BRANCH MEETING: OCTOBER 2013

SAN CLEMENTE DAM REMOVAL AND RIVER RE-ROUTE

Known as the largest dam removal and river restoration project in the history of California, the nationally recognized San Clemente Dam Removal and River Re-route will lay a precedent for future dam removal and river restoration projects.

The 106-foot high concrete arch dam was built in 1921.  Approximately 18.5 miles from the ocean, the reservoir has become over 90% filled with sediment, and the dam has been deemed seismically unsafe by the California Division of Safety of Dams.

Water Systems Consulting, Inc. (WSC) has been managing the project for California American Water since 2009, and is currently serving as Project Manager and Construction Manager for this $83 million, multi-stakeholder project.  By removing the dam and restoring the river, safety issues will be permanently resolved, and native species are expected to repopulate.

Jeffery Szytel, Project Manager and President & CEO of WSC, will present the process of this precedent-setting dam removal and river reroute project.  He will be joined by Dylan Wade, who serves as the Resident Project Representative for the multi-year design-build project.  Please join in welcoming Mr. Szytel and Mr. Wade while they discuss the project design, funding and multi-stakeholder process, construction considerations, restoration goals and approaches, and the lasting benefits to the Carmel River.

LOCATION:

Pappy McGregor’s

1865 Monterey St.

San Luis Obispo

DATE & TIME:

Thursday, October 17, 2013

12:00 p.m.

MENU (OPTIONS):

1. Blarney Burger: 1/3 lb. Hearst Ranch burger with applewood bacon, crispy onion ring, bbq sauce and Irish Chedder cheese.  Served with beer battered garlic fries.

2. Buffulo Chicken Sandwich: Crispy boneless chicken breast, melted bleu cheese, spicy bbq sauces on a focaccia roll.  Served with beer battered garlic fries.

3. Baja Shrimp Tacos (3): Jumbo beer battered prawns, onion, cilantro, purple cabbage, cheese, salsa verde.

4. Chopped Salad: Avocado, tomato, onion, almond, bleu cheese crumble, creamy balsamic.

RESERVATIONS:

Please sign up by 1:00 p.m. Friday, October 11^th, at the Branch web site (www.ASCESLO.org). Please attend the luncheon if you sign-up – some restaurants will charge the Branch for every seat we reserve, regardless of the actual attendance. If you have specific dietary restrictions or have questions, please contact Ryan Hayes, ASCE Secretary at rhayes@rickengineering.com or (805) 544-0707. The cost is $20 for members and guests and $10 for students.

PRESIDENT'S PERSPECTIVE: PART 1/2

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

MEETING RECAP - SEPTEMBER 2013

ASCE Highlights and New Officer Installation
Rosa's Italian Restaurant, Pismo Beach
9/19/2013

Our September Branch meeting topic highlighted the world of ASCE. The San Luis Obispo Branch is fortunate to have a member of the ASCE Board of Direction, Jennifer Epp, living here locally. With over ten years of ASCE leadership under her belt, Jennifer now serves as Chair of ASCE Region 9 (California) and the Director representing California on the ASCE Board of Direction. Jennifer provided some insight into the world of ASCE beyond our branch including some exciting statewide and nationwide initiatives as well as opportunities to get involved.

Also, our newly elected officers for 2013-2014 were installed this month. We are looking forward to another great year with all of our members and officers.

 2013/14 ASCE Officers

ASCE President: Carolyn Berg

President Elect: Anthony Severy

Past-President: Tom Martin

Vice President: Cara Martinez

Treasurer: Ryan Hayes

Secretary: Joe Patterson

Historian: Kyle Anderson

Newsletter Editor: Wes Thompson

Assistant Newsletter Editor: Jazz Gilbert

Membership Chair: Steve Tanaka

Webmaster: Buddy Hain

Public Relations Coordinator: Liz Moody

2013/2014 ASCE SLO Branch Officers

Tom Martin, 2012/2013 ASCE SLO Branch President

and 2012/2013 Past-President, Valerie Huff

MEMBERSHIP UPDATE

Dear SLO Branch Members:

Yes, it’s that time again!  Your 2014 annual ASCE membership dues should be submitted by January 1, 2014.  You should be receiving a packet in the mail, or notification via email.  As a reminder, dues can be conveniently paid on-line.  As always, if you have any questions, please contact me or visit the ASCE website at www.asce.org. 

Sincerely,

Steven G. Tanaka, M.ASCE,

SLO Branch Membership Chair

2013 SEPTEMBER MEETING ANNOUNCEMENT

ASCE Highlights and New Officer Installation
Thursday, September 19th

We are pleased to announce that our September Branch meeting topic highlights the world of ASCE. The San Luis Obispo Branch is fortunate to have a member of the ASCE Board of Direction, Jennifer Epp, living here locally. With over ten years of ASCE leadership under her belt, Jennifer now serves as Chair of ASCE Region 9 (California) and the Director representing California on the ASCE Board of Direction. During this month’s SLO Branch meeting, Jennifer will provide some insight into the world of ASCE beyond our branch including some exciting statewide and nationwide initiatives as well as opportunities to get involved.

Also, it is time to meet your new officer Board. Our newly elected officers for 2013-2014 will be installed this month. We are looking forward to another great year with all of our members and officers.

For more details and to RSVP, please visit the branch website: http://asceslo.org/

MEETING RECAP - AUGUST 2013

Union Valley Parkway (UVP)

Presented by David Beard, Mike Lew, and Rodger Olds

Hosted at the Radisson Hotel, Santa Maria

8/15/2013

The August Branch meeting featured the history, project development, and upcoming completion of the Union Valley Parkway (UVP) in two locations; the UVP Extension west of highway 135 and the UVP Interchange at US 101. The UVP is a major east-west arterial in the southern Santa Maria area. Its completion is finally becoming a reality after being in the City and County general plans for 50+ years. The Union Valley Parkway will provide a valuable new link both for local trips and for regional traffic headed to the airport, Orcutt, Vandenberg, and even Lompoc. This new route will substantially relieve traffic congestion on other parts of the local road network, as well as the adjacent US 101 interchanges at Clark and Santa Maria Way.

Substantial cooperation between Caltrans, the City of Santa Maria, the County of Santa Barbara, and funding partner SBCAG was needed to get the final portions of UVP into construction, and the entire length is expected to open to traffic by the end of this year. The meeting ended with a site visit to both construction sites.

Site Visit: Union Valley Parkway

(L to R)

Rodger Olds, City of Santa Maria

Mike Lew, Caltrans

David Beard, Caltrans

MEETING RECAP - JULY 2013

County Integrated Regional Water Management (IRWM) Program

Presented by Carolyn Berg
Hosted at Upper Crust Trattoria, San Luis Obispo
7/19/2013

July’s Branch meeting covered the county-wide Integrated Regional Water Management (IRWM) program presented by Carolyn Berg with the County of San Luis Obispo. The San Luis Obispo County Regional Water Management Group and stakeholders are currently updating the IRWM Plan to meet current State Guidelines – an effort funded by $1-million of California Department of Water Resources (DWR) Proposition 84 grant funding and local funding match. The San Luis Obispo County IRWM Plan promotes implementation of projects and programs that ensure sustainable water uses, reliable water supplies, better water quality, enhanced groundwater reliability, environmental stewardship, efficient urban development, drought preparedness, and watershed awareness.

San Luis Obispo County is a part of what the State calls the “Central Coast Funding Area”, which includes six regions from Santa Cruz to Santa Barbara. These regions coordinate on water resources programs and overall IRWM development, but each region develops and implements its own IRWM Plan to address its critical local water resources issues. And when grant funding is available these six regions compete with each other at the State-wide level.

IRWM crosses jurisdictional, watershed, and political boundaries; involves multiple agencies, stakeholders, individuals, and groups; and attempts to address the water resources issues and differing perspectives of all the entities involved through mutually beneficial solutions. 

Carolyn Berg

Utilities Division Staff Engineer

County of San Luis Obispo, Department of Public Works

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

PROFILES: MEET THE MEMBER – JUDD KING

For Judd King, a Geotechnical Engineer and this month’s featured member of ASCE, life is all about balance. From geotechnical work to Hawaiian getaways, he has cultivated a fulfilling life founded on a combination of academics, career ambition, and the ability to “take time to step back” and see the larger scheme of things.

A Nipomo native, Judd’s path as an engineer began with his studies at Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria, developing a more specialized interest in Geotechnical Engineering through his work as a lab technician. In 1998 he transferred to Cal Poly, subsequently graduating with his focus in water resources and geotechnical engineering in 2001. The transition from technical knowledge to in-field assignments such as the Avila Beach Remediation Project had a significant impact on Judd’s practice, the latter providing more “hands-on” training. As Judd described it, “one’s education should accomplish two things: learn concepts your study is founded on, and develop tools to further understand your field after graduation to help you see the bigger picture”.

After graduation, Judd married his wife, Valarie. They took some time away from the hustle and bustle of “mainland life” and worked at a camp on Catalina Island building staff housing and other roles with operation of an isolated facility. Feeling obligated to put his degree to more use, Judd and Valarie moved to Sacramento where he found work as a staff engineer for a geotechnical consulting company. With a desire to move closer to his family and the ocean, they moved back to the Central Coast where Judd landed a job at Earth Systems Pacific in 2004. His respect for Earth Systems, whose goals include “client service that is appropriate and pragmatic,” is grounded in the company’s relationship-based business model and their emphasis on “building relationships with clients.” Judd feels the “commoditization of Civil Engineers” has become a common issue, and Earth Systems helps combat that mentality with good business that values engineers as a professional group.

Being a relativist at heart, Judd easily admits to having a pessimistic leaning, “[as an engineer] I get paid to evaluate issues, and I guess that has trained me to be critical.” As a means to look at things realistically, Judd tries to bracket results from a perceived best to worst-case-scenario when producing work, measuring likely results and developing recommendations accordingly. For Judd, Geotechnical Engineering is a “blend of both art and science, requiring the application of engineering properties and parameters to something that shifts and changes. There are generally no absolutes.”

As a professional whose work combines the generally mathematical, rigid science of engineering with an organic understanding of the earth, it’s only logical Judd also endeavors to preserve a sense of personal balance. He describes life as having “pools,” and a harmonious lifestyle involves filling those pools as evenly as possible between work and personal fulfillment.  If life lacks balance, “apathy sets in.” To maintain his own equilibrium Judd enjoys trail running and recently participated in a Tough Mudder obstacle course race in Lake Tahoe. Additionally, road trips, camping, spending time with his wife and 4-year old daughter Aleah, and traveling are some of his favorite off-time activities.

Having so many demands for attention—work, family, chores—it can be difficult to find time for personal activities. Judd understands that balance is achieved by actively seeking ways to make time for those things that matter most. While Judd admits that he isn’t always adept at finding balance, he is always willing to make adjustments and see what may or may not work—perhaps just like Geotechnical Engineering, balance is a blend between art and science; and something might work one day that doesn’t work the next, and where there are “no absolutes ever, generally.”

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 Thomson 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