Announcements

Welcome to VTASCE webpage!

The October Newsletter has been published. Click on NEWSLETTERS to download a copy.

Our October Meeting on 10/28/08 has been cancelled.

Our next ASCE meeting is on November 6, 2008. I hope that you can attend. Please send Jason Ayotte (jayotte@vhb.com) an email to RSVP by October 31, 2008.

If you have any suggestions or comments about this website please contact me at skelley@geodesign.net

Best Regards,

Shawn P. Kelley, Ph.D., M. ASCE

2008-2009 President, VTASCE

President's Message

I hope everyone had a great summer and you are enjoying the fall season. The summer flew by and we did not get to publish a summer newsletter or a September newsletter but be rest assured, VTASCE is still here and we are still active! The Board of Directors met once during the summer and we just had our second meeting on October 1, 2008. This year is shaping up to be a very exciting year. The preliminary 2008/2009 ASCE meeting schedule can be found below this message. I hope that you all can come out and attend a meeting.

I have been active with ASCE National and I am now on the website advisory task committee (WATC). This committee was formed to review the new design of ASCE National’s website. The current site (www.asce.org) will be slowing changing and transforming into the new and improved site. This site will be very functional for all members. Please check on it over the next few months to observe the transformation. If you have any suggestions for the new website, please share them with me so I can share them with WATC.

I am also currently active with the Region 1 of ASCE. Vermont is part of Region 1 of ASCE. Region 1 consists of all New England states, NY, NJ, and Puerto Rico. I am the webmaster for Region 1 (http://region1.asce.org) and I maintain the content on this page for the Region. I am also on the R1BOG (Region 1 Board of Governors) Delegate Reimbursement Committee. This committee was formed to create a means for Sections and Branches to send Section Delegates to the Region 1 Assembly meetings at a reasonable travel cost. These meetings are held twice a year and are attended by Section and Branch delegates for all sections and branches within Region 1. VTASCE has been sending two delegates to these meetings since 2007 (the first meeting of the newly formed Region 1 was September 15, 2006). Typically, sections and branches send members of their respective Board of Directors. VTASCE has sent the President, President-Elect, and the Secretary so far.

The President-Elect, Amanda Hanaway-Corrente and I recently traveled to Niagara Falls, NY for the 5th assembly meeting on September 19 and 20th. The Assembly meeting started on Saturday morning and lasted all day. We got to participate in multiple discussions about how the Sections are run within the Region and many ideas were shared by all. The meeting minutes can be found on the Region 1 website at http://region1.asce.org/governance.html.

There was also a meeting of the New England Council on the Friday before the Regional Assembly meeting. Amanda and I represented VTASCE as the two delegates for this meeting. This New England Council meeting consisted of Section member representatives from all of the New England Sections. We shared ideas about hosting dinner meetings, we gave a report of the Sections activities for the year, and we talked about membership. We also discussed what we can do as Sections to provide the most for our membership. VTASCE has two official delegates, Sherward Farnsworth and Eugene Sevi and they serve as our representatives when possible.

The 2008-2009 VTASCE year has started already with the VSE Annual Golf Tournament held on September 26, 2008. I heard that it rained that day but everyone had a good time (I was scheduled to attend but had to cancel at the last minute due to work obligations). I hope those that did attend got to see our VTASCE sponsored Tee box!

We are having our first meeting on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 in Milano Ballroom at Norwich University. The topic will be ACE mentoring program. The program's mission is to enlighten and increase the awareness of high school students to career opportunities in architecture, construction and engineering and related areas of the design and construction industry through mentoring; and to provide scholarship opportunities for students in an inclusive manner reflective of the diverse school population. See http://www.acementor.org/ for more information about this exciting organization.

Our November meeting will be with NHASCE and the topic will be “Arctic Research: A Front Row Seat to Climate Change, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers” and will be held at the Hotel Coolidge, White River Junction, VT. There will be a site tour before the dinner meeting at the Cold Regions Research & Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) in Hanover, NH.

The remaining meetings for the 2008-2009 VTASCE year are being planned now and the topics are very interesting and intriguing. I hope to see you at a local meeting.

Respectfully,

Shawn P. Kelley, Ph.D., M. ASCE

2008-2009 President, VTASCE