Illustration by Alex Nabum Related Links: Point-Counterpoint: Gauging the 'Raise the Bar' Debate ASCE's Raise the Bar Website ASMEs Licensing that Works Website More from Education Report: Washington Contractor Leads State STEM Push More from Education Report: Tennessee Engineer Boosts Students' Prospects More from Education Report: Engineering Academies' First High School Grads More from Education Report: Plug-In Cars Charge Infrastructure Training More from Education Report: Students and Industry Design Tomorrow's Tools Six years after the nation's umbrella engineering licensing body embraced a so-called Model Rule that would extend by 30 the number of extra credit-hours BS-degreed engineers must have to
Photo Courtesy of Coal Creek Watershed Foundation Earn and learn Students aid Thacker (front, right) in Coal Creek flood work. Scholarships require community service and mentoring. Photo Courtesy of Coal Creek Watershed Foundation Students boost reading with school's foundation-run incentive effort. Related Links: Coal Creek Watershed Foundation Engineering Community's Licensing Debate a Lesson in Degrees of Separation Washington Subcontractor Leads State Push on STEM Engineering Academies' First High-School Grads Plug-In Car Infrastructure Gives Training a Big Charge Auburn Students Work With Industry to Design Tomorrow's Tools Kyle Leinart, a civil engineering student at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is dreaming
Related Links: Website of All-Railroad Services Corp. (Vaccarello) Website of Roadway Worker Training (Crisafi) Online obituary for Patsy Crisafi Federal investigators are continuing a probe into the crash of a private plane on Oct. 3 near Gary, Ind., that killed two Florida-based veteran rail construction executives, one of them the pilot. But a preliminary report offers few clues as to the cause.Killed were Patsy J. “PJ” Crisafi, 48, co-founder and executive vice president of Roadway Worker Training Inc. and Vincent “Vinnie” Vaccarello, 45, co-founder and co-president of All Railroad Services Corp., both in St. Augustine.Crisafi was piloting the plane, a
Related Links: Website of the American Concrete Institute Eugene H. "Gene" Boeke Jr., a onetime jobsite water boy at Beers Construction Co., Atlanta, who became vice president of the firm and its successor, Beers Skanska, as well as a nationally recognized expert in reinforced-concrete construction, died on Sept. 29 in Roswell, Ga. He was 86.Boeke supervised construction of numerous major high-rise buildings in Atlanta and the Southeast. He also co-authored a 1980 book on advances in construction methods for the American Concrete Institute (ACI), a key concrete technology advocacy group based in Farmington Hills, Mich.Boeke was a vice president of
Related Links: National Conference of State Legislatures searchable ballot-measure database Ballotwatch 2012-Initiative & Referendum Institute-University of Southern California ENR story on 2010 construction-related bond issues and initiatives on ballots Construction Firms, Groups, Mixed on Romney Policies A Second Obama Term Could Look Much Like the First Infrastructure bond issues have roared back onto statewide ballots in this year's presidential election, with more than $4 billion dollars' worth tallied in nine states, up from $1.9 billion in five states two years ago, says the National Conference of State Legislatures, or NCSL.In addition, there are finance measures on municipal or regional ballots,
With polls indicating that New Jersey voters know little or nothing about the “Building Our Future Act” on the Nov. 6 election ballots, boosters are planning a big rollout next week to promote passage of the $750-million bond measure to fund construction of higher-education facilities. The measure, which allows the state to borrow for new academic buildings and upgrades at research universities, public colleges and community colleges, is the first since 1988 that supporters were able to get on the ballot. If approved, the funds would be combined with existing bond proceeds of about $500 million to create a $1.2
Related Links: Read More People on the Move in ENR In a unanimous vote on Sept. 24, the Massachusetts Dept. of Transportation board appointed Beverly A. Scott as general manager of both the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) and of the DOT's rail-and-transit division. Set to start in late 2012 or early 2013, she is currently CEO and general manager of the Metropolitan Atlanta Transit Authority (MARTA); she will be the first woman to serve in her upcoming roles in Massachusetts. Scott also has been chief of the Sacramento Regional Transit District and general manager of the Rhode Island Public
Related Links: Corps Resumes Rebid of Protested New Orleans Flood Project Nearly 18 months after bid protests, a court challenge and a forced reprocurement delayed the award of a massive permanent flood-control project in New Orleans, the Army Corps of Engineers said on Sept. 28 that a Kiewit Corp.-led team has won the $629.5-million design-build contract.The project was set to finish in 2014 but now won’t be done until mid-2016, says the Corps.Winning team PCCP Constructors, which includes Traylor Bros. and M.R. Pittman Group LLC, was one of two original bidders that protested the April 2011 award to CBY Design-Builders,
Related Links: Read more People on the Move MOTEC.D. "Dan" Mote, the former chairman of the University of California's mechanical engineering department who also served for 12 years as president of the 35,000-student University of Maryland, College Park, is set to become the next president of the National Academy of Engineering. NAE members are set to elect him, the group's only candidate for the position, in March. His six-year term would begin on July 1, when he will succeed Charles M. Vest. Under Mote, the University of Maryland boosted research funding by more than 150% and attained the fourth-highest graduation
Engineers and sustainability experts are testing some high-tech approaches to bring improved water and air quality to millions of people in remote parts of Africa and, eventually, elsewhere in the developing world.