“The Reno Toyota Dealership consists of a 64,000 square foot showroom and office facility as well as a 267,000 square foot vehicle storage and maintenance facility. This project incorporates a variety of building materials including reinforced concrete, steel and masonry. The service and vehicle storage area is a four story post-tensioned concrete system with concrete bearing and shear walls. In order to conceal the parking garage appearance, the building is finished with curved vertical steel trusses with an aluminum perforated screen and precast concrete panels. The showroom portion is a two story CMU shear wall building with steel joists and columns. Structural steel is also integrated into the extensive curtain wall system. The dealership was designed in phases in order to make use of the vehicle storage prior to the completion of the entire project. Construction on this project is scheduled to be completed by January 2010 and will be the largest Toyota dealership on the west coast of the United States.”

Our congratulations go out to the other project winners as well as the engineers of the year award :

• For the Environmental Category: North Virginia/Stead Pumping System Improvement Project
• For the Transportation Category: SouthEast Connector Plan Line Study
• For Civil Engineer of the Year: Robert Calloway, PE, PTOE
• For Young Engineer of the Year: Garth Oksol, PE

No Respect

I am at the SEAOC Convention in Hawaii.  We are about halfway through and so far, I am pleased with the technical content and social activities.  I will write a full report later, but I wanted to briefly discuss the SEAOC Excellence in Engineering Awards.

First, some background. A common theme (officially and unofficially) in the last couple of Conventions has been the desire to raise the general public’s perception of the structural engineering profession and our impact on society.  We are constantly envying how revered doctors are and how much lawyers get paid.  We complain about not being highly paid for our services and expertise.  In general we complain about not getting the respect we deserve.

The SEAOC Excellence in Engineering Awards Ceremony was one of the most poorly attended events at the Convention thus far.  It was embarrassing.  Not only was the initial attendance poor, but it dwindled by about half towards the end of the ceremony.  Yes, the ceremony went a little long, and yes, we are in Hawaii, and yes there are other things going on; but we need to support our fellow structural engineers.

The submitting companies spend valuable time preparing their entries.  The judging panel (made up of one engineer from each of the five SEAOC sections as well as an architect and contractor) spends days assessing each project and writing opinion statements.

How can we ask society to get excited about our award winning projects when we can not get excited about them?  How can we demand respect from society as a whole, when we are not willing to give respect to our fellow engineers by honoring their achievements through an hour and a half long awards ceremony once a year?