As I embark on my year as NCSEA President, I have a renewed sense of awareness and appreciation of all of the great work that CASE, NCSEA, and SEI are doing to advance the Structural Engineering profession. I am also inspired by the engagement of so many individuals within various levels of our organizations, working together with a common purpose. Those who have engaged already recognize the value of participation and the benefits of both investing in their career and doing their part to help advance our profession. If you missed it, I encourage you to read the editorial by Jeannette Torrents from the February issue on “The Value of Participation.”
No matter what stage you are in your career, it is never too late, nor too early, to start engaging and investing in your career. We have all heard the testimonials about the value of participation regardless of the timing – from being invited as a younger member as way to gain technical knowledge and build a network; to taking a leadership position as a way to develop additional skills beyond the daily work or get experience otherwise not available at your job; to getting, and staying, involved later as a way to share knowledge and perspective to the next generation. If you are not currently actively participating in CASE, NCSEA, or SEI, now would be a great time to get involved. If you are already participating, I encourage you to invite someone from your professional network to get involved with you, help them feel included, and assist them in finding the right place and time for them to engage.
Each of the organizations have many opportunities for members to get involved and help influence the direction of our profession in a variety of ways: from committees working on the next editions of our governing codes and standards, to groups sharing and promoting business best practices; from committees charged with developing and delivering continuing education content on a variety of topics and platforms, to groups influencing our profession through initiatives to improve DEI and to strengthen SE licensure; and from groups supporting young members and early career professionals, to groups engaged in developing the next generation through outreach to K-12 and university students. Paraphrasing from the February editorial: When structural engineers go beyond the passive consumption of ideas to actively sharing… they progress along the participation power scale from simply keeping up with the profession to shaping the profession.
In addition to opportunities to advance the profession, structural engineers and our organizations have opportunities, if not inherent responsibilities, to serve our communities directly through the work we do and through how we engage with our fellow citizens. The loss of life, economic impacts, and long-term disruption to daily life caused by natural disasters close to home and around the world are unfortunate reminders of how our communities depend on buildings and critical infrastructure to not just provide a basic level of safety against a number of hazards but to also provide the resources and services to recover and return to daily life in a reasonable amount of time. To help with the emergency response phase of recovery, specially-trained structural engineers are often involved as part of formal Urban Search and Rescue teams or “second responder” safety evaluation programs. In addition to those emergency response efforts, structural engineers can also serve an important role in communicating with members of the media, elected officials and other policymakers, and the general public.
Structural engineers and our organizations have opportunities, if not inherent responsibilities, to serve our communities directly through the work we do and through how we engage with our fellow citizens.
This year, NCSEA will be using a new “Disaster Response Plan” to help coordinate post-disaster response within our organization in terms of responding to media requests as well as assisting with requests for deployment of second responders. Being prepared for the next disaster means starting now by providing media training through the NCSEA Communications Committee to engineers designated as official spokespersons and by providing resources through the NCSEA Structural Engineering Emergency Response (SEER) Committee to support efforts at the state and local level to develop second responder programs.
As we reflect on recent natural disasters in the headlines, NCSEA’s Code Advisory Committee and Resilience Committee have engaged in efforts and conversations regarding the role of building codes and standards relative to improving community resilience and will be considering the emerging concept of designing for improved functional recovery in addition to basic safety. We also need structural engineers to engage at the state and local level through outreach to elected officials and other policymakers to explain the expected performance of buildings and critical infrastructure relative to the predominant hazards in a given community and develop programs to mitigate potential vulnerabilities.
The resilience of our communities requires experts to engage beyond just project-related work and into the realm of code and standard development as well as local advocacy for mitigation programs relative to the region’s hazard and risk. I hope you agree that structural engineers are uniquely positioned to be these experts by sharing our knowledge about how design of new buildings targets protection of occupant safety, how retrofit of older buildings can mitigate risk of collapse or unacceptable levels of damage, and how enhanced performance can be considered as a way to improve recovery relative to a unique hazard or risk.
As you can see, the structural engineering profession has a range of opportunities for engagement such that everyone should be able to find their way to contribute. I hope you will join me and thousands of others by getting involved in the important work of advancing our profession and serving our communities!■