SEAoA News

NCSEA Member News - June 2012

Jeffrey Messier — Mon, 14 May 2012 12:15:41 GMT

Click the link below for to check out the June 2012 issue of the NCSEA Member Newsletter

June 2012 NCSEA News

Discovery Channel Looking for Engineers for New Competition Show

Jeffrey Messier — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:05:48 GMT

DISCOVERY CHANNEL SEEKING AMERICA'S TOP INVENTORS, MACHINISTS AND ENGINEERS TO COMPETE FOR A HUGE GRAND PRIZE

Are you a designer who can build? Are you a machinist who can design?

The Discovery Channel is looking for America's most creative and daring techies, machinists, inventors and engineers to design, build, and BLAST their way to a Grand Prize on their new competition TV show TOP ENGINEER.

A handful of lucky men and women will be chosen to take on exciting challenges from various engineering fields at the state-of-the-art WET Design facilities (www.wetdesign.com) in California.

No, you don't need to have an engineering degree to compete on this show, but you MUST be able to design, build, test and integrate an idea into a final product that WORKS. These will be fast-paced, hands-on, VISCERAL challenges! If your experience is strictly behind the keyboard, then this show is NOT for you.

We are looking for visual effects experts, accomplished home shop machinists, contractors and engineers with backgrounds in electrical, civil, structural or mechanical engineering.

If you have an outgoing personality and are ready to get your hands dirty for the chance to win a GRAND PRIZE and the title of TOP ENGINEER, then we want to hear from you.

APPLY TODAY!

Email TopEngineerCasting@gmail.com with your name, age, location, phone number, a recent photo and a brief explanation of why you are perfect for this competition show.

* Deadline to submit is March 7, 2012. Applicants must be U.S. citizens or residents at least 21 years of age. For more information, please visit www.pilgrimstudios.com/casting/topengineer

SEAoA presents 2012 Future Cites Award

Jeffrey Messier — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 20:43:41 GMT

We would like to thank SEAoA member Richard Dahlmann and all of our SEAoA Member judges for participating in the Future Cities competition this year. Richard has spearheaded this effort for the last 3 years and built it into something that the SEAoA can be proud of and a fine example of our mission to reach out to the community and educate them about our profession.

From Rich Dahlmann:

The SEAoA is proud to have given a society award at the recent Future Cities competition for the Phoenix region. Future Cities is a program set up for 6th, 7th and 8th graders across the nation and is designed to encourage engineering to our youth. Around 300 teams started this competition in September and 92 teams made it the regional finals.

The participants engage in a several month long expedition to compete in the Future Cities program. They have several deliverables that are due over a four-month timeframe. First, the students design a city using Sim City software. They all have the same guidelines and the cities are judges according to how well they meet the criteria. The second deliverable involves the students writing an essay and narrative about their city. Third, they build a physical model of a portion of their city. This is to be built to scale, and the students have a maximum budget of $100. Finally, they make a 7-minute presentation to a team of judges regarding their city.

Several awards are presented to the winning teams. The top team in the overall competition represents Arizona at the national finals in Washington D.C. In addition to the overall competition awards, over 20 society awards were handed out. These are from all the varying engineering and architectural societies across the valley.

The SEAoA award was given for “Most Innovative Structures” with the criteria being the best use of structural principles taking into account unique structural loading due to local conditions (earthquake, wind…).

I need to thank our terrific team of judges. Our team included Pam Kotrys, Elena Badilla, Cody Haptonstall, Ben Crellin and myself. This team put in several hours reviewing essays and narratives in order to narrow down our choices from 92 to around 20. Many team members then went to the main City of Phoenix library during the week before the competition in order to review the models that were built. This narrowed the field further. On Saturday, January 28, we had the opportunity to meet with these teams and view many of their presentations. From here, the final selections were made and our winner was decided.

The SEAoA’s award was presented to the city named “River Valley”. A team from Payne Junior High School in the southeast valley constructed this city. River Valley is to be situated along the San Andres fault. Their residential area was located underground and was protected from seismic activity using the same principles that protect missile silos. They also have a dome with solar panels mounted to it. These solar panels move around the dome, tracking the sun for the most efficiency.

Congratulations to River Valley- hopefully we have some future structural engineers in the making.

From this competition, and other interactions with students, it is apparent that structural engineering is not well known to the public. Participation in events like this and the Engineering Day activities at the Arizona Science Center help introduce young minds to Structural Engineering. Encounters like this may open up opportunities for students that they didn’t even know existed before.

Please consider participating in events like these. It does make a difference.

Thanks

Richard Dahlmann

2012 Future Cities Award Recipients

New SEAoA Directors Elected for 2011-2012

Wed, 07 Sep 2011 14:00:13 GMT

The balloting for 2011-2012 Directors and Officers is closed and the following SEAoA members have been elected to direct the association for the coming year.

President (one year term) - John Woodson

Directors (two year terms) - Allan Ortega, Mike Lu, Richard Dahlmann, Ben Crellin

Director at Large (one year term) - Jeffrey Messier

Past President (one year term) - Tres Warner

View additional information on the new Board Members by clicking here to jump to our on-line directory.

Thank you to all those members that participated in the on-line balloting.

Notice - SEAoA Code Committee Meeting Rescheduled

Sun, 07 Aug 2011 15:38:53 GMT

The SEAoA Code Committee Meeting, originally scheduled for August 9th, has been moved to September 13th. Get details and RSVP for this meeting by clicking here.

SEAoA Board of Directors Presents New Association By-Laws

Sun, 05 Jun 2011 06:52:22 GMT

For the last year, most of the focus of the Board of Directors has been on updating our by-laws in an attempt to reorganize our Association to better serve its members. This effort is now complete, and the Board has adopted a new set of by-laws that they are asking all members to review. All current SEAoA members will be asked to vote on these revisions in June.

Over the past few months the SEAoA state board has taken careful consideration of membership comments and operational issues to update the SEAoA Bylaws. The proposed new Bylaws are a significant improvement over the existing. I fully endorse these proposed changes. Please take the next 20 days to review these changes, and will you be asked to vote on the changes at the end of the month. Please contact me [twarner@smleng.com] or John Woodson [jwoodson@m3eng.com] with any questions.

Click here to download the old by-laws

Click here to download the new by-laws

Summary of Changes

(Click here to download this summary as a PDF file)

· Format - changed from 2-column periodical format to page width format for clarity.

· Titles - changed "Board of Trustees" to "Board of Directors", changed references from "Chapter" to "Board" or "Association" as applicable.

· Article I: Purpose & Mission - no significant changes.

· Article II: Organization - shortened descriptions with references to other Articles to eliminate redundancies.

· Article III: Membership

o Changed "Association" member status to "Associate"

o Changed Junior member max age from 33 to 35 years of age. Made transition from Junior to Associate/Full automatic upon licensure. After 35, Junior members automatically become Affiliate members.

o Added Student member status

o Added voting rights for Honorary members who were previously Full members

o Added Retired member status; retain voting right if previously Full members, 50% of Full member dues

o Allowed for Associate members to vote on association business

o Only Full members in good standing are entitled to vote on changes to the Bylaws

o Modified endorsement of new members to only one Full member (from 3 members, 2 of them Full members)

· Article IV: Fee & Contributions - clarified "Dues" definition to include any affiliated association dues (i.e. NCSEA, WCSEA)

· Article V: Board of Directors - overhauled entire Board structure as follows:

o President elected annually, at-large

o Each Chapter will elect two Directors to serve on the Board, serving alternating two year terms

o An additional Director to be elected annually, at-large

o Past President serves one year term

o This Board (currently consisting of 2 Chapters, 7 members) will then designate two Directors from the group to serve as Vice President and Secretary/Treasurer. This selection is to take place at the first Board meeting of the year.

o No nominations for President from same Chapter as previous year. If no alternative exists, then at-large Director must be chosen from a Chapter not affiliated with that of the sitting President.

o President may be nominated, by vote of the Board, for a succeeding term. If sitting President is re-elected, then Past President position will be filled by an additional Director from a Chapter not affiliated with that of the President.

o Nominations for Directors shall be Full or Associate members

o Elections shall take place prior to the end the Association's fiscal year

· Article VI: Responsibilities of the Board - no significant changes.

· Article VII: Duties of the Board - no significant changes.

· Article VIII: Meetings of the Board

o Required 4 meetings per year (previously only 2)

o Redefined Quorum as 2/3 of Board (previously "majority")

o Redefined Board member alternate, for voting purposes, as a designate with Full or Associate membership status, not currently a member of the Board

o Action of the Board now requires 2/3 of Board (previously "majority")

o Redefined challenge by the members of the Association to a majority vote of the voting members (previously only Full members)

· Article IX: Meetings of Membership - no significant changes.

· Article X: Appointments - no significant changes.

· Article XI: Chapters

o Eliminated requirement for Chapters to prepare individual Bylaws

o Eliminated officer duty requirements for the Chapters by the State except for that of a Treasurer who is responsible for reporting to the Board

o Redefined geographic extents of Chapter

§ Multiple Chapters in Maricopa County possible

§ Requires unanimous Board approval for definition of boundaries

§ No overlapping boundaries

§ Chapters can limit members to only those who reside or conduct business within their boundary

§ Added possibility for Student Chapters at a Board approved Arizona college or university

· Article XII: Fiscal Year - redefined Fiscal Year as July 1 through June 30 (previously June 1 through May 31)

· Article XIII: Limitation of Liability - no significant changes.

· Article XIV: Financial Policy - no significant changes.

· Article XV: Antitrust Policy - no significant changes.

· Article XVI: Amendments

o Voting for amendments shall be done by mail or electronic balloting; notice shall be given by mail and/or email 20 days prior to final vote date (previous votes at annual Association meeting only, mail distribution only)

o Amendments shall be made by 2/3 vote of voting members (previously Full members only)

o Emergency amendments by the Board are subject to subsequent approval by 2/3 vote of the voting members of the Association within 30 days (previously no time limit)

SEAoA Announces New Web Site Presence

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 21:04:50 GMT

The SEAoA is excited to announce its new web site and member self service portal. The new site at www.seaoa.org includes up to date news and information on Association activities and events. All upcoming events are listed on the site and on-line registration can be completed without leaving the site. News of interest to members will be posted on an ongoing basis to the News page, and there are several open discussion forums in which members and non-members can participate.

Members will enjoy a new level of self service by logging into their new on-line account. Once logged in, a member can quickly register for events without having to re-enter their information, and can view their membership and renewal status at any time. Members can enter and maintain their own profile information and can choose what information is available to the public in our new on-line member directory. All of the members financial transactions, including event registrations and membership dues, are available to viewed by the member at any time.

Additional features include a searchable member database, committee pages, and public and private discussion areas and document storage.