This week, thousands visited SEAOSC’s first SoCal Gingerbread Challenge in person and online to see revel in the festive creations made by more than a dozen teams from across the region. (If you weren’t able to make it, you can visit the structures online here.) On Thursday, dozens of engineers and industry professionals assembled at the Burbank Town Center where they had only five hours to create (and decorate) their structures. The results were impressive, as many of the in-person attendees reacted to seeing the structures with gasps of awe and disbelief: “These were built in only 5 hours!?”

From Friday through Sunday, the public was invited to see what Structural Engineers do when it comes to making buildings stand up. From the youngest “future engineer” to retirees who were interested in seeing the spectacle, all ages came to the exhibit to see the structures. While judges, including an architect and building official, evaluated the structures on Friday morning, all attendees and online visitors were invited to cast a vote for their favorite structure – the most votes being crowned the people’s choice award. And as a way to give back this season, every structure was paired with a nonprofit organization; and every vote was a donation to that partner organization. By 5pm on Sunday, when the voting had closed, more than 3,000 votes had been cast in person and online.

With the competition closed, teams returned to the location where they had spent an intense five hours just days before for an awards ceremony and reception. The results were in; the judges and public had spoken. The winners were:

1. People’s Choice: Union Station (Structural Focus/Architectural Resources Group)

2. President’s Award: Union Station (Structural Focus/Architectural Resources Group)

3. Best in Show: Once-ler’s House from The Lorax (SGH)

4. Tallest: Eastern Columbia Building (Structural Technologies)

5. Most Creative Original Structure: ICC 'Elf-valuation' Service Certification Workshop (ICC-ES)

6. Best Replica Building: Ramón C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts (IMEG)

7. Best Decorated: Casita from Encanto (Buro Happold)

Dear Members,

I hope each of you had a happy and restful Thanksgiving weekend. This year has felt incredibly busy, and I think we all needed a break! 

As we move towards the end of the year, I’d like to invite you to attend our first annual SoCal Gingerbread Challenge this week, December 9 – 11 at Burbank Town Center. This event is designed to help non-engineers understand what we do as structural engineers in a fun and memorable way.  Our teams have come up with creative and exciting designs that I can’t wait to see created out of gingerbread!  We’re also using the Gingerbread Challenge as an opportunity to give back to our community.  Each gingerbread team is partnering with a local philanthropy, to which SEAOSC will be donating a portion of the proceeds. Bring your friends and family – kids who attend will be able to build their own gingerbread structure and test it on SEAOSC’s shake table. Hope to see you there! 

Warmest Regards,

Patti Harburg - Petrich, S.E.
SEAOSC President 2022-23

Dear Members,

We have all seen a lot of change the last three or four years - change in our homes, communities, and professional industry. The way we do business, the way we connect with one another, and the cultures of our work environments have all been rethought. The operations of SEAOSC are no exception, and we are excited about the direction the association is headed in service to our members and the profession as a whole.

The SEAOSC Board of Directors feels this is the right time to reevaluate the association bylaws to bring them in alignment with the trajectory of the industry and to better reflect the way we do business. A lot has changed since the last set of amendments were made over 20 years ago, and there is no time like the present to dig in and do the work.  For those of you eligible, please take a moment to review the first round proposed amendments and take part in the democratic process. It's one of the main roles of a voting member of the association: to help decide on the future of your association. The bylaws are the foundation of that future. We ask that you login in and vote today on the proposed changes.  If you have any comments or suggestions, or if you are interested in joining the committee for future conversations, please reach out to the SEAOSC office at seaosc@seaosc.org.

Sincerely,

Kelsey Anne Parolini, S.E.
2022-23 SEAOSC Bylaws Committee Chair

Dear Members,

I have two interesting and exciting upcoming events to share with you this week.

First, I hope you can join SEAOSC for our Risky Business Breakfast in Orange County on November 15. Board Member Maria Mohammed will moderate a panel on risk management featuring Dr. Vida Tarassoly, Karin Thorp, and Jeff Crosier. The discussion will cover a range of topics important to your practice, whether you are an emerging professional or seasoned engineer, including common missteps that lead to lawsuits, personal liability versus firm liability, and how to get invoices paid. Sign up now at seaosc.org/event-4897917.

And next, I’d like to invite you to participate in SEAOSC’s Inaugural Gingerbread Challenge at Burbank Town Center on December 8! This event is designed to showcase what we do as structural engineers to non-engineers in a fun and memorable way. Teams will have the opportunity to build the gingerbread structure of your dreams and compete for prizes! The gingerbread will be provided – no baking is required. Even more exciting, we’re partnering with local philanthropies to give back to the community. You don’t need to be an engineer or architect to participate on a team –just bring your festive spirit and creativity! Sign up now at seaosc.org/socalgingerbreadchallenge.

Hope to see you soon!

Warmest Regards,

Patti Harburg - Petrich, S.E.
SEAOSC President 2022-23

On Tuesday, October 18th, the SEAOSC and AIA LA communities came together at the Buro Happold office in DTLA to delve deep into recent adaptive reuse projects. The event offered an opportunity to engage on the importance of adaptive reuse structures in preserving culture, promoting sustainability, and cultivating existing spaces--including for new housing.

Roberto Vazquez (Omgivning), Dr. Luis Toranzo (KPFF), and Russell McLellan (SGH) presented three case studies, each with their own challenges: the Lane Building, a non-ductile concrete building built in the 1920’s with extreme torsion issues; the Historic San Jose City Hall, a neglected but beautiful 1950’s curved structure repurposed to provide new housing; and 2. N Lake, a 1980’s (pre-Northridge) moment frame building in Pasadena with a proposed damper solution to increase ductility.

The three presentations were emblematic of a common theme: adaptive reuse is not only vital to maintain and enhance historic architecture, it is quite often the most sustainable way to create a new building space and provides a concrete solution to Los Angeles’s current housing crisis. The panel of presenters provided different engineering and architectural perspectives on what goes into revitalizing existing structures and bringing them up to code (or to the peer reviewers’ standards). 

With such a successful turnout, SEAOSC and AIA LA plan to continue the series in 2023 and expand to touch on topics of policies, tools, and case studies to continue to build collaboration between engineers and architects.

Images by Genevieve Graham

See all event photos here.

Dear Members,

It was great to see the fantastic turnout at our SEAOSC Committee Showcase last Wednesday. I’d like to thank all the committee members who helped us master minigolf, Structural Focus for hosting us, our generous sponsors Fyfe, DuraFuse, and Safe-T-Proof, and Stratiscope for all their work in planning and executing an amazing night.

It was exciting to see such interest from our members in participating in our committees. There is a diversity of committees to get involved in, from technical subjects to member engagement. Committees offer an opportunity for each of us, as structural engineers, to both contribute to our profession and our community but also gain professional development and grow our personal networks.

The first SEAOSC committee I participated in was the Sustainability Committee, back in 2005. I learned a lot, not just about sustainability but how to move an initiative forward, how to create consensus, and how SEAOSC works as an Association. The relationships I made through my work in the Sustainability Committee continue to be valuable today, over 15 years later.

Today, our Committees are producing great work, from the upcoming Leadership Symposium to white papers to helping influence new legislation.

There is something for everyone in our SEAOSC Committees, for any background or level of experience. The more diverse perspectives we hear, the stronger our Association will be. I encourage you to reach out and participate in a committee that interests you!

https://seaosc.org/Committee-Pages

Warmest Regards,

Patti Harburg - Petrich, S.E.
SEAOSC President 2022-23

Dear Members,

The 2022 SEAOC Convention was as hot as the desert was!  

I’d like to congratulate Tim Kaucher and the 2022 SEAOC Convention Committee for an amazing job. The Convention was a great opportunity to reconnect with our community of structural engineers, learn about the latest technical advances, grow the profession through the Pathways program, and have a lot of fun. I’d also like to give a shout out to the SEAOSC President’s Cup team who came together with a W for our MO! A huge thank you to all who contributed to this year’s incredibly successful Convention. 

Committee Team: 

Exhibitors

• Tom Harris & Angel Leon

Technical

• Laura Basualdo, Alfred Tran, Jeena Jayamon

Convention Social Functions

• Eric Velazquez, Andrea Aguilar

Young Members

• Leslie Martinez Hernandez

Presidents Cup

• Julia De Hart

Convention App and Registration

• Alejandra Bravo

Cal Poly Slo Students who helped with Registration as well as whatever was asked of them (including President’s Cup!): 

• Morgan Cuthbert
• Sasha Padilla
• Shaina Dickie
• Brayden Martinez

Special Thanks to: 

• Kendall Johnson, chair for 2023 and was invaluable in her help with the app/registration software and who had great input throughout our convention
• Jessica Chen & Sikandar Porter-Gill for help with the Pathways Mentoring Roundtable
• Andy Liu, Ashley Gaur, David Pomerleau, Jakub Valigura, Kevin Chang, Nilofar Doorandish, Rahul Sharma, Xiaomi Mitsuhashi for their assistance with the review and rating of the technical abstracts.

We have an exciting lineup of events coming up. 

This week, on September 14, join SEAOSC at Brass Bear Brewing in Santa Barbara for the first Structured Connections of the year. You’ll hear from Andrew Stuffler, SEAOSC’s 2021 Building Official of the Year. Andrew will be speaking about the Cal OES Safety Assessment Program lead staff changes, SAP outreach efforts, and the SAP deployment challenges that we should all expect from extreme weather and anticipated major earthquakes in south Santa Barbara County. 

I can’t wait for our 2022 Committee Showcase on September 28 at Structural Focus. Come join SEAOSC for a fun evening of mini golf, biergarten, and the Kogi truck while you learn about what our committees are planning for the upcoming year.  Each committee will be hosting their own mini golf hole! If you thought last year was fun, this year is looking to be even better. 

Congrats again on a great Convention and hope to see you soon! 

Warmest Regards,

Patti Harburg - Petrich, S.E.
SEAOSC President 2022-23

Our summer tournament returned in 2022 with a sold out event for the first time in many years (or possibly ever…)! Our members were clearly ready for some time on the course with familiar faces as we put the past two years of the COVID restrictions behind us! We returned again to Friendly Hills Country Club (FHCC) in Whittier on Monday, August 8, and everyone played well! We had over 140 golfers and nearly 150 in attendance this year. 

We were treated to great weather with sunny skies and a nice breeze. Special thanks to our sponsors: SIKA (golf ball sponsor),Structural (golf cart sponsor), ASC Steel Deck, NRMCA, Concrete West (hole-in-one sponsors), NUCOR Vulcraft (golf air cannon sponsor), DuraFuse, FYFE, Orca Aggregates, Hilti (birdie sponsors). We also want to thank our Anchor Sponsor, CSI, and our Sustaining Sponsors: Optimum Seismic, Simpson Strong-Tie, Structural Technologies, Fenagh Engineering and Testing, and Saunders. Thanks also to the significant number of foursomes from over two dozen structural engineering and industry firms. 

We had a scorecard playoff for 1^st place this year with a tie for the top two scores of 56 (at 19 under). It took 4 tiebreakers on the scorecard to get a winner! 1^st place tournament winners were Jeff Crosier, Roger Egge, Dan McCarthy, and Larry Nelson. 2^nd place tournament winners were Scott Stevens, Don Sunseri, Stephen Brown, and Brian Winley. Closest to the pin awards went to Don Sunseri (on #8) and Nick Caniglia (on Hole #16). Long drive awards went to Josh Todd and Markie McCauley.  Accurate drive award went to Dave Hansen.  

Thanks again to everyone’s participation. A portion of the proceeds will be going to the SEAOSC Foundation, providing students scholarships, sponsoring research, and advancing the structural engineering profession. We look forward to doing this again in 2023. Should we return to FHCC again next August? Let us know at our survey here.

Happy golfing!

Craig Chamberlain
2022 SEAOSC Golf Tournament Chair

Dan Fox
2022 SEAOSC Golf Tournament Vice Chair

Dear Members,

One of the most rewarding aspects of belonging to SEAOSC for me is getting to know and work with a wide range of amazing engineers. I’m proud to be part of an organization that is taking steps to create a more diverse and inclusive profession, through our Diversity and Inclusion Committee, our WiSE Committee, and other efforts like the recent Firm Roundtable.

In my short term as president, there have been a number of social issues that can't be ignored. Engineers have an important role to play in our community that can go beyond structural safety. Because of our training, we know how to look at things in multiple ways to ensure we are pragmatic in the way we make decisions. When we design a building, we need to consider the structure in three dimensions, and it is similarly important to consider different perspectives when looking at issues that affect us and our community. With the training you have, I encourage you to have these conversations because as engineers, we know how to take an analytical approach that creates a valuable perspective. We need to continue to show dignity and respect for different opinions, and we need to trust and support peers from all backgrounds and beliefs.

There is a place for every engineer at SEAOSC - technical committees, member focus committees, event committees, and task forces. If you have one hour a month, we have a place for you. If you have one hour every three months, we have a place for you. We are a stronger association when we hear from different voices and perspectives. We are all one association. We welcome your engagement and participation.

Warmest Regards,

Patti Harburg - Petrich, S.E.
SEAOSC President 2022-23

Dear Members,

I am incredibly excited for the start of our 2022-2023 year at SEAOSC!

This year, my focus is on Membership Engagement. I want to make sure that SEAOSC is providing value to each of you, both personally and professionally. I would love to see new members join our SEAOSC community.

It is also an exciting year for our Association with the new code coming out in 2023. Keep an eye out for programming related to this.

We have some great events coming up, including our Golf Tournament on August 8 (get your tickets now, we are almost sold out!), the SEAOC Convention August 31 – September 3 in Indian Wells, and our Committee Showcase in September – this event is going to be just as fun as last year’s!

I’d like to thank the Education Committee, Existing Buildings Committee, and all the speakers for delivering a fantastic Technical Summit last month on Seismic Retrofit. The content was interesting and valuable. I learned something I was able to use already.

I’d also like to congratulate the SEAOSC Members who were recognized at the President’s Lunch: Michael Ciortea, Sikandar Porter-Gill, Jessica Chen, Elitsa Vutova, Vickey Rogers, Luke Lombardi, Peter Maranian, Colin Kumabe, Margaux Burkeholder, Dan Fox, and Craig Chamberlain. A special shout out to SEAOC Fellows Jesse Karns and Mehran Pourzanjani – I look forward to celebrating with you at the SEAOC Convention.

And lastly, a big thank you to Past President Kelsey Anne Parolini. You are an incredible leader and you did great things for SEAOSC last year.

Warmest Regards,

SEAOSC President 2022-23