July-August
Message
District 6 Members,
As summer unfolds, I thank our members for the
honor to serve as your President. The mhighlights have been
interacting with members throughout the Western District,
recognizing 16 volunteers through Presidential Proclamations,
presenting awards at the annual meeting, and sharing tools
on how we can enhance our communication and public relations/sales
skills to obtain support for engineering recommendations and
projects, an area about which I am passionate.
During the final two months of my term, I will
meet with three more Sections, swear-in new officers and participate
in our annual meeting hosted by the Colorado-Wyoming Section.
This includes giving four additional Presidential Proclamations
and sharing my “Engineering Recommendations: Getting
to ‘Yes’ With the Public and Elected Officials”
and my “Do Speed Limits Really Matter and If So, How
Do We Sell Them?” presentations with the Central California
Section and at our Annual Meeting, respectively.
I was honored to present Presidential Proclamations
to Edward (Ed) L. Cline, Robert (Bob) Crommelin, Mike Bitner,
and Nate Larson for the Southern California, Riverside-San
Bernardino (RSBITE), Central California, and Colorado-Wyoming
Sections, respectively. Ed and Bob are two of my mentors and
both of these fine gentlemen are also District 6 Lifetime
Achievement Award recipients, the highest honor given by our
District. Bob is also an ITE International Honorary Member
and has been the most mgenerous individual donor to the District’s
Student Endowment Fund!
Mike Bitner continues to be the “jack
of all trades,” dedicated volunteer for the Central
California Section. It is also my privilege to thank Nate
Larson, our Local Arrangements Committee (LAC) Co-Chair for
Denver’s Annual Meeting. We appreciate him, LAC Co-Chair
Will Johnson, and Denver’s talented LAC team of volunteers
for hosting an excellent Annual Meeting this year. (See the
LAC volunteer list in this issue.) Nate is also the District’s
Advertising Chair and prior Technical Editor. His common sense
and very wise, dry sense of humor make Nate a joy to work
with!
I appreciate Managing Editor Rachel Donovan’s
several enhancements to WesternITE. As Rachel focuses on her
graduate work this year, Interim Managing Editor Zaki Mustafa
and his son, Nathan, have moved the newsletter another step
forward to provide both a web version along with the traditional
.pdf newsletter. Earlier work by Rachel and Webmaster France
Campbell was also instrumental in laying the foundation to
provide this additional service for our members—we thank
all four of you!!
Some members read newsletters on-line and want
hyperlinks at their finger tips while others prefer the hard-copy
style mailed (or previously printed .pdf versions) of the
newsletter which can be read without having to “plug
in” when reading it. We hope to meet all of our member’s
preferences.
I also thank my employer, the City of Santa
Ana, my chain of command, my staff and colleagues for their
support and flexibility to help facilitate my ability to interact
with members throughout our large region this year.
In June 2009, we had our second Communications
Presentation seminar at the City with Craig Oscarson. This
was similar to the training he provided at the San Diego’s
2007 ITE Spring Technical Conference. These skills are invaluable
for engineers in addition to “on-the-job” experience
gained on how to better get to “yes” with engineering
recommendations. A June 2, 2009 USA Today “Snapshot”
poll, asked: “do you think city agencies in your town
do a good job with the public’s money?” The answers
were: 16%- definitely, 45%-probably, 21%-probably not, 15%
definitely not, and 3%-don’t know. This demonstrates
a need for more proactive communication of our profession’s
value in sharing how our work can positively impact safety
and dispel misperceptions about our profession.
For an engineer to be fully successful, we need
to better “sell” the value of our work, project,
service & recommendations. We have the knowledge and ethical
responsibility to be promoters of our value and to create
new advocates who are also believers. Who else can do this
but us? Police and fire departments serve an important service
and regularly “brand” their profession as “safety”
and are strongly valued by the public and elected officials.
They have on-going promotional efforts. Teachers regularly
advertise their value which helps generate public support.
Since our work directly impacts safety we should “re-brand”
our professional image and educate and sell our safety principles.
I’ve shared communications tools this
year. However, there is much more to be done. I challenge
each of us to further our “softer” skills and
reach out to the public and elected officials every possible
opportunity. We can also learn from those with different backgrounds
by building bridges across the profession aisle and sharing
our unique strengths. For example, engineers can learn from
transportation planners and vice versa. Together, we can better
serve our profession through mutual, win-win teamwork.
There are many ways members can become further
engaged in ITE: through list-serves, committees, reviewing
documents, presenting papers (while enhancing presentation
skills), participating in International Councils and committees,
and becoming a chair or officer at the district or section/chapter
level. From this, your professional network will be expanded
in addition to your knowledge. Some members have still not
chosen a free Council membership. If you aren’t sure
which one to join, check the website information on Councils
at www.ite.org and try one until you find your fit. Some districts
and sections have similar
Council “extensions” that mirror the International
Council work at the grass-roots level. By increasing your
ITE involvement, you will receive greater value from your
membership.
I thank our dedicated team of District 6 Chairs,
Vice Chairs, lOfficers, Board members, LAC volunteers, and
the enthusiastic section, chapter and student leadership.
All of this will serve us well into the future. Although we’ve
had tremendous economic “humps” this year, the
longer-term future remains bright! I thank the membership
for the opportunity to serve and am proud of all our volunteers
and the participants in this year’s festive and informative
Annual Meeting July 12-15, 2009 who made our meeting great
by “taking the high road” to Denver, Colorado.
|
