PEOPLE WATCH

• Jaster-Quintanilla’s Managing Principal Stephen H. Lucy, P.E. was named an Honorary Member of the Texas Society of Architects
• PEER announces new Director Stephen Mahin
• The Portland Cement Association Board of Directors elected Enrique Escalante as chairman
• Virginia Tech’s Mike Duncan to receive national education award in civil engineering

Jaster-Quintanilla’s Managing Principal Stephen H. Lucy, P.E. was named an Honorary Member of the Texas Society of Architects

DALLAS—Jaster-Quintanilla (JQ) announced that its managing principal in Dallas, Stephen H. Lucy, P.E. was named an Honorary Member by the Texas Society of Architects (TSA).

Lucy was recognized for his leadership and voluntary contribution of time to improve civic structures in the Dallas community. As a Professional Fellow for the Center for Heritage Conservation in the College of Architecture at Texas A&M University, he has advocated for historic preservation and sustainable structures throughout his engineering career.

In Dallas, Lucy’s firm engineered the modern structural steel framing for the Cathedral Shrine of the Virgin of Guadalupe’s new bell tower, designed in the late 1890s, but built 100 years later to celebrate the church’s centennial.

Lucy has also been involved in the renovation of many of Texas’ landmark courthouses, including the Ellis County Courthouse (the most photographed in the state) and the Bosque County Courthouse.

These hallmark historic preservation achievements throughout Texas are only one example of Lucy’s engineering leadership. Among his other accomplishments are the following:

• Past president of the North Central Texas Chapter and former State Director of the Structural Engineers Association of Texas;
• Past president of the Northeast Texas Chapter of the American Concrete Institute;
• Past president of the North Texas Chapter of the International Concrete Repair Institute, and
• Building Advisory Council member of Preservation Texas

A former member of the Board of Directors for Friends of Fair Park, Lucy currently serves on the Board of Directors of the ACE Mentor Program, a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing the awareness of high school students to career opportunities in architecture, construction and engineering and related areas of the design and construction industry.

He is also president of the Board of Trustees for the Canterbury Episcopal School in DeSoto, Texas—a school that has been recognized as one of the top five most diverse private schools in the nation.

This year, Lucy hosted the first "Salute to Sustainable Design Education," recognized by the City of Dallas and bringing together faculty and students throughout the State who are engaged in sustainable projects, including the Solar Decathlon. Lucy’s firm sponsored the Texas A&M team in last year’s competition. As a legacy initiative, Lucy, a Texas A&M alumnus, proposed and funded the first graduate fellowship to Texas A&M for sustainable education.


PEER announces new Director Stephen Mahin

BERKELEY, Calif.—Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER) announced that, with concurrence of the PEER Institutional Board and the University of California, Berkeley, the identity and management of the nine-campus Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research Center (PEER) and the UC Berkeley Earthquake Engineering Research Center (EERC) are being officially integrated. The new research center will retain the name "PEER" and will continue to represent the nine campuses of the original PEER, while incorporating the facilities and the Organized Research Unit status of the original EERC.

Additionally, PEER Director Jack Moehle and EERC Director Nick Sitar are stepping down from their respective positions, effective December 31, 2008. Professor Moehle thus ends a long tenure, serving first as EERC Director (1991-2001) and then as the founding Director of PEER (1996-2008). Professor Sitar is completing a five-year term as EERC Director, including a very successful inauguration of the nees@berkeley equipment site of the George E. Brown Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation. Both Professors Moehle and Sitar will continue as active participants in the new PEER.

Lastly, it is our great pleasure to introduce Professor Stephen Mahin as the new PEER Director effective January 1, 2009. Steve has been a key active member of PEER since its inception, serving as member of PEER Research Committee, Thrust Area Leader on Transportation Systems, and member of PEER Institutional Board. Steve received his BS, MS, and Ph.D. degrees from UC Berkeley, and has been on the faculty of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Berkeley for three decades. His expertise ranges from engineering characterization of ground motion to seismic performance of buildings and transportation systems. Following the 1994 Northridge earthquake, Steve was leader of the SAC Steel Project funded by FEMA, a multi-year and multi-disciplinary national seismic project that successfully developed new seismic design provisions for steel moment frames that form the basis of today’s codes. Steve is an internationally renowned expert in earthquake engineering.

This is an exciting era for the new PEER in which several research programs are continuing while major new research initiatives are emerging. PEER’s vision under the new leadership is to continue its tradition of excellence in earthquake engineering through broad participation of the PEER community.

We thank all of our friends and colleagues in academia, private practice, and government agencies who all play an integral part in PEER’s success. We hope you will join us in thanking the outgoing Directors Moehle and Sitar, while welcoming incoming Director Mahin.


The Portland Cement Association Board of Directors elected Enrique Escalante as chairman

SKOKIE, Ill.— The Portland Cement Association (PCA) Board of Directors elected Enrique Escalante as chairman during the association’s Fall board meeting in Dallas, Texas. Escalante will serve a two-year term as PCA chairman, succeeding Charlie Sunderland of Ash Grove Cement Company.

Escalante is the current president of GCC of America, Denver, Colo. He joined GCC in 1999 as president of its Mexican division, moving to his current position in 2000. Prior to joining GCC, Escalante had more than 20 years experience in management and sales positions in heavy industry and construction materials.

In addition to serving as PCA’s vice chairman for the past two years, Escalante served as chairman of Research and Technical Council and Product Standards and Technology Committee. He was a member of the Regional Promotion and Publications Committees.

Escalante is a graduate of the Technologic Institute of Monterrey with an Engineering Degree and earned an MBA from Cornell University.

Aris Papadopoulos, CEO of Titan America, the U.S. subsidiary of Titan Cement Group, was elected vice chair. In addition, he serves as chair of PCA’s Sustainable Development Committee.


Virginia Tech’s Mike Duncan to receive national education award in civil engineering

BLACKSBURG, Va.,—Virginia Tech University Distinguished Professor Emeritus J. Michael Duncan, of the College of Engineering’s (http://www.eng.vt.edu) Via Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, will receive the 2009 Outstanding Projects and Leaders (OPAL) Lifetime Achievement Award for Education from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) on April 23.

Each year ASCE awards five OPAL lifetime achievement awards, one each in the categories of construction, design, education, government, and management. "For Mike to be selected as the one recipient across all nominees in the education category is truly an outstanding accomplishment and fine recognition of the many achievements Mike has had throughout his career," said William Knocke, civil and environmental engineering department head.

A member of the Virginia Tech community since 1984, Duncan has made substantial contributions to the discipline of geotechnical engineering through his work in areas of soil shear strength and slope stability, seepage through soils, embankment dam engineering, and finite element analysis methods for soil structures. He served as a consultant on several major geotechnical projects such as the Panama Canal and the levee and flood-control structure failures associated with Hurricane Katrina.

For his work, Duncan has received several prominent awards including his election to the National Academic of Engineering. He is Distinguished Member of the ASCE. He has received three Outstanding Faculty Awards at the University of California, Berkeley, the George Westinghouse national teaching award from the American Society for Engineering Education, four College of Engineering Teaching Excellence Awards at Virginia Tech, and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Alumni Teaching Excellence Award in 2002.

He presented the Laurits Bjerrum Memorial Lecture in 1991, the Terzaghi Lecture in 1991, the Jack Hilf Memorial Lecture in 1997, the Arthur Casagrande Memorial Lecture in 1998, the George Sowers Memorial Lecture in 1999, the Spencer J. Buchanan Lecture in 1999, the Mueser-Rutledge Lecture in 2000, the Cullen Distinguished Lecture at the University of Houston in 2002, the Stanley Wilson Lecture in 2003, and the Kenneth L. Lee Memorial Lecture in 2004.

He has been awarded the Collingwood Prize, the Huber Research Prize, the Middlebrooks Award (in 1980, 1987, and 2003), the Wellington Prize, the State-of-the-Art Award, and the Bechtel Pipeline Engineering Award from ASCE, was named the Outstanding Engineering Educator in Virginia in 1994, and the Terzaghi Award from ASCE in 2003. In 2007 he was awarded the Outstanding Civilian Service Medal by the Department of the Army for his work investigating failures of floodwalls and levees in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, the 2008 H. Bolton Seed Medal from ASCE, and was awarded foreign honorary membership in the Japanese Geotechnical Society in 2008.

Duncan received his bachelor’s degree and master’s degree from Georgia Tech, and his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley.

Duncan’s lifetime achievement award will be presented at the OPAL/OCEA Awards dinner in Washington D.C., on April 23rd.