PRESIDENT'S PERSPECTIVE

Positive Surprises

As engineers, we often like to plan things out, stick to the plan, avoid surprises and make the world as smooth and efficient as we possibly can, don’t we? However, the real world doesn’t always fit our plans, it can be pretty random. Sometimes this is a really good thing and can lead to serendipity. That’s what happened to our Branch this year. As a new president I set a number of goals, and have achieved some (but not all) of them. But a few pleasant surprises have also happened along the way. One of these is the formation of the Younger Member Group, spearheaded by our new officer Kyle Anderson. The group met regularly this year and now has a great following – we hope that it will create a tie for new engineers (many of them SCE members) to continue as ASCE members here or in other Sections and Branches. In addition, the YMG was voted in and formalized as a group in the recent Los Angeles Section quarterly board meeting. This is a big deal! Please congratulate Kyle and the other YMG members when you see them as there was considerable volunteer effort put into forming this group from scratch.

Another serendipitous event happened recently, and you are probably (hopefully) experiencing it as you read this article. The SLO Branch is now in the Blogosphere, and we hope this will be an exciting change to our usual once-a-month newsletter. We will now be able to update our blog as new articles come in the door, and can keep our content fresh and interesting. This will make the Newsletter Editor position more fun and less deadline-oriented. Many thanks to Wes Thompson for putting this Blog together – being open minded to new ideas has created positive change in our organization (serendipity).

In addition to the surprises, all of our Board members have been working hard to keep the Branch on the right track from a day-to-day membership, financial and event-planning perspective. As they say “it takes a village” and the teamwork we see on a monthly basis is very inspiring.

In other news, our incoming President, Carolyn Berg, is busy putting together the new Board of officers. We have some great interest this year and some new “young blood” coming into the Branch, as well as the continued commitment of existing officers that give us the balance and bench depth we need. What positive surprises will we experience in the coming year? We don’t know what they are yet, but I will put my money on great things happening.

Tom Martin

President ASCE SLO Branch