February 2018 – Region 9 Reports
REGION 9 REPORTS – FEBRUARY 2018 NEWSLETTER
2018 California Infrastructure Symposium and Awards Dinner Preview
by by Matt Kennedy, P.E., T.E., ENV SP, M.ASCE
Region 9 Governor, and
Awards Committee Chair
The 2018 California Infrastructure Symposium and Awards Dinner will be held at the San Francisco War Memorial Center on Friday March 23, 2018. The 2018 California Infrastructure Symposium is a partnership between the ASCE San Francisco Section and ASCE Region 9. The Symposium will be an all-day event attended by engineers, educators, elected officials, professionals and the general public. Please plan to join us and register for these events at http://www.caisregion9.org/2018. I am really excited about this year’s Symposium and Awards! Here’s why:
The War Memorial Center is a Region 9 Award winning venue: Last year, The San Francisco War Memorial Veterans Building Seismic Upgrade & Improvements project was the recipient of the ASCE Region 9 Outstanding Historical Renovation Project. Owned by the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center, and designed by Engineer Simpson Gumpertz & Heger, the project addressed seismic upgrades, earthquake damage repair, facility preservation and modernization improvements.
The War Memorial Center is an international historic landmark: During the spring and summer of 1945, the United Nations was born in the two original buildings of the War Memorial Center. Most of the plenary sessions of the U.N. Conference took place in the War Memorial Opera House (home of the San Francisco Opera and Ballet), and President Truman and other heads of state and dignitaries signed the United Nations Charter on the stage of the Veterans Auditorium (now the Herbst Theatre) on June 26, 1945.
The Symposium program is one you don’t want to miss: The Symposium will be comprised of two infrastructure tracks with the following speaker topics:
Transportation Track
• Hot Topics in Roadways, Pathways, and Ports – Contra Costa Transportation Authority’s Active Transportation Plan; The Latest in Development on Treasure Island; The Latest Developments at the Port of San Francisco; and Roundabouts: An Innovation for Congestion Management.
• Station Area Development/Technology – The “Grand Central Station of the West”; Station Area Development, Economic Stimulation, and Technology; Bringing BART to the Silicon Valley; and Development Around Diridon Station.
• Implementation of SB1 Transportation Funding – SB1 and the State of California; SB1 and Caltrans District 4; SB1 and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission; SB1 and the City of San Francisco.
• Rail/Mass Transit – Bringing High Speed Rail and Caltrain to San Francisco; Caltrain Electrification Project; The Vision for BART; Connecting Sonoma County and the Larkspur Ferry Terminal via SMART.
Water Track
• Water Infrastructure Resilience – Update on ASCE Infrastructure Resilience Initiatives; Water More or Less; Resilience by Design – Life Safety in the City; and Smart Infrastructure.
• Sustainability/Envision – California Water Plan – System of profiling Sustainability of Projects; ISI – Envision Update, New Developments in Envision; and Nigiri Project – Rice Fields to Freshwater Ecosystems
• Dam Safety – Oroville Dam – Spillway Emergency, Response and Remediation; and Oroville Dam – Evaluation and Issues.
• Innovative Approaches for Sustainable Water Supply Infrastructure – Proposition 1 Grant Funding for Surface Storage; Winter Forecast and Latest Strom Tracking Technology; and Forecast Informed Reservoir Operations – Folsom Dam Water Control Manual Update.
Speakers from many public agencies and companies across California will be involved, including the Port of San Francisco, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, The Transbay Joint Powers Authority, Caltrain, BART, the Water Education Foundation, U.C. Berkeley, the California Department of Water Resources, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, and Caltrans. I hope that many of you reading this will save the date and plan to attend this event.
The Infrastructure Symposium will be immediately followed by a networking reception, then the Awards Dinner Banquet and Ceremony.
The Annual Region 9 Awards Dinner Banquet and Ceremony will be held in the Green Room in the Veteran’s Building. Originally designed in the graceful Beaux-Arts architecture style and recently renovated, the Green Room is known for its distinctive color, soaring ceiling and russet tiled outdoor loggia overlooking San Francisco City Hall. Outstanding projects and individuals in Region 9 will be presented with awards in this beautiful venue.
Each year, the many members and individuals who form the foundation of the ASCE Sections, Branches, Institutes, Younger Member and Student chapter groups in Region 9, take the time to recognize the outstanding projects and the selfless efforts of their peers, who contribute to the growth and evolution of the civil engineering profession, and the improvement of the infrastructure we all depend upon. Each group’s annual awards program nominates and recognizes praiseworthy individuals and projects within their geographic areas. Each Section’s award winners (San Francisco, Sacramento, San Diego and Los Angeles) are then nominated to Region 9 in October each year. Region 9 then recognizes about 21 outstanding projects and 15 exceptional individuals from across the State of California the following March, during the annual Awards Dinner Ceremony following the California Infrastructure Symposium.
For more information and to register for the 2018 California Infrastructure Symposium and Awards Dinner Banquet and Ceremony, please bookmark the California Infrastructure Symposium website at http://www.caisregion9.org/2018, the San Francisco Section website at http://asce-sf.org, or the Region 9 web site at http://regions.asce.org/region9/. Opportunities to get involved in the planning or to sponsor the Infrastructure Symposium and Awards Dinner are available. We look forward to seeing all of you in San Francisco on March 23rd!