause when he spoke about how the Board of Directors voted near unanimously to support the "Concept of the First Professional Degree being the Master's Degree". Also, approved, in concept, the Education Activities Committee plans for publicizing and promoting the policy of the 1st Professional Degree. This controversial decision by the Board is not something all civil engineers agree with, including the majority of the Seattle Section's Executive Board.

Luther hopes that making the Master's degree the first degree for professional registration can be achieved within the next 10 years. With an added emphasis on higher education, Luther believes that the reputation and image of civil engineers will be improved and that the additional degree will better prepare us for all the requirements of the civil engineer-not just technical knowledge. For example, within the civil engineering curriculum, he felt it important that a course on History and Heritage be taught. He said, "those who do not know history are doomed to repeat past mistakes". Other course work recommended would be improved communication skills, both oral and written, and engineering management skills training and an engineering ethics course.

The Pacific Northwest Council (PNC), which has delegates from nine northwest sections, had passed a resolution against the requirement of a Master's Degree. In fact, our District 12 Director, Gary Carroll, honored PNC's position and voted against this resolution, one of several National Directors to do so. However, when the language was changed to include the operative word, "Concept", the necessary 2/3rds majority votes for passage were obtained.

The arguments against the "Masters' requirement as the first professional degree" are many and include: "Civil Engineers do excellent work designing roads, buildings, and other structures with only a Bachelor's degree"; and "With a higher educational requirement, the financial burdens will dissuade many students from entering the civil engineering profession". On the other hand, with fewer civil engineers in the resource pool, our wages should increase. As someone who stayed an additional year to obtain a master's degree, I can say that I did not receive higher wages for obtaining that advanced degree. Furthermore, my advanced degree curriculum emphasized only more technical course work. I believe that the type of course work Luther described would have better prepared others and me for the demands of a civil engineer. Therefore, I don't find it surprising that our National Board of Directors is interested in a Master's Degree as the 1st professional degree and not a Masters in Civil Engineering. Before, listening to Luther speak, I was opposed to the requirement of a Master's Degree. Now, I'm for it.

If you would like to share your opinion, please send me an e-mail at shart@rwbeck.com.

The Water Resources and Environmental Committee December meeting topic will be computer modeling of near shore currents. The meeting will be held on Thursday the 17th, at noon, at the offices of HDR in Bellevue. The address is 500 - 108th Ave. NE, next to the Bellevue Transit Center. Parking in the area costs between three and five dollars. The presentation will be in the 12th floor conference room. Light refreshments will be available thanks to our host. Our presentation topic is further detailed below.

Our January 1999 meeting will be held on Thursday, the 21st in Seattle at the offices of Brown and Caldwell with a tentative topic of Erosion Control for the Lakemont Boulevard SE Extension. More details will be available next month.

This months featured speaker is Uday Putrevu, a civil engineer and research scientist from Northwest Research Associates. His presentation is titled "Deducing beach topography and longshore currents using edge wave measurements."

For many practical applications, it is necessary to know the topography and currents in the nearshore region (shoreline to about 500m offshore) fairly accurately. Wave breaking and other complications sometimes make direct measurements difficult. For that reason, several investigators are working on ways to deduce the topography and currents using indirect measurements. In this talk, Uday will discuss the measuring of edge waves (waves that propagate along the shore) and using inverse techniques to deduce the underlying beach topography and longshore currents. Uday will demonstrate that there is sufficient information in edge waves to make the necessary deductions, and discuss how well the technique does in realistic situations.

Contact Felix Kristanovich at (425) 881-7700 (e-mail fkristanovich@ensr.com) for more information on the upcoming meeting. If you would like your name added to our e-mail distribution list, or have news for distribution to the committee, please contact Fritz Timm at David Evans and Associates, Inc. (425) 519-6500 (e-mail ftt@blv.deainc.com). We still have a few open dates in the spring for presentations if you have an interesting topic.

Attendees: Steve Hart, John Hastig, Jim Alverson, Ron Leimkuhler, Shannon Kinsella, Susan Gardner, Phil Cohen, Bob Bucher, Don Northey, Darrell Smith, James Wilhoit, Mike Stansbury, Larry Wade, Tom Tobin.

1. The meeting was called to order by the new President, Steve Hart, at 4:30 pm.

2.Regular Business - Minutes of the Board meeting of October 14 were approved as distributed. No additions were made to the printed agenda for today's meeting.

3.The Treasurer presented his report, which was approved with minor changes.

4. Technical Committee Reports - Ron Leimkuhler presented a summary of technical committee activities, and reported on the coordination meeting for technical committee chair persons that was held November 4, 1998. At that meeting a list of some 14 ideas for increasing the effectiveness of the technical groups was drawn up and discussed. These ideas include conducting a section-wide survey of member interests and increased coordination with student chapters. Ron also reported that the Geotechnical Committee will host its annual Spring Seminar on Saturday April 10, 1999 and has selected Excavation Support Systems and Dewatering as the seminar topic. The Geotech group also decided to award a scholarship in the amount of $1,000 in 1999. The Transportation & Infrastructure Committee has decided to evaluate all types of infrastructure in the Puget Sound Region (or perhaps the entire state) and to issue a "Report Card" on its status and condition. The report card would be patterned after the report card issued by ASCE a few months ago on the infrastructure of the nation.

5. Standing Committee Reports - A brief written summary of Standing Committee activities by Ray Walton was submitted in absentia . The Professional Practices Committee plans to discuss issues and conduct its business primarily by e-mail. The Section's Public Information Officer will continue to be active in publicizing events and projects, of which some seven items already have been identified. He has to date received 11 responses from governmental agencies indicating an interest in participating in the ASCE national program for ASCE membership (with reduced dues) for groups of new members employed by such agencies. The History and Heritage Committee is completing documentation to nominate the Cedar Falls Hydroelectric Project as a National Civil Engineering Historic Landmark and recently had a tour of Project facilities. The Committee hopes to submit the nomination to ASCE's National Committee on History and Heritage by the end of 1998.

6. Branch Reports (Shannon Kinsella) - Darrell Smith, President of the Branch, discussed activities and plans of the Kitsap Branch and submitted a detailed report to the Secretary describing activities of 1997-98 including financial data. He also presented a check for $500 from the Branch to the new student chapter support fund being established in the name of the Section's Honorary Members. The Branch is heavily involved in development of the Clear Creek Trail near Silverdale, including using ASCE grant funds to help with a pedestrian bridge. The North Branch is working on education and other issues. John Hastig attended their October meeting and reported that it was well-attended. The Puget Sound Engineering Council (PSEC) will hold its annual banquet on February 27 at the Space Needle Restaurant, in conjunction with celebration of Engineers' Week. The Council is seeking nominations for awards, such as Engineer of the Year.

7. Associate Member Forum (AMF) - Bob Bucher reported on the AMF activities and submitted a brief written report. Preparations for the Popsicle Stick Bridge contest are in full swing under the leadership of Aeli Kim. It will be held during Engineers' Week in February, 1999. A detailed informational document has been prepared and sent to some 60 high schools and oral presentations are being made to the schools by AMF members. Already about 20 schools have registered for participation. AMF made a tour of the Mariners' new ballpark in October and plans to participate in a Habitat for Humanity project. More information on AMF is available on the Section's web site.

8. Convention 2000 - The ASCE National Convention will be held in Seattle in October 2000. Susan Gardner and John Welch, the Section's representative on the National convention committee, attended this year's convention in Boston in October to gain insight for handling the local Section's convention responsibilities.

9. Old Business -

9.1 The requirement in some municipal jurisdictions to require a structural engineer's license for design of minor structures traditionally designed by civil engineers is a continuing concern of the Section's Board. In general, the question is "what types and sizes of structures should a qualified civil engineer be allowed to design, and which structures must be designed only by licensed structural engineers?" Don Northey is continuing to prepare a draft position for the Executive Board to consider. Recent changes Washington structural engineer licensing requirements making structural simply another engineering discipline continues to be another Board concern. A committee of SEAW that includes Don Northey and Tom Tobin of ASCE is working to develop an approach to re-establish certain aspects of the previous state law and WAC. The Section's Executive Board voted to continue to support SEAW in this matter and will review new SEAW proposals when available.

9.2 The Section Annual Report to National is to be prepared by the Secretary and must be filed no later than November 30, 1998 for the Section to receive its allotments from National. To date, the Secretary has received most but not all of the necessary financial and other data needed from the Treasurer, the Branches, and Committees that have bank accounts and/or other assets separate from the Section treasury.

9.3 For the 1998 Public Relations Grant Program from ASCE National, the Secretary will submit brief reports on how the grant funds were used, following which national will release the remainder of the funds that were awarded. The Kitsap Branch and the Geotechnical Committee were awarded grants in January 1998 from ASCE to assist in programs that enhance civil engineers' public "image".

9.4 The R. H. Thomson Scholarship Committee will meet to discuss alternatives and decide how to proceed to increase capitalization of the scholarship fund.

9.5 White Paper on Infrastructure Funding by the Infrastructure & Transportation Committee: Board member comments on the draft paper have been given to Ron Borowski, and are being used to prepare a revised draft for Board review. Following Board approval, the paper will be published in the Newsletter and then the Section membership will be asked to vote on whether to release the paper as representing the Section's position.

9.6 The Jones Award recipient was announced, and the presentation was made at the Section meeting.

9.7 LOCEA nominations will be received in spring of 1999, following publication in three consecutive Newsletters of the announcement. The award for the selected project will be made in September 1999. One nomination was received recently, but is too late for 1998, so no award will be made this year.

10. New Business

10.1 The idea of distributing the Section's Newsletter to the other ASCE sections in Washington was offered by the President, with the thought of sending selected issues to all members of these sections, which are Inland Empire, Colombia, and Tacoma-Olympia, for the purpose of drawing together civil engineers from all over the State. In particular, this approach could be used to encourage members to participate in Legislative Committee work and in going to the "Hill Day" in Olympia. Conference announcements also would be of interest. Costs for each distribution are estimated to be in the range of $300 to $400. However, some of the costs might be offset by additional advertising revenue. No decision was reached by the Board.

10.2 A brief discussion was held on the need to enact some amendments to the Section's Constitution and Bylaws to increase efficacy. Approval of any amendments requires a favorable vote of the Section membership, and they should first be reviewed by ASCE's Council of Vice-Presidents for consistency with overall ASCE policy. The President's suggested amendments were handed to Board members for later review. No action was taken.

10.3 Section Duties and Procedures Manual: The President has marked suggested changes in the current document. The Board will need to review and comment on these, and then vote to adopt or reject them.

10.4 Annual Meeting of Section: The President noted the need to hold an annual meeting as required in the Bylaws, and proposes it for October 1999. The meeting would be attended by committee and branch chairs/officers in addition to the Board members. Reports would be presented by each on the current year's activities and plans for the following year. Financial reports and proposed budgets would be included in the presentations.

10.5 Applications for grants under the ASCE Public Relations Program: It was noted that applications for grants for 1999 must be submitted to the Section Secretary by December 15 for transmittal to the national officer in charge of the program. Seattle University may have an appropriate project involving structural bridges. Another idea is preparation of a "Report Card" on infrastructure in the region. University students could be asked to help with this effort.

10.6 Joe Colcord has been appointed the Section's Historian. As such, the Treasurer will deliver old financial records to Joe for proper archiving.

10.7 The Pacific Northwest Council (PNC) will hold its spring conference in Seattle March 10-13, 1999 at the Executive Inn near Seattle Center. In addition to meetings, activities will be organized for afternoons and evenings. Tours may be included, such as the Cedar Falls Hydroelectric Project, and the Mariners' new ballpark. Also, a golf tournament is suggested. Section members will be invited to participate. In addition, members of the local committee for Convention 2000 will have a good opportunity to network with delegates of other Northwest sections.

10.8 Student Night/Section Meeting: It was suggested that the student chapters of Seattle U and UW might jointly host and present the program at the June section meeting. Cathy Smith apparently offered to discuss this idea with the student chapters.

11. Around the Table Larry Wade suggested we think about having a joint meeting with our Canadian colleagues from Vancouver. He indicated that in times past usually one meeting each year was a joint one with the Vancouver civil engineers. Larry also said that it may be possible to have the ASCE National President or President-Elect come to speak at one of our section meetings, provided that a full hour would be made available. The Board did not discuss either of these items.

12. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 5:42 pm.

Respectfully Submitted,
James E. Alverson, Secretary

Branches and technical and standing committees may apply for grants from ASCE to enhance the profession of civil engineering in two areas: Government Relations and Public Relations. Grant requests will be transmitted to ASCE Headquarters by the Section Secretary and must be received by the Secretary by December 15, 1998 to meet the December 31 deadline at Headquarters. Grant requests include a brief description of the proposed activity and have to be signed by the Section President, Steve Hart. For 1998, the Seattle Section received two grants in total amount of about $5,160 that were requested by the Kitsap Branch and the Geotechnical Committee. Please contact Steve for further information, at (206) 695-4720 or e-mail to shart@rwbeck.com.

Senior Geotechnical Engineer

An outstanding career opportunity exists for an entrepreneurial senior geotechnical engineer to manage and build a start-up Seattle office of a well established, distinguished 25-year-old Portland, Oregon geotechnical and environmental engineering consulting firm. The firm has completed, and is continuing to work on, an exciting mix of projects.

This position is ideal for a team-oriented, client-centered individual who is comfortable and capable at marketing engineering services, building client relationships mentoring, and designing technically advanced multi-disciplined projects.

Qualified candidates will possess the following: at least 10 years of progressive geotechnical engineering experience, an MSCE in geotechnical engineering, a P.E. in Washington, exceptional verbal and written communication skills, and a proven ability to bring in clients. Ideal candidates will also be results-oriented, flexible, have the motivation to excel professionally and a history of successfully managing others.

This firm offers a competitive salary, an excellent benefits package, and an opportunity for ownership participation in this growth position.

Please fax your resume to Sheila Brown, Recruiter, Hall & Company 360/598-3703, call (800) 583-0379, e-mail sheila@job.com or apply on-line at www.job.com.

$64,644 - $87,278/year (DOE). 10% bonus available based on performance. Filing closes: December 29, 1998.

Primary Duties: Responsible for major programs in the area of roadway structures and directing a multidisciplinary and diverse staff responsible for the electrical, mechanical, and structural maintenance, emergency repair, movable bridge operation, inspection and inventory of the City's 1,300 roadway structures, which represents a $1 billion infrastructure. Develop and monitor a Capital Improvement Program with regard to roadway structures. Plan and develop the division's $5 million operating and $15-20 million capital budget.

Required Qualifications: Bachelor's in Public and Business Administration, or a related field and five years of progressively responsible management experience in public works, including experience managing a diverse work force with the spirit and provisions of Fair Employment Practices Ordinances and related City, State, and Federal guidelines.

Desired Qualifications: BS in Civil Engineering and Five years of Professional Civil Engineering experience. Washington State Professional Civil Engineering License. Licensing in other States, with reciprocal agreement, or the ability to get one within one year is acceptable. Emergency preparedness and response experience.

How to apply: Complete application instructions on this position (available at www.ci.seattle.wa.us/jobs or call Crispina Sioson at 206-684-5287. Refer to Job#33-ET-98)

Please mark your calendars for Saturday, February 20, 1999. Thousands of spectators and hundreds of volunteers and media personnel will convene at the Center House at the Seattle Center to see results of hours of hard work by local high school students. The Fourth Annual Popsicle Stick Bridge Competition will be a smashing success.

Under the direction of PSB Coordinator Aeli Kim, the Associate Member Forum (AMF) of ASCE has just finished conducting training sessions for school visits. Now AMF is following up with regional high schools, visiting them, and selecting contest celebrity judges. AMF members visit each of the signed up schools to (1) promote the contest, (2) explain the rules, and (3) offer bridge building tips. Then the 5-member student teams are free to exercise their engineering skills and ingenuity to construct sturdy, attractive, and lightweight popsicle stick bridges, conforming to strict dimension, weight, and assembly specifications.

Awards are given for the (1) strongest, (2) highest load to weight ratio, and (3) most aesthetically pleasing bridges. Olympic High School took the strength title last year with a bridge that held 1278 pounds, up from Henry Foss' High Schools national record breaker of 1000+ pounds the year before. Strength tests are conducted using a hydraulic loading press while celebrity judges evaluate the bridges for aesthetics.

Not only does the contest provide an outstanding practical structural engineering application for tomorrow's engineers, it also gives them a major taste of the engineering profession. After the bridges are strength tested, the student teams have the opportunity to meet with AMF consultants who will help these students analyze the failure modes and provide construction tips for making next year's bridges even more structurally sound. Since this event will be held in conjunction with National Engineers Week, students will have the opportunity to tour the numerous engineering exhibits.

Last year's contest had over 200 volunteers, 2000 spectators, and outstanding media coverage. Again, this year, AMF is providing this outstanding publicity opportunity for companies willing to donate money and prizes. Interested companies who would like to play a significant role in the lives of our future engineers are encouraged to email PSB coordinator Aeli Kim at af@isomedia.com.

Please come to the Center House at the Seattle Center on Saturday, February 20, 1999 to see the tremendous results produced by hours of hard work and dedication by tomorrow's engineers. Thank you.

-David M. Schwegel, Applications Engineer Intersection Development Corporation

What does it mean? You are invited to attend the inaugural monthly Meeting of Convention 2000 Local Organizing Committee. Details first: Tuesday, December 15th, 6:30pm, John Hastig's house at 14425 91st Ave. NE, Bothell. Contact John if you need directions. Beef burgers and the fixings will be provided.

A working theme has been chosen: Passages to Century 21. For those of you who weren't around, the theme for the 1962 Seattle World's Fair was "Century 21" and the theme incorporates that concept and uses the Space Needle in the logo. A trip to the National Convention in Boston in October provided grounds for a starting point in the planning process. Program content needs to be firmed up in the next few months and we would like to hear your ideas.

We also need to start formulating ideas for technical and spouse tours, provide a means for increased student participation, integrate ideas from other PNC sections, take a look at the international perspective and input from our corner of the world, and much more.

You are all invited to participate. Send RSVPs or regrets to Susan Gardner (206-389-0291, sgardner@halcyon.com) or John Hastig (425-355-4141 x225, jhastig@aol.com)