In our Q&A column, intended to allow leaders to share their knowledge and expertise of projects and issues within the COPRI community, this month we turn our focus to the upcoming Technical Region Director Election. Our interviewees are candidates Billy L. Edge, Ph.D, P.E., Dist.M.ASCE, and Robert D. Stevens, Ph.D, P.E., F.ASCE. This column is taken from their interview responses to a set of questions on how they would approach the position of technical region director. For more information, please vist the 2010 ASCE Election website.
Billy Edge, Ph.D, Robert D. Stevens,
P.E., Dist. M.ASCE P.hD, P.E., F.ASCE
Waterways: What do you anticipate will be some of the likely challenges and opportunities facing the Institutes and the ASCE during your term of office?
Edge: The 2009 ASCE Report Card and involvement with the President and Congress positively demonstrates the ability of ASCE to effect long lasting changes in policy and funding of major infrastructure, sustainability, resilience and clean energy. We must remain engaged and build upon the trust in our professional ability to provide needed changes. Institutes must be proactive in recruiting younger members, promoting innovation, technological advancement, educational opportunities, and policy development. With the maturity of the Institutes, we must look beyond ASCE to realize the opportunities and challenges that changing times place before us. We must exploit international growth opportunities.
Stevens: Enhance the Institutes and ASCE “brand value” for the benefit of our members and to attract more civil engineering professionals, paraprofessionals and students to ASCE and the Institutes. Establish closer working relationships with other professional/paraprofessional organizations to increase effectiveness. Promote the ASCE Infrastructure Report Card to convince the public and elected officials at all levels that more funding is needed for infrastructure projects to provide the public with the needed road, water, sewerage, port, rail, transit, structures, and building improvements. Convince more ASCE and Institute members of the value to society and themselves of becoming an ASCE Key Contact.
Waterways: What do you perceive as being the Institutes’ role in the implementation of the ASCE Task Committee Report Destination 2025: A Roadmap to achieve the vision for Civil Engineering in 2025?
Edge: The roadmap lays out the vision of ASCE to put us on the highway to fulfill our charge as “… master builders, environmental stewards, innovators and integrators, managers of risk and uncertainty and leaders in shaping public policy.” The Institutes will serve as an advocate within their specific focus areas externally and internally. Externally, Institutes and ASCE now have the opportunity to be engaged at the national policy level; there must not be any pushback. Internally, Institutes must remain focused on adapting our educational programs to satisfy the changing requirements of the times.
Stevens: As a workshop participant for The Vision for Civil Engineering in 2025 and a reviewer of the Draft 2025 Roadmap, it is clear that the Roadmap will give us in the civil engineering profession the tools we need to proactively shape our own future and achieve the Vision. Upon release of the Roadmap, its contents, including suggested actions, will need to be widely conveyed to the global civil engineering community. The Institutes will help in this by taking the message of the Roadmap to their members and asking them to take on specific actions and report back on their progress.
Waterways: What do you perceive as being the Institutes’ role in ASCE’s ongoing strategic planning process?
Edge: I believe the planning process used by ASCE has been top down. Institutes have been asked for comments on elements of the strategic plan as it began to take shape. Institutes must be involved in the process at all stages through a bottoms-up approach, especially involving technical issues. Most Institutes have a strategic plan in place and that should form the basis for contributing to the ASCE strategic planning process. As leadership rotates through the Institutes the strategic plans also need to be reviewed and updated. An outcome of the peer review process will be improvement of our strategic planning.
Stevens: With over 80% of ASCE’s members associated with an Institute and represented by the Technical Region, Institute members are key participants in the ASCE Strategy Management Process. This includes the on-going identification, review, and selection of strategic issues and the desired outcomes for ASCE. Those identified strategy issues that relate to Institute activities need Institute input as to proposed actions and monitoring of implementation. Each Institute must also maintain its own up-to-date Strategic Plan. An Institute’s specific plan needs to be checked against ASCE’s plan to make sure any conflicts are resolved so that all move in the same direction.
Waterways: As a Technical Region Director, what would you do to enhance the effectiveness of the Technical Region Board of Governors in serving the members of ASCE and the Institutes?
Edge: With transformation from a non-action Council of Institute Leaders (CIL) to Technical Region Board of Governors (TRBG), the Institutes relationship with the ASCE mother ship has been formalized. The current process of communication between the TR Director and Institutes provides an effective way to deliver information in both directions. The Director must ensure ASCE accountability to the Institutes. I believe the TR Directors should make at least one visit annually to each Institute’s annual conference and attend each Governing Board’s meeting. Lastly, I suggest a joint meeting of engagement between TRBG with the leadership of the geographic regions.
Stevens: Seek and be responsive to input from members of ASCE and the Institutes by encouraging member emails and by creating a blog for member use. Including the Technical Region Director’s Report, which conveys to members what is happening both in ASCE and in the eight-Institute Technical Region, in each Institute’s newsletter or magazine would make more members aware of what the Technical Region Directors and TRBG are doing. Enhance the Institute Peer Review/Self Assessment Program, initiated last year by the TRBG, for the cross pollinating of ideas between Institutes including identifying opportunities for more intra-Institute activities for better member service.
