September 2011 President's Message

Well, this my last President’s message!  The year has gone very quickly.  We have succeeded in increasing our Section membership, we have an active Life Members group, Friends of Infrastructure are vocal in the community, our political involvement committee is growing, we learned to Salsa at a terrific Annual Awards event and the San Diego report card update is well under way. 

Our technical groups, Younger Member Forum and Student Chapters are all active and providing an outstanding service to the community and our profession.  I would like to thank all of our Board members, local group leaders and committee chairs for the hard work that has made our successes possible.  We have seen changes in tax system and reporting for non-profits that have made it more difficult to operate our local section.  I would like to extend a special thanks to our Treasurer, Tim Shell, who has done an outstanding job transitioning our accounting systems and making sure we meet the new reporting requirements.  Tim has spent hundreds of personal hours and I think we all agree that he has had the toughest job on the Board.  I cannot forget our Association Manager, Cathy Riley, who keeps us all in line.  Cathy is extremely organized, tracks our deadlines and makes sure we get our jobs done.  She is awesome!

We still have a lot more work to do and Dean Gipson, our new President, will need your help in the coming year.  The report card is well under way, but there is still a lot of work to be done.  When our Report Card Chair, Larry Pierce calls, please do what you can to help out. Katherine Hon will still be leading the Friends of Infrastructure and needs your help as well.  It’s critical that we as engineers speak out regarding the condition of our infrastructure.

Vision 2025 is still high on my list and I intend to stay involved in the Society and help realize the vision.  Dolores Ventura’s and Philip Bordeneave’s committees will play key roles in promoting political and community involvement.  We as engineers tend to be reserved, but we can break that mold and learn to be more vocal.  I haven’t seen a pocket protector in the last five years, so we can change our image.

Thanks for a great year!

Tricia McColl, P.E., M. ASCE, President, San Diego Section 2010-2011