ASCE Plot Points Podcast

Every career journey has stops along the way. And for many people, those are just called jobs.
But for the lucky among us, those stops along the way eventually add up to a destination job.
But for Melissa Hilsabeck, EIT, A.M.ASCE, she’s found that destination job very early in her career.
She’s a capital projects coordinator in the construction management division for the Port of Long Beach.
On episode 126 of the ASCE Plot Points podcast, Hilsabeck talks about her career journey and the many exciting projects happening at the port.

These days it takes a lot of different people with a lot of different skills to make civil engineering happen.
It really comes down to teamwork and technology.
On episode 125 of the ASCE Plot Points podcast, Bentley Ruggles, a senior project manager for Dewberry, talks about how virtual reality technology is changing the way projects get done. 

Efficiency is essential these days.
There isn’t enough time or money for anything less.
And efficiency is borne of innovation.
The Office of Public Transportation in Alabama is one such innovation – a partnership between the state department of transportation and the University of Alabama in Huntsville with the simple goal of improving transit for the citizens of Alabama.
In episode 124 of ASCE Plot Points, two Alabama Office of Public Transporation leaders, Mehrnaz Doustmohammadi and Michael Anderson, discuss the collaboration and if the model could be a good fit in other parts of the country.

Joel Figueroa-Vallines, P.E., F.ASCE, is a structural and forensic engineer and president of SEP+A Engineering Consulting, headquartered in Orlando.
He left home to drive south for Surfside, Florida, last summer in the aftermath of the tragic collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium. He wound up staying for three weeks, helping where he could.
In episode 123 of ASCE Plot Points, Figueroa-Vallines reflects on the tragedy a year later and how he’s seen it change the industry.

Big-picture thinking, long-term planning - they seem to be at a premium these days.But not in Reno, Nevada.Not when it comes to clean water.Danny Rotter is an engineering manager for the Truckee Meadows Water Authority in Reno, and he works as part of a team that is using scenario planning and detailed data analysis to ensure the region's clean water future all the way out to the year 2100.On episode 122 of the ASCE Plot Points, Rotter talks about how that process works and why it's so important. 
 

Civil engineering careers can take many shapes.
You can work for a giant firm. You can work for a smaller firm.
But what about those medium-sized firms?
On episode 121 of the ASCE Plot Points, Sam Potts, a transportation engineer in Los Angeles, California, details the benefits of working for a medium-sized firm.

Society members recently voted Marsia Geldert Murphey as the ASCE 2023 president-elect.
Clearly, her accomplishments and vision for the organization spoke volumes.
But what many members might not know is that six years ago, Geldert-Murphey wasn’t running for ASCE office; she was just hoping to get out of bed, after an accident left her in a coma.
In episode 120 of the ASCE Plot Points podcast, Geldert-Murphey reflects on how that accident changed her life and her journey into ASCE leadership.

The ASCE Society-wide concrete canoe competition returns this weekend for the first time since 2019 – June 3-5 at Louisiana Tech University.
In episode 119 of the ASCE Plot Points podcast, two senior project leads – Ryan Carrusca and Natalia Hoeppner or the University of British Columbia and Lipscomb University respectively – talk about their teams’ journeys and hopes for the competition. 

May is National Wildfire Awareness Month.
Doug Taylor knows. The former president of both the ASCE San Francisco Section and Fresno Branch spent six years as the Region 9 disaster preparedness chair. He's helped get civil engineers trained and certified to serve as site inspectors in the aftermath of wildfires.
In episode 118 of the ASCE Plot Points podcast, Taylor talks about how wildfires continue to affect his homestate of California and what civil engineers can do to help.

Holly Piza, P.E., M.ASCE, is the research and development director at Mile High Flood District in Denver and the 2022 president of ASCE’s Environmental and Water Resources Institute.
In episode of 117 of the ASCE Plot Points podcast, Piza talks with guest hosts Brianne Duncan and Wendy Cohen of the EWRI Environmental Health and Water Quality Committee about her career path.