IN THIS ISSUE
** CECO ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE AWARDS - Call For Entries
** WELCOME NEW MEMBERS
** 2000-2001 MEETING CALENDAR
** CECO GOING TO ST. THOMAS IN 2001
** ACEC GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS REPORT
** WHY YOU MUST CARE ABOUT CALIFORNIA'S PROP 35
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CECO ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE AWARDS
Call For Entries
CECO announces the 2001 Engineering Excellence Awards Program by this Call for Entries. This is the first time in many years that CECO has sponsored a state competition, and we urge firms to participate.
The timetable for the Oklahoma Program is:
** November 10, 2000 - Deadline for receipt of entries
** November 18, 2000 - Judging by a panel of judges selected from business, government, and education leaders in Oklahoma
** The five winning firms will be notified immediately following the judging to allow the firms to finalize their submissions to the ACEC competition.
** January 25, 2001 - Announcement of OKLAHOMA WINNERS at a special CECO meeting and Awards Luncheon with both winning Firms and their Clients as Special Guests.
The Awards will be: (1) Grand Oklahoma Conceptor and four (4) Oklahoma Honor Awards. The five (5) winning Entries are eligible to be submitted to the ACEC National EEA Program. Deadline for submission to ACEC is January 15, 2001. The ACEC Awards Presentation will be March 13, 2001 in Washington DC at which ALL ENTRIES will be displayed.
CRITERIA FOR ENTRY:
1. The Criteria and Requirements from the ACEC Engineering Excellence Awards Program will generally be followed for the Oklahoma Program, as outlined in the ACEC "Call for Entries" bulletin. Bulletins were included in the Summer, 2000 ACE magazine, and are also available either through the ACEC office in Washington or at the CECO office.
2. Projects entered in the competition must have been substantially completed and ready for use between January 1, 1999 and October 31, 2000.
3. Project entered can be either projects within Oklahoma designed by in-state or out-of-state firms, OR, out-of-state projects designed by Oklahoma firms.
SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS (Refer to ACEC brochure, "Notebook Requirements"):
Entries must include the following:
* 30" x 30" Display Panel mounted on foam board.
* Entry Fee: $150 for members of CECO; $500 for non-members, payable to CECO.
* A loose-leaf notebook containing:
1. Completed ACEC Entry Form including all required signatures. NOTE - DO NOT send the entry fee for the ACEC competition, and DO NOT send anything (entry form, panel, notebook, etc.) to ACEC at this time.
2. Five (5) copies of Project Description as required in item 4 of the ACEC Brochure.
3. Five (5) copies of the Executive Summary as required in Item 5 of the ACEC Brochure
4. A minimum of four (4) 35 mm slides with a narrative description of each.
5. Digital copy of the display panel as required under Item 11 of the ACEC Brochure.
GENERAL
Please note that the detailed "Notebook" required for the ACEC Program is not required for the Oklahoma competition, but entrants are encouraged to prepare such a notebook anyway in preparation for submittal to ACEC.
Note that ACEC has made significant changes in the deadlines and submission requirements (i.e. Digital copy of the panel).
ACEC deadlines have been changed to accommodate moving the National Awards Presentation to Washington, DC for a major ACEC Event. All State entries will be displayed and recognized as part of the National Awards event. This will provide significant exposure of your entry, especially to Members of Congress, Agency Officials, as well as International and Washington dignitaries.
Your Display Panel and other materials WILL NOT BE RETURNED. CECO plans to display all entry panels in various sites throughout the year, including the State Capital, Oklahoma City and Tulsa Council Chambers, Airports, etc.
After the CECO Program awards are made, the judges critique comments will be sent to all entrants for their guidance in submitting their entry to ACEC. At that time, entrants may want to make final changes before producing several copies of their display panel (for ACEC submittal, their own use, etc.).
If you would like to see the panels from the 2000 competition, you can view them on the ACEC Web Site, http://www.acec.org/eea/eea_main.htm. All of the entries in the 2000 competition are available based on the category in which the projects were entered. Click on the picture thumbnail to enlarge to screen size.
This is a very prestigious competition nationally, and we hope to develop it into an outstanding state program also. To do that, however, we need your assistance and participation.
If you have any questions, call CECO EEA Committee Chair Paul Sprehe at 405/840-4063 or the CECO office, 405/525-7696.
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WELCOME NEW MEMBERS
CECO would like to welcome two new member firms to CECO and ACEC.
Vieux and Associates, Inc., is a Norman based firm which offers GIS, Hydrology and Radar Rainfall services. Baxter Vieux, PhD, P.E., and Jean Vieux are the principals of the firm. Their office is located at 1215 Crossroads Blvd., Suite 118, Norman, 73072, telephone and fax 405-973-2259.
MTF Engineering, Inc., is headed by Mark Tatarian and Tom Fox. The mechanical/electrical firm is located at 7004 N.W. 63rd, Suite 101, Bethany, 73008, telephone 405-720-7350.
We welcome both Vieux and Associates and MTF Engineering, and look forward to having both firms as active members of CECO and ACEC.
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MEETING CALENDAR
ACEC Fall Conference
September 28-30, 2000
San Diego, CA
CECO Board & General Meeting
November 16, 2000 (Luncheon)
Oklahoma City, OK
CECO Board & General Meeting
January 25, 2001 (Luncheon)
Tulsa
ACEC Consulting Congress Day/EEA
March 13-14, 2001
Washington, DC
CECO Board & General Meeting
April 26, 2001
Oklahoma City, OK
5:00pm
ACEC Annual Convention
May 13-16, 2001
San Antonio, TX
CECO Annual Convention (w/Mo. and Ark.)
Marriott Renaissance Grand Beach Resort
June 6-13, 2001
St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands
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CECO GOING TO ST. THOMAS IN 2001
For many years, CECO has been holding joint annual conventions with Arkansas. More recently, CEC/Missouri has joined in also for what has become a traditional tri-state convention.
Every fourth year, Missouri has gone "out of country" by holding their convention in the U.S. Virgin Islands. 2001 being the fourth year of the cycle, Missouri is going to St. Thomas for their upcoming convention, and, they invited Arkansas and Oklahoma to join them.
A couple of weeks ago, the Board of Directors of ACEC/Arkansas voted to join Missouri in St. Thomas, leaving CECO as the "odd man" out.
Well, not to be outdone, at the CECO meeting on August 24th, your Board of Directors took the bold step to take the 2001 CECO Convention to St. Thomas June 6-13 with Missouri and Arkansas.
This was a decision which the Board did not take lightly. It is the first time that CECO has seriously considered going out of the country, with cost being the major concern. As it ends up, the hotel in St. Thomas is only $105.00 per night, which is about $75.00 per night less that the hotel this year in Branson. Traditionally, registration fees for Missouri's "island" conventions have been on par with the tri-state meetings of recent years. So, the only major consideration was air fare. At this time, it is hard to determine the actual cost of transportation, but CEC/Missouri tells us that generally you can estimate about $600 per person for air fare.
And, since the Convention will be held in the U.S. Virgin Islands, it is fully tax deductible just as if it were held stateside.
While the dates are listed as Wednesday, June 6th through Wednesday, June 13th (with the two Wednesday's being travel days), the main body of the Convention will be Thursday through Saturday as with the traditional tri-state meetings. The main business and educational sessions will be held Thursday, Friday and Saturday, which would allow participants to come home as early as Sunday if they wish. On the remaining days, educational breakfast programs will be held to satisfy tax requirements, with the balance of the days free for you to enjoy the island.
The Convention will be held at the Marriott Renaissance Grand Beach Resort. To get an overview of the hotel, visit their web site at http://www.renaissancehotels.com/STTSR.
If you have never been to St. Thomas, it is a beautiful island (12 miles long and 3 miles wide) in the crystal blue waters of the Caribbean. To learn more about the island, and its sister islands St. Johns and St. Croix, visit either http://st-thomas.com/, or http://www.travelfacts.com/tfacts/htm/stt/sttdest.htm. Once you do, we feel confident that you won't want to miss out on this Convention.
Much more information will be coming soon, so for now, mark your calendar for June 6-13, 2001, for the Oklahoma-Arkansas-Missouri Tri-State Convention in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands.
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ACEC GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS REPORT
Now is the Time to Contribute to Prop 35! - It's Now or Never.
If the engineering industry is going to beat back efforts of
the public employee unions that could destroy our industry through
recent state and national initiatives, we need your help now!
http://www.acec.org/programs/wr08312000.htm#35
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Secretary Slater Urges Veto of DOT Spending Bill - DOT Secretary
Rodney Slater said last week that he would urge the White House
to veto the Transportation Appropriations Bill (HR 4475) presently
in a House-Senate Conference if certain ACEC-opposed provisions
were not adopted. http://www.acec.org/programs/wr08312000.htm#slater
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EBAC to Host Environmental Markets Seminar - On September 28th,
during the ACEC Fall meeting in San Diego, California, the Environmental
Business Action Coalition (EBAC) will host a seminar entitled,
"New Directions in Industrial/Commercial Environmental Markets."
http://www.acec.org/programs/wr08312000.htm#ebac
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President Vetoes Estate Tax Relief - Today, President Clinton
vetoed H.R. 8, The Death Tax Elimination Bill. ACEC strongly supported
passage of this bill, which would have repealed the burdensome
estate tax.
http://www.acec.org/programs/wr08312000.htm#estate
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Above items including addition Government Affairs information
please visit the full text of this week's GA Report at: http://www.acec.org/programs/wr08312000.htm
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WHY YOU MUSH CARE ABOUT CALIFORNIA'S PROP 35
As we have reported many times in the past, California engineers
are in a fight for their business life, battling the state employed
engineers union over "contracting out" by state government.
A couple of years ago California consulting engineers defeated
a state constitutional amendment which would have completely eliminated
contracting out by state and local government.
Now, California consulting engineers are sponsoring an initiative
petition which which will overturn, once and forever, a Supreme
Court decision prohibiting contracting out, and, will specifically
allow state government to contract out for engineering, architectural
and land surveying services.
California engineers need your assistance. This is a multi-million
dollar campaign, and anything you can do is assist will be appreciated.
Need some convincing? Think about the following:
All ACEC member firms, not just those in California, have a tremendous
stake in Prop 35 on this fall's ballot:
1. Essentially Prop 35 will be a massive referendum, the largest in our nation's history, on the value of private engineering and surveying firms to the economy, to society. Millions of people will voting on our professional status.
2. If Prop 35 fails, it will send a loud and clear signal to politicians throughout the nation: "Private engineers will not defend themselves. Contracting out is a loser."
3. Anti-contracting out TRAC bills now pending in Congress
(H.R. 3766 and S. 2841) will get a huge boost if Prop 35 is defeated.
TRAC would:
a. FREEZE all current and future government contracting,·
b. STOP efforts to reform government purchasing, and
c. MOVE commercial activities away from the private sector and
to federal employees.
4. California already operates under its own TRAC Act equivalent-the California Supreme Court decision on 1997! Prop 35 will overturn that decision.
5. The failure of Prop 35 will embolden state and federal public employee unions to push hard for more anti-contracting out bills. Indeed, this past spring the state employees union from California co-sponsored a nationwide conference in Chicago to teach other public employee unions representing state DOT's how to stop contracting out.
6. The failure of Prop 35 will vindicate the terrible anti-contracting out rulings of the California Supreme Court. Lawsuits will be filed in other states citing California's terrible precedents.
7. It now appears that out of state public employee unions are funneling money to California to try and defeat Prop 35. They fully understand what is at stake.
8. On the other hand, if all of ACEC pulls together and helps
pass Prop 35, that will be a tremendous vote of confidence for
our industry. It will help us defeat the TRAC legislation and
arrest the spread of these political and legal threats to other
states.
Help stop the expansion of legal barriers to the use of private
engineering and surveying firms on public works projects. Passage
of Prop 35 will DEMONSTRATE CONVINCINGLY that our community will
fight back!
California firms are digging deep, but they need our help. Your donations are needed ASAP. Send your checks to "Taxpayers for Fair Competition," 1303 J Street, Suite 450, California, CA 95814. 916.441.7991. http://www.yesProp35.com
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