When I reflect on my experience as an association volunteer, I am honestly surprised that I now serve as NCSEA President. Ten years ago, I was on the Board of Directors for the Structural Engineers Association of Oregon (SEAO). At that time, I was relatively naive about NCSEA. Despite the great work that NCSEA was doing on behalf of the profession, I only knew them as being part of the group that published STRUCTURE magazine. Luckily for me, an amazing structural engineer, the late Sue Frey, intervened a couple of years into my term on the SEAO Board and drastically changed my perception and understanding of NCSEA. I realize now that this simple shift in perception was made possible by my willingness to drink some Kool-Aid.

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One of the last people I thought I would ever get professional advice from is Tom Hanks. Then it happened. It was during my daily lunchtime indulgence of surfing YouTube for a good comedy or anything unrelated to structural engineering. I stumbled upon a video of Tom Hanks’ acceptance speech for the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award, which is for outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment. …

One day, I learned that our firm had been awarded the Oregon Zoo Elephant Lands project, a new 6-acre development to replace the existing, old exhibit that housed a herd of seven Asian elephants. Suddenly, the reality of having to design structures to withstand abuse from elephants standing 14 feet tall and weighing 14,000 pounds settled in. Not finding “Elephants” listed in Table 4-1 of ASCE 7-10, it became quickly apparent that this was not going to be like any other project I had designed. As it turned out, the elephants repeatedly reminded me of many great things about our profession, lessons that serve to inspire me at work to this day. …