NCSEA announces individual special awards

CHICAGO — Edwin Huston, Robert Bachman, William Holmes and Robert B. Johnson have been recognized by the National Council of Structural Engineers Associations (NCSEA) for their outstanding service to the structural engineering profession. The awards were given during NCSEA’s 18th Annual Conference.

Edwin Huston was honored with the NCSEA Service Award. This award is presented to an individual who has worked for the betterment of NCSEA to a degree that is beyond the norm of volunteerism.

Huston is a 1971 civil engineering graduate of the University of Washington, and is a licensed civil and structural engineer in Washington, and seven other states. He is a principal at the firm of Smith & Huston Inc. in Seattle, and has over 38 years of experience in structural design, evaluation, investigation and code and standards development. Huston has been very active in the Structural Engineers Association of Washington, (SEAW).

Huston is a former president of the board of directors of NCSEA. He is chair of the Code Advisory Committee — General Requirements Subcommittee and serves on the Licensing Committee. Huston has served on the board of directors and as president of the Applied Technology Council, (ATC) a national organization whose goal is the research into the effects of earthquakes and other natural forces and the dissemination of the results of that research. Huston was the lead technical consultant on ATC 45 — A Field Manual for Safety Evaluations of Buildings after Windstorms and Floods. He also served on the Project Engineering Panel for the ATC Design Guide 2: Basic Wind Engineering of Low-Rise Buildings.

Huston is a co-author of the Wind Commentary to the Uniform Building Code — 1991 Edition & 1994 Editions, ATC-60, SEAW Commentary on Wind Code Provisions, as well as the SEAW RSM-03, SEAW’s Handbook of a Rapid Solution Methodology for Wind Design and The Masonry Designers’ Guide to the ACI/ASCE 530 Code, First through Fifth Editions.

James Delahay Award was given to Robert Bachman. This award is presented at the recommendation of the NCSEA Code Advisory Committee to recognize outstanding individual contributions towards the development of building codes and standards.

Delahay is principal of Robert E. Bachman, Consulting Structural Engineers with offices in Laguna Niguel, Calif. With over 40 years of professional experience, he spent 25 years of his career with Fluor Daniel and was head of the civil/structural engineering department in company’s southern California office for the past 10 of those years. Since 2000, he has been in private practice where his focus has been on the seismic design and evaluation of heavy industrial facilities, nonstructural components and seismically isolated structures.

Current clients include Exxon Mobil, Army Corp of Engineers, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Fluor and the Administrator of the Court for California. Delahay is also involved in projects of the Applied Technology Council where he is team leader for Nonstructural Performance Products for the ATC 58 Project which is developing Next Generation Performance Based Seismic Design Guidelines and a member of the Project Management Committee for the ATC-69 project which is developing a Practical Guide for Reducing the Risks of Nonstructural Earthquake Damage.

Delahay has been heavily involved in the development of seismic codes used in the United States for the past two decades. He chaired the Structural Engineers Association of California’s Seismology during the development of the 1997 Uniform Building Code and headed the ASCE 7 Seismic Task Committee during the development of ASCE 7-02 and ASCE 7-05. Delahay currently serves as vice chair of the ASCE 7 Main Committee and he is also a member of the Structural Engineering Institute Board of Governors. Delahay has served on the Building Seismic Safety Councils (BSSC) NEHRP Recommended Provisions Update Committee since 1990 and has been a member of its Code Resource Support Committee since 1998.

Delahay is a past director of Structural Engineer’s Association of Southern California. He is SEAOC fellow, 2004 recipient of the BSSC’s Honor Award for Contributions and Support in the Development and Code Adoption of the NEHRP Recommended Provisions and the 2007 recipient of the ASCE/SEI Walter P. Moore, Jr. Award for contributions to and technical excellence in the development of structural engineering codes and standards. Delahay graduated with B.S. and M.S. degrees in structural engineering from the University of California at Berkeley and is a registered structural engineer in the states of California and Washington.

William Holmes and Robert B. Johnson were honored with the Robert Cornforth Award.
This award is presented to an individual for exceptional dedication and exemplary service to a Member organization and to the profession. Nominees are submitted to the NCSEA board by state member organizations.

William (Bill) Holmes is a principal for Rutherford & Chekene, CONSULTING ENGINEERS, in San Francisco. Holmes began at Rutherford & Chekene in 1965 and served on the board of directors for 38 years. He is a registered Civil and Structural Engineer in California.

Holmes is a past president of SEAONC and an honorary member. He also served on the board of SEAOC and is a SEAOC fellow. Holmes served on the California State Hospital building safety board from 1983-1995 and was its chair 1988-1993. He was the SEAOC representative on the Applied Technology Council Board and also served as ATC president. He has also served on the board of EERI and CUREE.

For the Building Seismic Safety Council, Holmes was on the NEHRP provisions update committee 1994-2010 and was its chair for the 1997 and 2000 Editions. He is currently the chair of the BSSC board of direction. He was awarded the Alfred E. Alquist Medal for Achievement in Earthquake Safety from the California Earthquake Safety Foundation in 1999 and the H. J. Brunnier Award for outstanding achievement in structural engineering from SEAONC in 2005.

Robert B. Johnson is a senior engineer for Bowman, Barrett & Associates Consulting Engineers in Chicago. He is a licensed structural engineer in Illinois and a registered professional engineer in Indiana and New Jersey. For almost 25 years, Johnson has chaired the Public Relations Committee of SEAOI and in doing so has brought visibility to structural engineers, including NCSEA, in various ways. He has spoken to thousands of school children on structural engineering in a host of science outreach programs.

He has been a prolific writer on engineering topics with articles and letters published in a host of publications and websites. Johnson is recipient of the American Concrete Institute (ACI) Wason Medal for most meritorious paper.

Johnson is a member of Structural Engineers Association of Illinois (SEAOI), ASCE (fellow), ACI (fellow), American Engineering Association, American Engineering Alliance, past member of the Chicago Committee on High-Rise Buildings (CCHRB).

He is past director of SEAOI, former chair of the Advocacy Committee of NCSEA, former member of public involvement committee of ASCE, past secretary for CCHRB, serves as a volunteer to Future City Chicago, Illinois Institute of Technology EWEEK program and Past Chair to the Chicagoland Engineers Week program .

Johson has been recipient of numerous awards and recognition for his outreach efforts to engineering associations and the public including the 1st Herald Award from the American Engineering Alliance.

For more information about the NCSEA, please visit www.ncsea.com.