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July 2020 
Calendar of Events
UPCOMING EVENTS
July Board of Directors Meeting - July 14th
Virtual Meeting
SE Committe Meeting - July 24th
Virtual Meeting
YMF Virtual Happy Hour - July, Details TBA
Look out for more information in your inbox soon!
CEC Webinars
- July 9th - Designing Effective Meetings: How to Have More Productive Meetings with Fewer Frustrations
- July 30th - Mentoring Your Young Engineers - By Building Your In-house Curriculum
- August 13th - Engineered Wood Products Detailing and Specification in Multi-Family/Light Commercial Construction: Best Practices for a Better Build
Click here to see our calendar for the most up-to-date information!
Incoming Board Members
Central director
Laura Rice, S.E.
Laura Rice, SE, is a Project Engineer in the Degenkolb Sacramento office where she is currently pursuing her passion of seismic analysis and design while focusing in the Healthcare and Forensics practice areas. She has been involved in SEAOC as an organization since her freshman year at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, holding multiple board positions that culminated in her Presidency in her senior year.
She was an active member of SEAONC while working in the Degenkolb Oakland office, where she participated in the Existing Buildings Committee, the Hensolt Legacy Committee, and the 2016 Maui Convention Committee.
Since moving to Sacramento two years ago, she has served as SEAOCC’s Membership Chair, helping with the transition to StarChapter and creating our new system for membership dues processing. She was also a member of the 2019 Tahoe Convention Committee. She has a passion for promoting our profession, collaborating with colleagues, mentoring our young engineers, and engaging with our membership.
SECRETARY
nick herskedal, s.e.
Nick is a licensed structural engineer working at Buehler with eight years of work experience. He began his engineering career after receiving his bachelors and master’s degree in Architectural Engineering from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He started as an engineer in San Francisco, where he worked from 2012 to 2017. While in San Francisco, he was a member of SEAONC and became the Vice co-chair and Co-chair of the Young Members Forum.
In 2017, he relocated to Sacramento. Since then, he has passed the SE exam, become a mentor in the CREATE program, and last year he and wife had a baby boy and had their hands full. Now that he has had time to settle into Sacramento, he is very excited to get back into the great work that SEAOCC accomplishes. He has a wide range of interests from mentoring to legislation. He believes that the structural engineering profession has a great responsibility in the world; one that is not widely understood and it is SEAOCC’s great responsibility to help guide our profession, provide resources for educating our members, and represent the work we do to the general public. For this reason, he has been asked by the President of SEAOCC to serve as Secretary for the association which he has gladly accepted. He will be reaching out to the membership from time to time, so please give him your full cooperation and support to help him better serve the needs of SEAOCC in this new role.
Reelected Board Members
Vice President
Devon Lumbard, S.E.
Devon is a Principal with Degenkolb Engineers in Sacramento and a licensed Structural Engineer in the State of California. He originally joined Degenkolb Engineers in 2005 in Portland, before transferring to the Bay Area and finally returning closer to home in the Sierra Foothills. He currently leads the local healthcare and forensic practice areas.
His service to the profession includes the chair of the SEAOC Ad-hoc Wildfire Committee and co-chair Legislative Committee along with Ryan Kersting. Devon has also served on our SEAOCC Board of Directors this last year. He is a voting member of the American Wood Council’s NDS Committee and the NDS’s Special Design Provisions for Wind and Seismic standard, as well as a member of the ASCE 41 subcommittee for wood.
He is grateful for all SEAOCC and SEAOC has provided him in his development as an engineer. In these uncertain times, he is even more motivated to find ways for the organization to continue to support the professional development of members and grow the membership.
Central District
Rachel Leung, P.E.
This is Rachel's 2nd term as a Director and she is a Project Engineer at CYS Structural Engineers, Inc. She holds a Masters in Structural Engineering at UC San Diego and Bachelors in Civil Engineering at UC Berkeley. She joined CYS in 2015 and soon after became involved in SEAOCC. Rachel has been the SEAOCC Newsletter Editor for four years, as well as being a part of the SEAOCC Existing Buildings Committee and the 2019 Squaw Creek SEAOC Commitee. She is excited to promote the profession and member engagment in our community.
EAST DISTRICT
Brett McElhaney, S.E.
Brett started his professional career in the social sciences, earning a B.S. in Psychology from Midwestern State University in 1991 and subsequently working for the State of Texas at a 500-patient mental hospital. After a period of time, he became disenchanted with the political and bureaucratic environment and, likely coupled with a bit of the “grass is greener syndrome”, he decided he wanted a career change and to explore somewhere other than his hometown. He had family in Nevada so moved out west, opened the catalog of the University of Nevada, Reno, looked at every degree they offered and decided engineering sounded mighty interesting. Brett then earned a B.S. and an M.S. in Civil Engineering (while exploring the Sierras every spare moment he had) in 1997 and 1999, respectively. In 2005, when he achieved his California structural license he went out on his own and started his own consulting firm. He worked out of his basement for a couple of years and has since grown to thirteen people. He holds an SE license in California, Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, Texas and Maryland and has recently had his business certified, by the states of California and Nevada, as Native American owned, based on his Cherokee Nation citizenship. Because he enjoys school and have been running his business as an engineer, with no formal business training or classes, he decided to go back to school for an MBA and graduated in Spring of 2015. This experience has really added another dimension to his mind. In Nevada, he's presented code seminars to building officials, engineers, architects, contractors and lawyers in order to spread the knowledge, to be a proponent of good structures and to help people understand why it is important and how it is accomplished. He also enjoys mentoring new engineers fresh out of school and teaching them the profession. He's been involved in SEAOCC for his entire career and make the drive over whenever possible. He enjoys the flow of energy, meeting like-minded people and exchanging ideas. He believes it is unfortunate that there is not a SEAOCC presence on this side of the Sierras and welcomes the opportunity to do his part to change that. Some of the other accomplishments and involvements that Brett is proud of in his career are that he has taught as adjunct faculty at the University of Nevada, Reno, He is a charter member of the Structural Engineering Institute (SEI), holds the civil/structural seat on the City of Sparks Board of Appeals for Building Code Issues, is a structural engineer member of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services (OES) Post-Disaster Responders, and is a NV State Board of Professional Engineers Advisory Committee member and has also added a Contractor license into the mix. He has performed peer reviews for the Journal of Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics, and is a co-author of “Assessment of Steel and Fiber Reinforced Plastic Jackets for Seismic Retrofit of Reinforced Concrete Columns with Structural Flares” in the ASCE Journal of Structural Engineering. He also co-authored Seismic Retrofit of Non-Prismatic RC Bridge Columns.
Outgoing Board Members
Past President
Ali Sumer, Ph.D., S.E.
Dr. Ali Sumer is the supervisor of the Seismic Compliance Unit (SCU) in OSHPD. The SCU is responsible for review and approval of seismic compliance projects and tracking the progress hospitals in California are making towards meeting their seismic compliance standards as required by law. Prior to becoming supervisor of the SCU, Dr. Sumer was a District Structural Engineer with OSHPD. While in that role he was fully committed to the activities and success of the Structural Engineers Association of Central California (SEAOCC). Over the last three years he served as Vice President, President, and Past President of SEAOCC, was the Board Contact to the 2019 Structural Engineers Association of California (SEAOC) Convention Committee, and as President and Past President, was a member of the SEAOC Board of Directors. While in those roles he brought tremendous change and glory to our association and put us on a path to ensure the longevity and relavance of our association. The “SEAOC Seismic Design Maps” on our website was instituted because of his vision and creation. This website is now being used at no cost by users all over the world. He also created new opportunities for SEAOCC members to get engaged with the association. Examples of this included: Obtaining initial grant funding from the National Council of Structural Engineers Associations (NCSEA) to start the SEAOCC Snow Load Committee; forming the SEAOCC Drone Club which put on a great event at the 2019 SEAOC Convention where our association got first place and introduced other Member Organizations to this new concept; and participation on the SEAOC Wildfire Ad Hoc Committee with the end result serving as a resource guide for members in California, to name a few. While not the 2019 SEAOC Convention Chair, he dedicated enormous time and effort to make sure that the 2019 SEAOCC Convention in Squaw Creek was a roaring success and very profitable for SEAOC. In addition to his leadership roles while part of the executive team of SEAOCC, he has also served as Chair of the SEAOCC Seismology Committee, Vice Chair of SEAOC Earthquake Performance Rating System (EPRS) Committee, Building Seismic Safety Council (BSSC) Representative for SEAOCC, Chair of the SEAOCC Existing Buildings Committee, a Cal OES Disaster Service Worker, and a SEAOC Earthquake Performance Evaluation Program Volunteer as testimony of his volunteer work for our association. With the completion of his tenure on the SEAOCC board, he has now transitioned to tackle bigger and more challenging tasks that SEAOC faces. As such his absence from the SEAOCC Board of Directors will be missed, but we are ever grateful for his years of service to our association. We will still be relying on his wisdom and guidance this year and the years ahead.
Membership Dues Reminder
Membership Invoices Sent
By Laura Rice, S.E., Membership Chair
Hello SEAOCC!! It’s July, and along with the sweltering heat of summer comes a new fiscal year. As such, your membership renewals were emailed on July 2nd to the address on file for those paying as individuals, and to firm representatives for companies participating in firm renewals. If you have not done so already, please check your status and renew your membership dues by loging into your Starchapter account available via the seaocc.org website under "Member Area". There you can find the links necessary to pay via credit card or check. Please note that per our bylaws, a late fee will be applied beginning October 15th.
If your membership grade is incorrect, please notify us as soon as possible via email sent to [email protected]. Please also review and update your membership profile. Updating your member profile will allow us, SEAOC, and NCSEA to better serve you. If your firm participates in the firm renewal program, please check with your firm administrator that your name and correct email address is on email list sent back to SEAOCC with the payment so that there is no interruption in your membership. We look forward to your continued membership, participation, and support!
Please let us know if you have any questions.
Committee Reports
SEAOCC SE3 committee
By Anna Tekautz, S.E., SE3 CHAIR
We hope you took the opportunity to participate in the 2020 national NCSEA SE3 Survey. The survey results provide valuable insight into how we can progress as an organization, as firms, and as individuals.
As a committee, we have been interested in how our local community compared to the national results shared in the 2018 national NCSEA SE3 survey. We would like to share some specific SEAOCC results gathered from the 2018 survey; we hope understanding local trends will better serve our local firms and engineers. SEAOCC trends were consistent with national results regarding gender and race demographics and flexibility benefits offered. Unique takeaways for our region include:
- We had higher reports of “Staff” level at 20.3% compared to 14.4%* and 12.0%**.
- We had lower reports of “Project Engineer” level at 15.6% compared to 28.6%* and 26.2%**.
- We had a higher percentage of people planning to stay in the profession for 5+ years at 79.4% compared to 72.5%* and 75.6%*.
- We had a lower percentage of people who ever considered leaving the profession at 49.2% compared to 62.5%* and 58.9%**.
- We ranked Work Life Balance Satisfaction higher at 65.1% compared to 54.6%* and 55.8%**.
- We had the shortest one-way commute at 21.6 minutes compared to 34.5* and 29.9**.
- When adjusted for cost of living, we enjoy higher pay than our peers across the nation; please see graphs below. Pay is defined as the sum of annual base pay, overtime pay, and bonuses.
SEAOCC results are based upon 66 responses from the Central region including: Sacramento, Redding, Reno, and Fresno.
* 600+ Coastal California Responses
** 2900+ Nationwide Responses
The complete 2018 National SE3 Survey results may be accessed here: http://www.ncsea.com/downloads/files//Committees/SE3/NCSEA%202018%20Study%20Report_final.pdf. Please note the 2020 survey closed in June; we look forward to sharing those results when available.
Welcome New Members
NEW MEMBERS POSTED ON JULY 14, 2020
Job Forum
SEAOC News
Become a Leader in Community Resilience
By Anna Lang Ofstad, phD and Jonathan Buckalew, S.E., SEAOC Resilience Committee Chairs
Structural engineers are adept at designing buildings to achieve the life safety, but the building code is silent on recovering building functionality after an earthquake. The public and policy makers are showing an increased interest in making our communities more resilience. Design tools (e.g. FEMA P58, SP3 software) allow engineers to go beyond life safety and evaluate buildings based on recovery time and repair costs. Rating systems communicate the performance of buildings to the public. It’s now a reality: engineers have the tools to design buildings for functional recovery within a specified time frame for a given hazard.
Predicting building performance after an earthquake
The SEAOC Resilience Committee is developing a series of articles to educate engineers on how they can contribute to and become leaders in community resilience. The articles will review the terminology associated with community resilience, present economic benefits of resilience design, and explore design and communication tools like FEMA P58 and rating systems. If you are interested in becoming a leader in community resilience or would like to know more about the subject, please check out the first article titled “Structural Engineer’s Guide to Become Leaders in Community Resilience” in the July edition of SEAOC Talk. If you are interested in joining the resilience committee, we welcome your participation; please email Jonathan Buckalew ([email protected]) and Anna Lang Ofstad ([email protected]).
Pounding of Existing Buildings and Buildings over Faults
By Daniel Zepeda, S.E. & Sandy Hohener, S.E.
Members of the Structural Engineers Association of Southern California – Existing Building Committee are soliciting input on a survey. The survey is developed to better understand the state of the Structural Engineering Practice with respect to building separation requirements for existing buildings (pounding) and with respect to existing buildings over faults. The intent of soliciting input on the state of practice is to better understand what code provisions need to be developed to offer appropriate guidance to the Structural Engineering Practice and to bring consistency to the implementation of these complex issues. We would appreciate if you can take the survey by clicking on the link below related to these two topics that are heavily debated in seismic retrofits specifically those triggered by ordinances. Survey results will be used to develop a couple of papers for the upcoming SEAOC virtual conference.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/6RD8LQY
Ask SEAOCC Leadership
You're Planning a Week Long Vacation as a Solo Trip. What Type of Destination Do You Choose - Beach, Mountains, City, Forest, or Desert?
"None of the above: Desolate Island." - Tim Piland
"Mountains, just me and my bike." - Jeremy Kellogg
"A deserted, mountain, forest, beach." - Ben Faircloth
"I'm going to cheat and say the Mendocino Coast, because I can get the beach, the mountains, and the forest all in one." - Laura Rice
"Mountains." - Nick Herskedal