Topic: Society News

Charles Dowding, Ph.D., P.E., D.GE, Dist.M.ASCE, for his decades of vital contribution to geotechnical engineering and engineering education, has been honored as an ASCE Distinguished Member. Dowding’s insight into frequency response has enabled the discernment of cases of structural distress as apart from that caused solely by environmental effects. Such structures include residential and commercial buildings, buried pipelines, large excavations in rock (including caverns and...

The picture is starting to come into focus. The ASCE Board of Direction spent a good portion of its quarterly meeting, July 28-29 in Baltimore, honing its strategic plan, a process that began in January with vision, goals, and measurables set to coalesce at the October meeting. The Board broke into focus groups to discuss and refine six goal statements. They then ranked several potential strategies...

The ASCE Board of Direction voted unanimously at its July meeting to adopt new language in the Society’s Code of Ethics that expresses a professional obligation to provide fair and equal treatment for all. The ASCE Code of Ethics, adopted in 1914, lays out the model for professional conduct for ASCE members. The newly adopted canon – Canon 8 in the Code of Ethics –...

Texas Section 1988 President and former ASCE Board member Malcolm L. Steinberg Sr., a state Department of Transportation engineer and author, has died at 90. Steinberg, P.E., F.ASCE, enjoyed a 40-year career as a transportation engineer for the state in San Antonio and El Paso. An active ASCE membership included his Section presidency and as president of a local branch. He served on the ASCE...

Joel Herbert Rosenblatt, a World War II veteran whose lengthy civil and structural engineering career based in Baltimore, MD, and in Florida included extensive time on international projects, has died at 92 at his home in Muncie, IN. Rosenblatt, P.E., F.ASCE, “contributed to the development of pre-stressed concrete used in bridges and housing as well as to the applied technology of hurricane resistance in the...

William R. “Bill” Nash, P.E., M.ASCE, who applied expertise from a career as a construction engineer to enhancing ASCE’s policies and standards as a “pillar” of the Construction Institute, died unexpectedly on June 24. Nash represented ASCE and CI on the ANSI A-10 Standards Committee on Construction and Demolition, and served for a number of years as co-editor of CI/SEI’s award-winning journal Practice Periodical of...

The project manager behind the new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge East Span and other major works, Dennis Jyh-Yeh Jang, P.E., M.ASCE, senior vice president and structural engineer at T.Y. Lin International, has died unexpectedly at 62. Jang joined the firm as a project engineer in 1987, advancing to project manager for numerous long-span signature bridges and other structural projects. He proudly oversaw tremendous project and...

Distinguished Member Joel Ivan Abrams, chairman of the University of Pittsburgh’s civil engineering department for more than 20 years and a past president of ASCE’s Pittsburgh Section, has died at 88. Abrams, P.E., Dist.M.ASCE, served as department chairman from the mid-1960s through 1987, and was founding director of Pitt’s groundbreaking program in public works. “He was a passionate defender of the value and the transformational...

Thomas J. Grizzard Jr., professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech and director of its Occoquan Watershed Monitoring Laboratory for 40 years, has died at 70. His expertise in the urban water cycle and four decades of work at the laboratory made Grizzard, Ph.D., M.ASCE, so influential, he would be known as “the protector of the Occoquan.” He also served Virginia Tech...