Austin Branch Newsletter

October 2008

Volume 13, Number 1

In This Issue…

Meeting/Speaker Info

President's Message

Golf Tournament

Meeting Sponsor

New Orleans Trip Update

Maker Faire

Civil Engineering Award

Continuing Education Webinars

Topic: Collapse of the IH 35W Bridge in Minneapolis – Causes and Repercussions

922193512@09102008-2C34 Keith Ramsey has been the Director of Field Operations for the Bridge Division of the Texas Department of Transportation since 2005. His group conducts and oversees inspections for the 50,000 bridges in the TxDOT bridge inventory, and provides support for geotechnical engineering, construction and maintenance activities.

Mr. Ramsey graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1984 with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering and subsequently began his career as a bridge designer at TxDOT. Mr. Ramsey became the Assistant Bridge Inspection Engineer in 1995 and was promoted to State Bridge Inspection Engineer in 1999.

On August 1, 2007 the fifth-busiest bridge in Minnesota collapsed during the evening rush hour killing 13 people and injuring 145. The eight-lane steel truss arch bridge over the Mississippi River was completed in 1967, and carried 140,000 vehicles per day. Mr. Ramsey will present an overview of the preliminary findings of the National Transportation Safety Board. In addition to discussing the suspected causes of collapse, Mr. Ramsey will share his knowledge about the resulting changes which have occurred both nationally and in Texas as a result of this engineering tragedy.

President’s Message

by Julia M. Harrod, P.E.

Everyone is geared up for another spectacular year for the ASCE Austin Branch. Officers have been installed, committee chair positions filled, and activities are already underway. Based on input from members, the Board, and Committee chairs, we have set the following Austin Branch goals for the coming year:

· Continue ASCE’s community service support for Habitat for Humanity, New Orleans rebuilding efforts, Big Brothers Big Sisters Bowl-a-thon, Centex EWeek, Maker Faire, and Austin Children’s Museum Engineer’s Day. We also want to look for additional opportunities to support the community.

· Maintain momentum of our Continuing Education Summer One-Day Conference.

· Increase the Younger Members group activities by increasing participation in the monthly social, considering a quarterly technical meeting, increasing participation in the West Point Bridge competition, and hosting another great golf tournament.

· Augment the great relationship between the Austin Branch and the UT Student Chapter with joint activities and financial support for specific Student Chapter activities.

· Enhance communication between the Branch and Texas Section – Our Texas Section Director will provide regular updates on Texas Section happenings at the Branch meetings and in the newsletter

· Honor local engineers and projects by increasing applications for various ASCE section and national awards.

· Raise awareness of ASCE’s many community activities and to increase the excellence in journalism entries

· Encourage members to spread the news about the benefits of ASCE membership, increase membership, and increase attendance at ASCE events.

As members, each of us values different aspects of ASCE – camaraderie with fellow civil engineers, educational opportunities, participation in community service, ASCE publications, supporting the future of our profession, recognizing civil engineering accomplishments, encouraging the ethical practice of engineering throughout the world, or countless other ASCE benefits.

I hope that each member can find a way over the coming year to become or continue to be an active participant with the Austin Branch in whatever aspect of ASCE you personally feel passionate about. Please contact myself or the other board and committee chairs regarding any ideas that you have for the Austin Branch or issues that are important to you.

I look forward to the coming year and thank each of you for the opportunity to serve as President of this fabulous Branch.

Golf Tournament 2008

The Austin ASCE Branch and YMF are co-hosting its Annual Golf Tournament on November 6^th at the Avery Ranch Golf Course under the leadership of Alex Reyna, P.E., chairperson and event organizer. Please check the website (www.austinasce.org) for registration and sponsorship information or feel free to contact Alex Reyna at (512) 328-0011 or by email at areyna@burypartners.com.

October Meeting Sponsor:

Klotz Associates, Inc. is a firm of consulting civil engineers. Based in Houston, Texas, Klotz Associates is successor to a practice established in 1937. Since then, our firm has emphasized public works and infrastructure projects in both urban and rural environments. We have provided civil engineering design and related services to over 100 municipalities across the State of Texas.

Our public works divisions have prepared plans, specifications, and estimates (PS&E) and can provide construction-phase services, including owner’s representation. Our engineering professionals have planned and designed drainage assignments, traffic assignments, on-airport facilities, transportation and street improvements, including pavement design, flood control projects, water supply and distribution systems, and wastewater collection, treatment, and disposal systems.

We have generated a land development division in each of our offices to service the private sector. We provide engineering services for developers (local and national), corporate clients, architects and local businesses. These developments include hotels, restaurants, shopping centers, medical centers, banking facilities, office buildings and low- to high-density housing.

Planning services offered by our Transportation Practice have evolved over the years to include projects throughout the State of Texas. We have hands-on experience in: municipal comprehensive plans, planning livable communities, integrated land use-transportation planning, redevelopment studies, hike/bike trails planning and design, comprehensive bicyclist planning, environmentally-sensitive land development, context-sensitive transportation infrastructure planning, regional transportation plans, transportation corridor studies, air quality assessments, multi-modal assessments, parking assessments and parking management, transit corridor planning, transit-oriented development (TOD) planning and design, and pedestrian safety and transit access studies.

Today, Klotz Associates employs over 120 people in four offices statewide. In addition to our Houston headquarters, we maintain offices in Austin, San Antonio, and Lufkin, Texas. A large number of our employees are registered professionals including Professional Engineers (PE’s) licensed by the State of Texas, planners certified by the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP), Professional Traffic Operations Engineers (PTOE’s) and Certified Floodplain Managers.

New Orleans, Here We Come!

by Rose Marie Klee, P.E. – 2008-2009 VP Programs

922193512@09102008-2C49 As you may know, Hurricane Gustav was barreling down on New Orleans as the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina approached. As the city wondered whether to evacuate, we decided to cancel our trip and hope for the best for all of our friends on the ominous storm track. We were disappointed to forfeit our journey and greatly relieved that Gustav mellowed significantly before landfall.

Based on the overwhelming enthusiasm of past and prospective trip participants, we have decided to reschedule our trip for MLK Day weekend, January 16-19, 2008. We are excited for the promise of more temperate weather and no UT class conflicts on our day (Friday) of departure!

We will ramp-up our trip preparations in November, but in the meanwhile, pencil it in if you are interested in joining us and keep your eye out for future announcements as we reassemble our participant list!

Interested in Volunteering with ACM for Maker Faire?

by Linda Barlow, P.E. – Public Relations Chair

Maker Faire. The Austin Branch is supporting Austin Children’s Museum by helping staff a MakerKids Area at the Austin Maker FaireÒ on October 18 & 19 at the Travis County Expo Center. This is the second annual event and those who attended the event last year won’t need much more encouragement. It is unbelievably intense, exciting, enormous, and fun! This event is organized by the staff of Make and Craft magazines, and brings together science, art, craft and engineering plus music in a fun, energized and exciting public forum. The aim is to inspire people of all ages to roll up their sleeves and become Makers. This family-friendly event showcases the amazing work of all kids of Makers. Go to www.makerfaire.com for more information about the overall event.

We need energetic volunteers who can help kids with creative hands-on activities. All the activities that are a part of MakerKids will challenge visitors to use creative problems solving and play with inventive ideas. Volunteer shifts on both days include the following time slots: 10am to 1pm; 1pm to 4pm; and 4pm to 7pm. One of the biggest plusses for volunteering (other than having engineering fun with kids) is the free pass to get into the event on the day you volunteer. Please email Linda Barlow, PR Committee Chair, at lbarlow@hvj.com if you are interested in volunteering for the event.

Austin Project Wins Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement Merit Award!

The Texas Section of ASCE presents the OCEA Award in recognition of a civil engineering project that exemplifies superior civil engineering skills and represents a significant contribution to civil engineering progress and to society. By honoring an overall project rather than an individual, the award recognizes the contributions of many engineers.

This fall the Texas Section presented the OCEA Award of Merit for our IH 35/Ben White Interchange to Don Nyland, TxDOT South Travis Area Engineer. The project was designed by HNTB, and is a significant addition to our infrastructure which provides a multi-level, fully-directional interchange to accommodate free-flow connections for all traffic movements.

The IH 35/Ben White project was chosen based upon the:

· Contribution to the well-being of people and communities

· Resourcefulness in the planning and in the solution of design problems

· Pioneering in the use of systems, materials, and methods

· Innovations used during construction

· Impact on physical environments, unusual aspects, and aesthetic values

The Austin Branch is proud of our local recipients, and is pleased to have the opportunity to present the award to Don Nyland and the project team at the October luncheon. Please join us in our congratulations and recognition of this outstanding civil engineering work!

YMF Update

by Brandon Haamman, EIT

First and foremost, a special thanks to last year’s Board for their great leadership and dedication to the organization. Each of you devoted many hours outside of your normal daily schedule, especially Robert Scholz and Kim Patak, to organize the 2008 Central Region YMF Conference held in Round Rock earlier this year. The social events organized by Kim Patak allowed members to meet others, within the profession and organization, in settings that varied from the greenbelt to a football tailgate party. The University of Texas at Austin’s (UT) Society of Women Engineers (SWE) received a donation on behalf of Austin YMF to sponsor a middle-school girl to attend the Careers in Engineering for Women (CEW) program this past summer. The sponsorship covered the girl’s room and board, and all of her activities. The UT Student Chapter benefited from a $1,500 donation on behalf of Austin YMF to help support the students’ efforts in the 2008 Steel Bridge competition. The 2008 Golf Tournament, organized by Chair John McShain, raised over $6,000 for the organization! In addition, the Fall ’07 and Spring ’08 PE Review Courses, organized by Charlotte Gilpin, raised over $3,000 for Austin YMF! The Board’s efforts are well recognized and appreciated as the foundation of Austin YMF becomes stronger and the organization continues to grow.

Austin YMF is pleased to announce this year’s officers: Kim Patak (Director), Brandon Hammann (President), Jackee Grote (Vice President), Zach Ryan (Treasurer), Yvonne Garcia (Secretary), Alex Reyna (Golf Chair), Jill Wicks (West Point Bridge Chair), Ty Womble (UT Student Chapter Liaison). We look forward to building upon the foundation of Austin YMF by fulfilling the responsibilities of our positions. The Fall ’08 PE Review Course is already underway with 16 participants, an increase from the Spring ’08 session. We look forward to hosting yet another great golf tournament in November. Ty Womble is already working with UT students and faculty to prepare for a busy year in ASCE. Jill Wicks, with the assistance of Jamie Farris (past Director), will organize and oversee this year’s local West Point Bridge competition. We will continue to support the UT CEW program and look for ways to become more actively involved in Austin’s volunteer community. Plans for future socials are in the works, including discounted tickets for a UT basketball game! For the year’s first social, we will meet for a happy hour on Wednesday, October 22 at the Little Woodrow’s downtown location at 5:30 (look for the ASCE sign). Quarterly technical seminars will be organized by Kim Patak to provide recent graduates and younger engineers an opportunity to work with experienced professional engineers on a variety of real-word design topics…and it’s over a dinner paid for by Austin YMF! We’ve got a lot planned for this year and hope to continue growing as an organization for the civil engineering community.

UT Student Chapter Update

by Michelle Wilkinson – Corporate Relations Officer

This year’s ASCE promises to be an exciting one! With most of last year’s officers graduating, this year’s officers face the challenge of losing some valuable talent. But we are making up for that with hard work and dedication. The year has started off somewhat slowly due to the cancellation of the New Orleans trip. Students look forward to the possibility of the trip being rescheduled later this year because of what a great trip it promises to be. Once again, we participated in the Fall Gathering, and it was a huge success. We introduced a lot of incoming freshmen and transfer students to what UT ASCE is all about and look forward to seeing them become a part of our organization.

We have also been preparing for our first meeting of the year, which we hope will be more informative to new members than first meetings in the past. Our resolution for this new academic year is to concentrate on exposing new students to many civil engineering opportunities early on. The high rate of drop-outs by freshmen in the past alerted us to focus on encouraging them to stay on path to become great engineers. Two of many opportunities include Steel Bridge and Concrete Canoe. These competitions will provide them with hands-on experience in the area of structures, materials, and, most importantly, working in group settings.

This year we are excited to have TCB and CH2M Hill come to our September meetings. We also have an upcoming Friday in the Park scheduled in September that Pate Engineering is sponsoring. Intramural football has kicked off early with practices already taking place in the hopes that we will make it to the playoffs this year. We look forward to excelling in all our technical and athletic competitions. We hope to make this year even more successful than in the past and are confident that we have all the tools to do so. Hook ’Em!

Contact Michelle Wilkinson at mwilkinson@mail.utexas.edu if you would like to get involved with UT ASCE. Our website can be found at www.ut-asce.org. It contains information for Technical Competitions, Outreach, IM Sports, and Social Events, as well as contact information for all of our officers.

Civil Engineers in History: Engineers in the Texas fight for Independence

by Melinda Luna, P.E. – History and Heritage Chair

At the time of the fight for independence between Texas and Mexico, there were not too many engineers in Texas. Even within the United States, there were a few universities in the U.S. that offered a formal civil engineering degree. Most engineers of this time formally taught in military schools offering a degree, self taught, and a few were trained in Europe. There were a few civil engineers who participated in the fight for Texas independence from Mexico.

922193512@09102008-2C5E The most known is probably Green B. Jameson, a self taught engineer. He studied to be a lawyer before he decided that engineering suited him better. Jameson was stationed in San Antonio at the Alamo. He was tasked with reforcing the Alamo against the Mexican Army. Because the Alamo was not built by the military, Jameson had to fill in gaps, stationed cannons, and look to see how best to defend the Alamo. He supplied a report to Sam Houston on how to defend the Alamo this included a plat of the Alamo that is shown to the left. He constructed palisades, reinforced walls and mounted cannons using mostly recycled supplies from other parts of the Alamo. A few historians have speculated that he also looked into the water supply for the Alamo based on the existing water supply status. Working along side William B. Travis, he was considered chief engineer of the Alamo and the city under Lt. Col. James C. Neill^. He had a relative short life as an engineer; he died at the Alamo March 6, 1836. One of the martyrs that inspired the battle cry “Remember the Alamo”.

Also stationed in San Antonio was John W. Smith. Smith was sent to deliver a message before the Alamo siege. He came back to San Antonio and helped to plan house to house to retake San Antonio. He was very familiar with the town and with his skills drew detailed plat that helped act as a guide for the army. He settled in San Antonio and also held several offices including Mayor. Smith eventually started a law practice and real estate company using his Spanish skills acted as a middle man between non-Spanish speakers and the Spanish. Smith died in 1845 of pneumonia and was buried at Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historical Park. His remains were later moved.

Another engineer at the time was Edward Harcourt. He studied in the Royal Mining Academy in Freiberg, Saxony (Germany). In 1827 he was hired to work in with the Mexican Company overseeing silver mining in Mexico. He eventually joined the Mexican Army. Santa Ana had some opposition from Mexico’s government on his way to creating a dictatorship. Harcourt joined the group opposing Santa Ana which got him deported to New Orleans. Harcourt met Stephen F. Austin in 1835 in New Orleans. Austin convinced Hardcourt to join the Texas struggle. Hardcourt’s first job was to organize a Corps of Army Engineer at Washington on the Brazos. Appointed chief engineer of the Texas Army, he worked to fortify the Texas coast (Galveston and Velasco) from an invasion from Mexico by sea. He constructed Fort Travis located at western end of Bolivar Peninsula. He had mapped Galveston bay in detail before he died of fever in 1836. A journal was published in German titled In Mexican prisons: The Journal of Eduard Harkort 1832-1834. Later the journal was translated to English and had served to give the readers a glimpse of life during that time period.

922193512@09102008-2C65 Joseph M. Chadwick was another engineer who played a role in the Fight for Texas Independence. He attended the United States Military Academy at West Point for three years. He joined the Georgia Battalion in 1835 and was sent to Velasco, Texas to help fight. He was a sergeant major and was ended up to Goliad. He was appointed adjunct general to James W. Fannin. He mapped LaBahia or Fort Defiance. This map still exists and is housed at LaBahia along with the portrait of Chadwick shown to the left. He also helped John Sowers Brooks supervised the fortification of the Goliad presidio. Unfortunately, both engineers were killed in the battle of Goliad in 1836.

Jameson, Smith, Hardcourt, Chadwick, and Brooks, a handful of engineers each played a role in the fight for Texas Independence. Like engineers during the World Wars and other wars were called to duty and used their engineering skills to contribute to the effort.

References:

In Mexican Prisons: The Journal of Eduard Harkort, 1832-1834, College Station, Texas A & M University Press, 1986

Men of Goliad, Southwestern Quarterly, 43, July 1932, Hobert Davenport, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas

The Dewitt Colony, Alamo Defeners, Sons of Dewitt Colony, Texas website

Daughters of the American Revolution, The Alamo Heroes & Revolutionary Ancenstors, John H. Jenkins, 1926

City of Austin Road Names – Slaughter Lane

Slaughter Lane took its name from nearby Slaughter Creek, which was named for Stephen F. Slaughter, who received the original grant of land in the area on March 12, 1835, and was one of the first settlers in the current Travis County area (originally part of Bastrop County).

ASCE Continuing Education Webinars

Oct. 9	Understanding the Market for Engineering Services in Sustainable Development
Oct. 10	Deterioration and Repair of Concrete
Oct. 13	Seismic Review
Oct. 14	Effective Presentation Skills for Engineers: When You Talk, Is Anyone Listening?
Oct. 15	Project Plans: Why and How?
Oct. 16	Is Performance Measurement Stifling Your Performance?
Oct. 17	Are You Fighting Fires Instead of Managing Your Employees?
Oct. 21	Awarding Design-Build Contracts Using the Two-Envelope Process
Oct. 22	Career Paths in Civil Engineering Enrollment open only to Student Chapters
Oct. 22	Reducing Collisions at High Crash Locations
Oct. 23	Wind and Seismic Retrofit of Buildings: The Basics
Oct. 24	Design of Wood-Framed Sloped Roofs
Oct. 28	Reinforced Masonry: Design and Construction
Oct. 29	Satisfying Customers & Clients… What Does it Take?
Oct. 30	Advanced Snow Loads
Oct. 31	Learning to Lead: Making the Transition from Manager to Leader

Thank You to All of Our 2008 Sponsors!

Want to be an Austin Branch Sponsor? Gives your company advertising and free postings on our online job board. Click here for more information.

The Austin Branch Newsletter gives you the latest information on ASCE events and activities. To inquire about this newsletter or to publish articles contact the Communications Director. Contact information for our Board of Directors can be found at www.austinasce.org.

National ASCE – www.asce.org Texas Section – www.texasce.org