VT ASCE President’s Message February 2012

On Friday, February 3, we held our annual student ski day at Sugarbush.  The event featured a full day of skiing, pizza lunch with a talk by Shawn Kelley, our regional governor, and new this year, fun ski races with great prizes.  The event was very well attended by students from Norwich and UVM, as well as several professionals.  We would especially like to thank our sponsors Collins Engineers and GeoDesign. It's possible to order an essay and ask for additional editing after the request is finished.

 The week of February 20^th is e-week.  As such, several interesting events are scheduled.  I would like to highlight a couple.  First, Vermont ASCE will be releasing our first ever report on Vermont’s Infrastructure.  This release will take place at the Capitol Plaza Hotel on Tuesday, February 21.  We are in the process of inviting legislators, in addition to the media.  The report card provides an evaluation and grade for water, wastewater, roads, bridges, and dams in Vermont.  All are welcome to attend the release.  Copies of the report card will be available after the release here on our website.   Second, is the e-week banquet.  This event takes place on Friday, February 24and features Brian Searles, Vermont Secretary of Transportation.   

On March 15, we will hold a dinner meeting with a structural theme, which we will co-host with the Structural Engineers Association (SEA-VT).   The meeting will be held at UVM.  The topic of the meeting is the Weidmann BM2 Upgrade in St. Johnsbury, VT.  The speaker will be Richard Dall, PE, SECB, LEED AP. 

Richard will present an overview of the structural design challenges and solutions associated with the project.  The project consists of a heavy industrial expansion adjacent to an existing operational manufacturing facility to house a replacement to the facilities existing press.  Some of the major challenges for this project included subsurface conditions necessitating deep foundations, heavy storage loads on elevated floors, heavy forklift traffic on elevated floors and the support of a two million pound press.   This should be an excellent presentation.  The invitation is attached.

 On April 18^th we will be holding our annual past president’s breakfast at the Capitol Plaza Hotel in Montpelier.  Our featured speaker will be Greg DiLoreto, ASCE National president-elect.  We will be honoring our past Vermont Section ASCE president’s and we are very fortunate to have Greg join us to provide his vision for ASCE.

Respectfully,

Bernie Gagnon