Association of Coastal Engineers Board Meeting
Nov 15, 2002, Mark Hopkins Hotel, San Francisco, California

Board members in attendence:  Robert Dalrymple, Robert Dean, Billy Edge, Karyn Erickson, Lesley Ewing, John Fisher, Orville Magoon, Ron Noble, Fred Raichlen, John Ramsey.

President Billy Edge called the meeting to order at 7:50 pm.  

Treasurer's Report: Lesley Ewing presented a detailed report of the current budget, which has a balance of $8969.77 in the Bank of America. Additional funds still have to be moved from the bank account used by the previous treasurer. Some members have not yet paid this year's dues. It was decided that dues statements should be mailed (hard copy) rather than count on email, since email addresses keep changing.

Old Business:

Certification:  John Fisher discussed the current status of the certification committee's efforts.  A twelve page memo has been written by Kevin Bodge and David Kriebel, and submitted to the board. A survey of the ACE membership about certification is being analyzed by the committee.  ACE will continue to form a partnership with the ASCE, which is trying to develop specialty certification for various fields of civil engineering.
John expects that this will take two years to develop at a minimum.  He also expects less than 1000 people will be applying for coastal engineering certification.  This could be a small number as far as the ASCE is concerned.

Dalrymple pointed out that the COPRI of ASCE was supportive of ACE's effort to partner with ASCE for certification.

Edge pointed out that we need to clearly determine the education base for certification, since there will not likely be an examination.  Fisher pointed out that, in this regard, it would be useful to expand the committee membership.

Lesley voiced a concern that California will not likely be training coastal engineers after 2005 due to the lack of coastal engineering professors and courses at California schools.  Raichlen pointed out that California will have to rely on out-of-state programs to supply the needed engineers.

Membership:  Edge showed a new membership brochure that was developed with several Board members.  These should be used to recruit new members.  Edge and Erickson are the new Membership Growth Committee.  

Karyn suggested that we have an expansive policy in committee membership.   Edge has formed a new committee for hard copy publication of the Coastal Engineering Manual.  He will seek an appropriate member to chair this Committee.

A question arose as to whether the online form for new members was too time-consuming to fill out and had some questions that were unnecessary.  Edge will examine the form.

Corporate membership was discussed.  Edge asked if the corporate memberships should be abolished. (This would require a bylaws change.) Fisher argued that they should be kept as the Association has upcoming costs associated with certification and upcoming secretarial (membership) costs.  Dean pointed out that corporate membership really means corporate sponsors.  The membership cost of $500 was suggested.

Ron Noble and John Ramsey will serve as co-chairs of the corporate membership committee.  They are charged with recruiting corporate members.

Dues: The question of the current dues amount was raised.  It was decided to keep the dues the same for this coming year (2003).

Calendar:  Last year there was an ACE calendar put together and sold by Lesley Ewing.  She agreed to do a calendar again this year, but needed pictures immediately.  

New Business

A legislation committee: Karyn suggested a legislative committee to look at pending legislation.  Dean suggested that this might not be the focus of our association.  Bob suggested that someone take this on as a subcommittee to determine whether this is important for ACE.  Bob finally suggested that our mission is  professionalism, education and research.  He said we can speak on these issues.

Education:  The educational focus of the Association should be more than the presentations at the annual meeting.  Continuing education courses need to be developed.  John Ramsey is the new chair of the education committee.  John Fisher, Bob Dean, and Fred Raichlen volunteered to assist John in this effort.

Some courses are now available on the web.  Dean's coastal processes and beach nourishment courses are available on streaming video.

Fisher pointed out that small programs at various universities don't have enough courses for a degree in coastal engineering.  Can there be an ACE consortium for sharing courses?  Dalrymple should make available the paper he presented at the Sand Rights Conference on the shortage of coastal engineers.  

Dan Cox (via proxy) suggested that the ACE could be proactive in soliciting students into coastal engineering.  His suggestions included: preparing a generic student recruiting brochure to introduce students to coastal engineering; set up a coastal engineering images web site; sponsoring a coastal engineering design competition amongst college students.

Next Meetings:

It was suggested that there be a board meeting in conjunction with the Florida Shore and Beach Preservation Association in February (12-14) at Ponte Vedra, near Jacksonville.

The venue for the next annual meeting was discussed.  The executive committee will address the issue.  Karyn suggested that committee meetings could be held in a half-day session prior to the full day annual meeting.  

The board thanked Orville Magoon for supplying Guenoc wine for the reception and board meeting.

The board thanked Lesley Ewing for her efforts in organizing the meeting this year, which was in conjunction with the California Shore and Beach Preservation Association.  

Respectfully submitted,

Robert Dalrymple, Secretary