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Presidential Trio Makes History at Board Meeting
George A. Ghareeb, P.E., F.ASCE, your Region 3 Director, is a member of the Central Illinois Section.
George represented you at the January Board meeting in Las Vegas, NV, leading up to the weekend’s
Western Multi-Region Leadership Conference.
In a neat bit of ASCE serendipity, the Board of Direction opened the 2018 calendar with a meeting in
President Kristina Swallow’s hometown of Las Vegas. This after we closed 2017 with a Board meeting
in Past President Norma Jean Mattei’s hometown of New Orleans. It’s funny the way stars align
sometimes.
It was Kristina’s rst meeting as president, running the agenda, which means it also marked the rst
time in ASCE’s 165 years that all three presidential ofcers at the head of the Board table were women – Kristina, Norma
Jean, and President-Elect Robin Kemper. ASCE is certainly in good hands as we look forward to an exciting 2018.
Highlights from the Board meeting:
• The Board of Direction Nominating Committee met Friday morning, Jan. 11, and selected Louis C. Aurigemma, P.E.,
F.ASCE, and Kancheepuram (Guna) N. Gunalan, Ph.D., P.E., D.GE, F.ASCE, as the ofcial nominees for 2019 ASCE
president-elect. The Society’s election will be conducted May 1 through June 1 via online ballot. (Read the ASCE News
story.)
• The Board of Direction heard presentations from leaders of three ASCE institutes – the Architectural Engineering Institute,
the Engineering Mechanics Institute, and the Structural Engineering Institute. Board members also were able to engage
the leaders in a valuable question-and-answer session to learn more about their programs and better align their individual
activities with those of the Society. (Learn more in the ASCE News story.)
• Similarly, the Board heard from a panel of Younger Members who provided an important perspective on the ASCE
experience: that of the young professional.
• The Board voted to authorize the ASCE Industry Leaders Council to further pursue a new strategic approach called Future
World Vision. Whether that means creating a new group dedicated to consider the profession’s future with this innovative
framework for analysis remains to be seen, but we look forward to a progress report from the ILC on this topic at the
March Board meeting.
• Finally, the Board continues to work on its strategic plan. Last fall, we approved six goals. This winter, the Board Strategic
Advisory Council is collecting feedback on different strategies that can accomplish those goals. BSAC will present
recommendations at the March Board meeting.
The next Board meeting is scheduled for March 16-17 in Arlington, VA.
To share your views or provide ideas on how ASCE can better serve its members and the profession, please email George.
Returning to the Job Market: How to stay sane
The growing labor shortage is making a lot of folks take stock of their situation and contemplate returning to the job market.
Whether you’ve been away from the job market a long time or are jumping into it to nd a different job, there are some
things to consider and some things you can safely ignore.
First things rst, the job market and all the online possibilities can and will drive you mad if you let them. It can be
confusing, overwhelming, exhausting and dehumanizing. There are so many job boards, so many resume templates, so much
advice about how to do it right that it can freeze you in your tracks.
Here’s the good news. The skills that have always led to nding the right job haven’t really changed that much. What used to
work in a job search still works. There are new online tools to help you, but it will keep you sane if you look at them as tools
and not requirements or burdensome responsibilities.
Dan Urke returned to the job market last year after 31 years at the same rm. He got another job, but some cancelled
construction projects will be putting him back in the job market at the end of February. Of his recent experience, he says “it
was like, in the rst couple of months, I was sending my application and cover letter to a black hole.” The online application
system that most companies now use can feel just like that…a black hole. You never know if anyone is looking at them
or if some program is doing a keyword search on your resume and cover letter and casting them into the abyss when your
documents don’t match the keywords 100 percent.
Useful Online Tools
Rather than using the spray-and-pray method of putting your resume and cover letter everywhere, here are the tools that the
folks we talked to use regularly.
Indeed.com—There are a lot of job boards out there, so it’s hard to know which one to check regularly. Indeed was
mentioned by everyone we talked to.