ENVIRONMENT & TRANSPORTATION TECHNICAL GROUP

OPERATING BOARD MEETING

 

Friday, March 5, 2004

Pittsburgh Hyatt Airport Hotel

2004 TEC, Pittsburgh, PA

 

MEETING MINUTES

 

 

 

1.         CALL TO ORDER AND INTRODUCTIONS

VP Moore called the meeting to order at 1:00 p.m. and introductions were made.  The list of attendees is shown in Attachment A.

 

2.            APPROVAL OF AGENDA

The meeting Agenda was approved as presented.

 

3.            APPROVAL OF MINUTES

With respect to the minutes of the November 18, 2003 meeting, E. Manes pointed out that the MAL nomination of P. Hajela has been changed to A. Bicos.  Having noted the MAL nomination change, the November 18, 2003 meeting minutes were approved as distributed.

 

ACTION ITEM:  E. Manes to send the three (3) MAL nominations made at the November 18, 2003 Board meeting to all members for voting, stating requirement that nominees must be able to attend all Board meetings.

 

4.            REPORT & COMMENTS OF VICE PRESIDENT     

A.      What to Expect at TEC’04

VP Moore asked everyone to provide feedback regarding their TEC experience, as well as how to make ASME better for the members.

B.      Update on COE Conferences & Publications Committees

VP Moore announced that discussions are taking place concerning revenue sharing to divisions for proceedings.  With respect to Congress revenue sharing, Attachment B is an analysis of 2002 and 2003 session attendance (based on badge scanning).  It was noted that although these are not the numbers used for revenue share calculations, they do show an attendance increase for E&T divisions.  

C.      New Journal Creation Opportunities

E. Manes brought up J. Austin’s idea for a joint EED/SWPD journal.  VP Moore noted that the Publications Committee’s concern is getting a good editor to do the work.  N. Egosi remarked that he was not aware of the proposed journal.

D.      COE/CMA Merger Discussions

VP Moore distributed proposed re-org (Attachment C), noting that divisions are now included in the diagram.  She also reported that the BOG has assured, in writing, that custodial accounts are not available for ASME use. This lead to a discussion on:

 

Full-Cost Accounting

VP Moore made reference to a point paper before the COE Budget Committee on key budget issues associated with the transition to full cost accounting as part of the continuity and change initiative. (See Attachment D).  She noted that a request was made to provide a clear breakdown of staff time and costs for discussion at this TEC.  It was stressed that, as of now, divisions can begin submitting business plans on how they want to spend their custodial account funds, to be approved by the Group VP.  Staff will still handle contracts, etc.

 

J. Austin presented an estimate of the amount of staff time dedicated to support SWPD (Attachment E).  By his estimates, staff time to support the SWPD is about 9%, not 35% as reflected in the full-cost accounting breakdown provided to the Division.  He added that it is important not to expect divisions to support staff costs for things not directly related to divisions.

 

5.         OLD BUSINESS

VP Moore pressed for Division Annual Reports & Plans that were due at this meeting.  With respect to the “7 Questions” posed at the January 27, 2003 Group exercise on assessing division markets, VP Moore requested all divisions to submit their answers as soon as possible and to begin using that information for long range planning purposes. 

 

6.            DIVISION REPORTS

A.                 Aerospace

J. Robinson reported on behalf of A. Bicos (Attachment F).  He added that the division operations guide has been updated and that he is trying to negotiate revenue sharing with AIAA and other societies for conferences that Aerospace participates in.  He also noted that Aerospace is interested in getting additional sessions at IMECE ’04.

B.                 Environmental Engineering

There was no report.

C.                 Noise Control & Acoustics

R. Marboe submitted a report on NCAD activities (Attachment G), which includes the IMECE’04 session schedule (Attachment H) and answers to the “7 Questions” (Attachment I). He noted that although the division had a great program at IMECE’03 with presentations on issues people said they want to hear about, there was little attendance.  This lead to a discussion on the need to for divisions to vertically market their sessions and not rely only on Congress promotional efforts.

D.                 Rail Transportation

A. Bieber remarked that the RTD does not yet have a long-range plan, per se, other than to continue doing what they’re doing better.  Membership is area where they can improve, especially overseas.  He added that RTD produced a total of 45 papers given at 17 technical sessions between IMECE’03 and ICED’03.  There was a discussion on how SWPD and RTD can work together on rail-haul of solid waste at an SWPD sponsored workshop. VP Moore also suggested that RTD get “lessons learned” from Gary Benda on what he has done internationally with the very successful ICEM conference.

E.                 Solid Waste Processing

N. Egosi reported that SWPD had a joint meeting with EED in August 2003 in Hartford.  They’re currently working on NAWTEC’04 (expecting 32 papers, including from overseas and academia), where they will be presenting their facility awards. The SWPD Scholarship rules have been updated to increase the number of applicants and also doing more one-on-one contacts with universities.  He noted that Division membership is very low.  The problem is that the industry has changed and there isn’t sufficient value in SWPD to meet today’s industry needs (information that is directly applicable to day-to-day business).  SWPD rented an exhibit booth at WasteCon’03 in May to get exposure to a larger audience.  Also reaching out to academia to get them involved in SWPD programming.  For example, they convinced the WTERT, a consortium of five universities, to participate in NAWTEC.  E. Manes added that the division also sponsored the WTERT to review ASME PTC-34 and asked them to work with the ASME CRTD on potential research projects.

 

8.            STANDING COMMITTEE REPORTS

A.                 Honors

There was not report.

 

ACTION ITEM:  E. Manes to call MAL’s to nominate replacement for T. Bonano.

 

B.                 Long Range Planning

J. Robinson noted that he had not received anything from divisions.

 

ACTION ITEM: E. Manes to give J. Robinson and R. Marboe answers to “7 Questions” and Division Annual Reports/Plans from which to compile a master document to serve as clearing house of ideas for group.

 

C.                 Division Performance

R. Marboe submitted a written report (Attachment J).  He noted that getting a division membership demographics report specific to NCAD helped identify other divisions to work with and recommended others to use it.

D.                 Technical Coverage & By-Laws

H. Scarton distributed chart of SWPD organization (Attachment K).  It was then,

 

MOVED: To approve current version of SWPD bylaws.

 

H. Scarton also noted that EED needs to update its bylaws.

 

9.            LIAISON REPRESENTATIVE REPORTS

A.                 Nominating Committee

E. Manes read from written report submitted by A. Moghissi (Attachment L).

B.                 Distinguished Lecturers Committee

VP Moore said committee is looking for people to become lecturers and asked that nominees be sent to her attention.

C.                 Board on Research

E. Manes read from written report submitted by A. Moghissi (Attachment L).

D.                 IMECE Program Committee

VP Moore said 10 sessions are available at IMECE’04 if any division is interested.  Attachment M is a report received from M. Hastings post meeting.

E.                 Committee on Technical Planning

There was no report.

 

ACTION ITEM:  E. Manes to contact S. Buckley because he has not been active in CTP and, if he cannot attend, to ask MAL’s if they want to replace S. Buckley as liaison.

 

10.        ASME STAFF REPORT

E. Manes reported on staffing changes at ASME resulting from the re-org, noting Burton Dicht as new Director of Engineering Enterprises and Elizabeth Ely as Managing Director of Meetings & Exhibits. 

 

11.        NEW BUSINESS

Larry Dickinson solicited Group about organizing sessions/symposia at IMECE’04 on applications of composites materials on rail, solid waste, etc., to get an industry perspective on needs. He asked interested Divisions to contact him directly.

 

12.        NEXT MEETING

Next E&TG Board meeting will be at IMECE’04 in Anaheim.  There was concern about the Board meeting overlapping division-sponsored sessions.

 

ACTION ITEM:  E. Manes to look at the IMECE’04 session schedule and set the date the Board meeting to be the day before sessions start and advise members accordingly.

 

13.            ADJOURNMENT

The meeting adjourned at 5:20 p.m.

 

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Elio A. Manes

Secretary for the Board