Andrew Rauch is a principal with BKBM Engineers in Minneapolis, MN and is responsible for overseeing their quality assurance and risk management programs. He is the current chair of the CASE Executive Committee. He can be reached at arauch@bkbm.com.
It is hard to believe, but this will be my last editorial as chair of CASE. This spring, I will turn the gavel over to the capable hands of Dave Mykins from Stroud Pence and Associates of Virginia Beach, Virginia. It has been a pleasure and an honor to serve both the structural engineering firms who are members of CASE and the structural engineering profession as a whole. …
First, I would like to take the opportunity to wish all of you a Happy New Year. I hope this year holds promise for you in your individual careers, for your firms, and for our profession. Second, I would like to extend a thank you and best wishes to Bob Barnett of the Alabama firm of Barnett, Jones, Wilson. Bob has been a fixture on CASE’s Guidelines Committee for as long as I can remember, but is stepping back from his committee work as he moves into retirement. His down-to-earth approach has helped to keep our practice guidelines grounded in reality. I will miss his wit and friendship during our meetings. …
It is the last weekend of summer and there is a thunderstorm brewing while I am writing this article. (No, this is not another article about how climate change might affect engineers.) My youngest daughter completed her driver’s education classroom work this summer and earned her learning permit. For those of you who have not been through this, you don’t know terror like the first time your teen gets behind the wheel of your car. …
Having completed the first year of my term as CASE chair, it has been a privilege to be introduced to, and get to know, so many committed engineering professionals who are working very hard for the betterment of the profession. As part of my duties, I attended both the ASCE/SEI Structures Congress and ACEC Spring Convention in April. I was able to hear very interesting keynote speakers and take in several great sessions at both conferences …
Imagine for a moment that the building official for one of your projects decided that they were not going to enforce the code provisions for fire protection or the provisions for exiting requirements. How do you think the project architect would react? Or, if the building official decided that a certain structural design provision could be ignored. …
Last spring, I had the opportunity to attend one of the several terrific presentations that were part of the CASE Risk Management Convocation at the 2013 Structures Congress. This session was presented by James Parker and Pedro Sifre of Simpson, Gumpertz, and Heger, and I thank them for allowing me to present a portion of it to a wider audience. …
A few weeks ago, I met with new employees of our firm to introduce our risk management program to them. It is one of my duties as the risk management director for our office. Because of the economic downturn, I had not had the opportunity to make this presentation for a while, and it felt good to be able to do one again. As I was preparing for this presentation, I had the opportunity to consider risk management and how it really requires that your firm have a culture of risk management. A culture of risk management is the first of CASE’s Ten Foundations of Risk Management. It is not something that can only be touched on occasionally, but must be a constant presence in the design process. …
First, I would like to extend my condolences to the family, friends, and colleagues of Doug Ashcraft who recently passed away after a battle with cancer. Doug was instrumental in developing many of the CASE Risk Management Tools and served for a time as CASE Chair. He was a tremendous person who was committed to the structural engineering profession. He will be missed by all of us. …