September / October 2013
Wrapping Things Up
by Tom Martin
President, 2012-2013
My term as president of the ASCE SLO Branch is complete and
I thought I would look back on the past year. Personally, it has been one of my
most challenging and rewarding experiences (the best rewards come from
overcoming challenges, right?). It is one of those experiences that you really
can’t have a full understanding of until you live it. Fortunately we had an
excellent Officer Board that had my back and I never felt like we couldn’t do what
we needed to do. That’s the true joy of working with a great team.
ASCE serves an important purpose as it is the place where
private consultants and public agency representatives come together. There are
a number of other engineering organizations out there (I belong to many of
them), but none that quite match ASCE’s professional diversity. We try to
emulate that here in the SLO Branch in a number of ways. We purposefully plan
our monthly meetings at different locations to draw in members from a fairly
wide geographical area. We also look for diversity in our meeting speakers. For
instance, this year we had two presentations that focused on structural issues,
which brought out professionals from that civil specialty. Our meetings on
water issues were especially timely and a number of new faces showed up.
Hopefully some of these new people will see the value in ASCE and become new
members. My favorite meeting may have been the Union Valley Parkway talk in
Santa Maria – we had representatives from both the City and Caltrans, design
and construction, and best of all we got a tour of both the City and Caltrans
projects. It’s not every day that you get to walk on a new interchange bridge
in the Central Coast!
Many thanks go to our Officer team who put in countless
volunteer hours behind the scenes to make all these experiences happen. The
fact that we didn’t have many glitches is a testament to their hard work and
tenacity. Just like in Civil Engineering, it’s all the things you don’t see
that are often most important. Your new president, Carolyn Berg, is off to a
running start and has lots of great ideas. I am positive that the Branch is in
for another great year.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve our Branch
and ASCE.
Tom Martin
Past President, ASCE SLO Branch
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