ASCE Plot Points Podcast

Civil engineering risk management is not only an important topic, it can be a nebulous one.

Gray areas, assumptions, communication breakdowns, in other words: a real mess.

So ASCE has launched a new Risk Management Community of Practice – a space for engineers to share and learn and compare notes in hopes of removing some of the confusion around risk.

Bill McAnally and Mitch Winkler are members of the ASCE Committee on Infrastructure Risk Management and together they have been the driving force to establish the new CoP.

They’ve even developed a Risk Management Primer, to help simplify risk management for civil engineers.

McAnally is a water resources engineer in Columbus, Mississippi. Winkler is a structural engineer by training with decades of experience in the oil and gas industry in Houston.

In episode 186 of ASCE Plot Points, McAnally and Winkler talk about risk management.

Listen to the episode above, and subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts.

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And join the ASCE Community of Practice on Risk Management today and start sharing.

It’s snow season in a lot of places right now – which means salt season.
And salt season isn’t great for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is contaminated water.
So, Connie Fortin and Tim Olson have a new idea.
They call it low salt design – a way of reducing the need for salt from the very start of the project.
Fortin is a low salt strategist and Olson a water resources engineer, both for Bolton and Menk in Minnesota.
In episode 185 of ASCE Plot Points, Fortin and Oloen discuss low salt design and why the solutions might be even simpler than you ever imagined.
Learn more about low salt design, including a free download with suggested solutions.
And dive deeper into the concepts in an article Fortin and Olson wrote for the ASCE Journal of Cold Regions Engineering.

After more than a decade of experience building teams that build airplanes, Lisa Schleuter has added a new job title to her resume: children’s book author.
Schleuter has published a new book called Ollie the Civil Engineer aimed at entertaining and inspiring young children.
In episode 184 of ASCE Plot Points, Schleuter talks about Ollie, her career in civil engineering, and how she came to find herself as a newly minted author.

AI takes up a lot of oxygen in the room right now.
But when it comes to specific impacts, do we have a strong industry-wide understanding? Does anyone know?
Mark Coates, vice president of the Infrastructure Policy Advancement team at Bentley Systems, set about finding out.
His group helped lead a global study to better understand the topic, looking at AI in three main areas: readiness, risk, and returns.
In episode 183 of ASCE Plot Points, Coates discusses the survey and what the results suggest about the future of the industry.

This Thanksgiving week we’re reminded of the deep connection between civil engineering and community service.
Which of course means the civil engineers who have made that kind of generosity a way of life.
Aleesha Toteja is one such civil engineer.
A project manager for Halff in Austin, Texas, Toteja devotes countless hours to help a variety of causes both through her employer’s outreach programs, the ASCE Austin Branch, and her day-to-day public works projects.
In episode 182 of ASCE Plot Points, Toteja talks about her her generous spirit and why maybe it’s a characteristic that a lot of civil engineers share.

And next week on #GivingTuesday, when you donate to the ASCE Foundation, your generosity will go twice as far. Every gift to the ASCE Foundation made on Dec. 2 will be matched dollar-for-dollar up to $10,000 by ASCE leadership. Learn more at ASCEFoundation.org.