Comments on: ASCE Scandal? http://blog.civilengineeringcentral.com/2008/04/03/asce-scanal/ building teams . engineering careers Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:00:47 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl http://blog.civilengineeringcentral.com/2008/04/03/asce-scanal/#comment-44 Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl Fri, 04 Apr 2008 02:07:05 +0000 http://civilengineeringcentral.wordpress.com/?p=27#comment-44 (Date Submitted: April 3, 2008 Dear Civil Engineering Central.com Readers: The news story "Engineer society accused of cover ups" was written by Associated Press writer Cain Burdeau and was released by AP on March 25th, 2008. To read the article, which was reported in several hundred newspapers, TV stations and other news outlets, you can search for "ASCE, Cain Burdeau Seed Astaneh”. You may also be interested to see a letter exchange between ASCE Presidents (two over the last two years) and I which all are posted a single PDF at URL: http://www.ce.berkeley.edu/~astaneh/WTC/Astaneh-Letter-to-Mongan--April--1--2008.pdf In my letter to the President of the ASCE, I have offered him my time to resent our studies of the World Trade Center at the upcoming ASCE Structures Congress in Vancouver which contradicts the findings of ASCE Building Assessment Team for World Trade Center and its resulting report FEMA-403. I hope I will have a chance to share this information with ASCE membership, even though I have presented the results and findings in several professional conferences as key-note speeches including at the 7th International Conference on Multi-purpose High-rise Towers and Tall Buildings (2005), the Annual Degenkolb Forum of the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California (2006) and at the 6th Memorial Lecture on WTC, The Engineering Aspects (2007) among others. The PDF file at above URL has also the Associated Press news story as an appendix. Last but not least, I like to thank Civil Engineering Central for providing this fine public forum. Sincerely yours, Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, Ph.D., P.E., Professor, University of California, Berkeley and Member of the American Society of Civil engineers (ASCE) (Web Site: www.ce.berkeley.edu/astaneh and www.astaneh.net (End of Comment) (Date Submitted: April 3, 2008
Dear Civil Engineering Central.com Readers:
The news story “Engineer society accused of cover ups” was written by Associated Press writer Cain Burdeau and was released by AP on March 25th, 2008. To read the article, which was reported in several hundred newspapers, TV stations and other news outlets, you can search for “ASCE, Cain Burdeau Seed Astaneh”.
You may also be interested to see a letter exchange between ASCE Presidents (two over the last two years) and I which all are posted a single PDF at URL:
http://www.ce.berkeley.edu/~astaneh/WTC/Astaneh-Letter-to-Mongan–April–1–2008.pdf
In my letter to the President of the ASCE, I have offered him my time to resent our studies of the World Trade Center at the upcoming ASCE Structures Congress in Vancouver which contradicts the findings of ASCE Building Assessment Team for World Trade Center and its resulting report FEMA-403. I hope I will have a chance to share this information with ASCE membership, even though I have presented the results and findings in several professional conferences as key-note speeches including at the 7th International Conference on Multi-purpose High-rise Towers and Tall Buildings (2005), the Annual Degenkolb Forum of the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California (2006) and at the 6th Memorial Lecture on WTC, The Engineering Aspects (2007) among others.
The PDF file at above URL has also the Associated Press news story as an appendix.

Last but not least, I like to thank Civil Engineering Central for providing this fine public forum.

Sincerely yours,
Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, Ph.D., P.E.,
Professor, University of California, Berkeley
and Member of the American Society of Civil engineers (ASCE)
(Web Site: http://www.ce.berkeley.edu/astaneh and http://www.astaneh.net
(End of Comment)

]]> By: ASCE Member X http://blog.civilengineeringcentral.com/2008/04/03/asce-scanal/#comment-42 ASCE Member X Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:48:16 +0000 http://civilengineeringcentral.wordpress.com/?p=27#comment-42 The administration of the ASCE is apparently corrupt as are the top brass of the US Army Corps of Engineers. Both the ASCE and the Corps have fine upstanding members and loads of ASCE members are within the Corps. The profession is trained to follow rules and it is always best not to make waves with big clients. The Corps is the biggest client of civil engineering firms in the world. This income source creates a bit of a natural complicity. The ASCE administration is so complicit that they have traveled the world telling engineering audiences about how the political culture of New Orleans is to blame for the levee failures even though the ERP did not study New Orleans politics. Please see one presentation given last year and wonder how a beltway bureaucrat can honestly give a presentation with so much "information" about the political culture down there. http://mediasite.cae.wisc.edu/Mediasite/Catalog/ The title is "New Orleans Levees" The presenter fails to tell the audience that Congress directed the Corps to design and construct a protection system for this area in the Flood Control Act of 1965 and is further dishonest in telling the audience that "no one was in charge" The administration of the ASCE is apparently corrupt as are the top brass of the US Army Corps of Engineers. Both the ASCE and the Corps have fine upstanding members and loads of ASCE members are within the Corps.

The profession is trained to follow rules and it is always best not to make waves with big clients. The Corps is the biggest client of civil engineering firms in the world. This income source creates a bit of a natural complicity. The ASCE administration is so complicit that they have traveled the world telling engineering audiences about how the political culture of New Orleans is to blame for the levee failures even though the ERP did not study New Orleans politics.

Please see one presentation given last year and wonder how a beltway bureaucrat can honestly give a presentation with so much “information” about the political culture down there.

http://mediasite.cae.wisc.edu/Mediasite/Catalog/
The title is “New Orleans Levees”

The presenter fails to tell the audience that Congress directed the Corps to design and construct a protection system for this area in the Flood Control Act of 1965 and is further dishonest in telling the audience that “no one was in charge”

]]> By: New Orleans News Ladder http://blog.civilengineeringcentral.com/2008/04/03/asce-scanal/#comment-41 New Orleans News Ladder Thu, 03 Apr 2008 18:36:45 +0000 http://civilengineeringcentral.wordpress.com/?p=27#comment-41 Yes, in answer to your question, ASCE is corrupt to every bone of their management. They have become absolute paid lackeys to the USACE, who themselves are corrupt self-seviant jail-house punks for big business. When is the last time you perused the ASCE website's personel section for jobs in Public Relations? Try it. They have gone over to the dark side. Their PR dept is second to none, not even the people who work for the Corps: http://www.scpr.com/Media_training.htm My father, a Ramblin'Wreck from Georgia Tech (top 17 of his class) and a retired Air Force Lt Colonel, held the opinion even before Katrina, that the heads of the Corps of Engineers should all be drawn out and shot if not for disobeying direct orders by over-stepping and under-performing their mandate, then just for their BAD ENGINEERING on the levees in New Orleans. I saw interviews with Raymond Seed. He was aghast and incredibly offended by the dark cloud that the ASCE casts over his profession. How about yours? Thank you, Bruce editor~New Orleans News Ladder Yes, in answer to your question,
ASCE is corrupt to every bone of their management. They have become absolute paid lackeys to the USACE, who themselves are corrupt self-seviant jail-house punks for big business.
When is the last time you perused the ASCE website’s personel section for jobs in Public Relations? Try it. They have gone over to the dark side. Their PR dept is second to none, not even the people who work for the Corps: http://www.scpr.com/Media_training.htm

My father, a Ramblin’Wreck from Georgia Tech (top 17 of his class) and a retired Air Force Lt Colonel, held the opinion even before Katrina, that the heads of the Corps of Engineers should all be drawn out and shot if not for disobeying direct orders by over-stepping and under-performing their mandate, then just for their BAD ENGINEERING on the levees in New Orleans.

I saw interviews with Raymond Seed. He was aghast and incredibly offended by the dark cloud that the ASCE casts over his profession.
How about yours?

Thank you,
Bruce
editor~New Orleans News Ladder

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