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President's Message - July 2016

Hi Dallas Branch! The summer heat is finally here. I hope you are enjoying your summer! 

I would like to thank Mr. Khaled Naja with DFW Airport for coming to speak to us at last month’s meeting. Mr. Naja spoke about some of the airport’s recent projects as well as the vision and future of the airport. Due to DFW’s geographic location within the U.S., the airport is competing globally with the biggest airports in the world. What really excites me is how DFW Airport is committed to providing our profession the opportunity to play a major role in seeing that vision become a reality. It truly is an exciting time to be a civil engineer 

The Annual ASCE DFW Joint Meeting is finally here! As I mentioned in last month’s President’s Message, the meeting will once again be at the Hilton in Arlington on July 11, 2016. This meeting provides you with the opportunity to network with your peers on both sides of the metroplex and acquire up to 5 PDHs at the same time. We will have Commissioner Victor Vandergriff as our keynote speaker at our luncheon. As our population continues to grow in the State, it is important that we continue to invest in our infrastructure. With the passing of the recent Propositions, I’m excited to hear Mr. Vandergriff provide a TxDOT update.

Prior to the luncheon, the Institutes will provide three 1-hour technical sessions in the morning giving you up to fifteen sessions to choose from. Please take a look at the schedule as we have some very good speakers again this year. Following the luncheon, we will have an ethics seminar given by David Howell, P.E., with TBPE to wrap up the day.

Finally, we will be having a raffle for scholarships again this month. We will be offering up to $500 in prizes so please be sure to buy your tickets online when you register. All the proceeds from the raffle will go towards our G.B. Mann Scholarship Fund so we can continue to give out scholarships to deserving high school students wanting to pursue a career in Civil Engineering.

Registration is now open for the meeting. Please click here to register early so we can provide the hotel with an accurate number of people. I look forward to seeing everyone there!

Before closing, I would like to give you a quick update regarding our meeting location for next year. The Board approved staying at the Crowne Plaza Dallas Galleria-Addison again in 2017. The Board conducted an extensive search for hotels that could accommodate an organization of our size as well as ensure our meetings are in a centralized location and maintaining a reasonable cost each month. We learned during this process that all hotels, within our area, are raising prices for meals and charging for parking. Our relationship with Crowne Plaza afforded us the opportunity to minimize the increased cost for next year. As you are aware, the hotel has outsourced parking which has caused some confusion each month. We have negotiated the cost for parking into our overall cost for each meeting; therefore, when you arrive you don’t have to pay. Please feel free to let us know if you have any comments regarding the hotel so we can pass it onto our hotel representative.

Brad Hernandez, PE
President
ASCE Dallas Branch, 2015-2016