[President Perspective] [Meet the Member] [Monthly Meeting]
Happy New Year! As those new calendars go on our desks, please don't forget to mark down the monthly ASCE meetings (the third Thursday of each month). Past President Dennis Delzeit once suggested that it is much easier to make time for the ASCE meetings when they have been noted on your calendar for the entire year. Ever since he recommended this, I have followed his advice and found his words to be true.
Our household ended up watching quite a few of the college football Bowl games during the holiday season. Because of the dismal outcome of my picks, I was labeled as having the "kiss of death" by New Year's Eve. One of David's more frequent taunts before each game was that my team should be notified, so they could have a chance to just go home. My only winning teams were in games that were unevenly matched, according to most people. In fact, it was interesting before the Bowl games started how many sports columnists were baffled as to the logic of some of the team pairings. They pointed out how some teams could not be compared with each other, and predicted a rather one-sided game as a result.
In some ways, I believe engineers suffer from this fate as well. Because many people are unfamiliar with what we actually do, we are placed in unlikely comparisons. For instance, how many times have you heard us referred to as architects? I have heard teachers tell their students that architects build bridges. This seems to be a common misunderstanding, which I have seen both on television and in magazines. I also heard it indirectly from my father-in-law. After I came back from a particularly long wait for the women's restroom, he pointed out that I should make it my life calling to design a better public bathroom. Actually, this probably wasn't really a confusion between engineers and architects, but rather between design and commonsense: all somebody has to do in order to design a better women's bathroom is ask a woman. Back me up, ladies!
I have always found it interesting that in other cultures engineers are actually introduced by that title, like doctors are here. It seems that they still recognize the importance of having engineers, which seems to be taken for granted much of the time in this country. One of the ways ASCE National is addressing this is through Policy 465, "Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge." They feel that if engineers increase their education, they might generate more recognition and respect. This concept was originally introduced as the "Master's as the First Degree," which generated much division and argument within ASCE. Since then National has backpedaled, reworked, and renamed it. Personally, I'm lukewarm on what is being proposed, since I have witnessed that sometimes you just have to get your boots dirty to get the job done. However, I do applaud National's endeavor to help the engineering profession. You can draw your own conclusion by going to their website (asce.org) and reading more about this policy.
In the meantime, we can try to gently correct misconceptions about engineers by simply letting people know what we do. This can be as simple as participating in local civil engineering landmark plaque dedications, to volunteering to speak at an elementary school. By leveling the playing field in this way, we can compete equally with other professions.
-Valerie Beard, P.E.
This month we meet Larry Rohloff, Transportation Engineer for the County of San Luis Obispo Public Works Department. Who knew that this city boy from Kansas would end up traveling to 44 countries over the course of his career? Traveling was not new to Larry, however, as his father, working for the railroad, had to move the family quite a bit. Larry graduated from high school in Colorado and got a full ride scholarship from the railroad industry, which included the guarantee of a job when he was done. Larry graduated from Kansas State in 1961. 10 out of 25 graduating civil engineers made it back to their 40th reunion a few years back, and they plan on getting together again in 2006.
Larry's first job took him to California, where he went through Shell Oil's year and a half field training program before trading in his trench shoveling, drill-rig operating steel-toed boots for the polished dress shoes of the research and development division. One of Larry's many accomplishments during this time was helping to develop patents related to development of offshore oil drilling rigs. After 7 years at this job, he moved to New Orleans for a short time before the bugs and weather got him thinking about how great California was. He got a job with Parsons and stuck with it for 15 years (not counting a stint in consulting long enough to get his engineering license in 1972) before venturing out to other employment opportunities in Southern California. An opportunity to assist with a start-up company brought him to the Central Coast in 1976. Then he hired back on with Parsons in 1982 to help with land development in Saudi Arabia. He came back and ran his own business from 1985-88 before taking another opportunity to work overseas in Japan. His final two overseas assignments took him again to Saudi Arabia where Larry worked on developing access to a new well field while Iraq worked on invading Kuwait. After Desert Storm, Larry then went to Kuwait to help rebuild.
During Larry's overseas work assignments, every four months he typically got a break, of which he took full advantage. He's traveled all over the world, with his favorite countries being New Zealand for outdoor adventures and Spain for the activities. Many times his family lived with him overseas, and other times they would come to meet him for vacations. Larry lives with his wife Karan, and has 2 daughters, 2 step-daughters, three granddaughters, and believe it or not, a grandson. As you can tell from his picture, he is very excited to retire to his new home in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho this summer. He looks forward to lots of fishing, renewing his pilot's license and renewing his skills on the tenor sax and clarinet. You'd think he'd be tired of traveling, but oh no, he's all set to explore Canada. Hopefully his two cats and Spike, his African Grey Parrot, will love Idaho as much as Larry and Karan.
Larry is a former president of the local ASCE chapter, and had much to do with its reactivation along with Ken Jones and Bill Leonard. He was bestowed with the honor of lifetime membership for ASCE in January of 2004. Larry feels that ASCE has done a lot for the field of civil engineering, and he has had no problem supporting ASCE himself over the years.
by Courtney Howard
For our first luncheon of the new year, we are pleased to have Ed Swenson of Los Osos Engineering presenting lessons learned from the San Simeon Earthquake with regards to municipal water storage tanks. Over the past two decades, Los Osos Engineering has performed coating system inspections for welded steel water tanks throughout San Luis Obispo County, including diving inspections of tank interiors. In addition, the company inspected local tanks after the recent San Simeon Earthquake. Mr. Swenson's timely presentation will draw from his experience and unique perspective, and will include several photographs of tanks damaged in the earthquake.
Please join us at on January 20th at AJ Spurs restaurant in Pismo Beach for this fascinating presentation.