ISSMGE President 425 Day Progress Report

Distinguished Colleagues, Dear Friends,

This is my fourteenth progress report after 425 days as your President. Note that previous reports are on the ISSMGE web site (http://www.issmge.org/) under “From the President” if you need them. In this report, I would like to talk to you about a present for you, the Corporate Associates Presidential Group, the new Kerisel Lecture, and the ISSMGE Board meeting in New Delhi on 8 Nov2010.

Present: this is the end of the year for most of us, a period of celebration, a period of holidays, a period where we gather with our families and exchange presents. You are my professional family and I want to offer to you a geotechnical present. After some thought I would like to propose to you the following. Over the last 18 years, I have videotapes on DVD the lectures given by some of the most prominent geotechnical engineers in the world. These lectures were presented at my university and are called the Buchanan Lectures starting with Ralph Peck in 1993. The list is on my web site at https://ceprofs.civil.tamu.edu/briaud/buchanan%20web/lecture_series.htm . From that page you can download the written text but not the video. If you would like the videotape for some of those lectures please select which ones you wish to have, give me an address where to send the DVD, and I will send them to you free of charge. This is my present to you.

CAPG: this new group, approved by the Board, is the Corporate Associates Presidential Group. It will be formed of all the representatives of the companies (one per company) which are corporate associates of ISSMGE. The CAPG will assist ISSMGE in developing actions and activities that will enhance the commercial sector of the geotechnical profession. The CAPG members will have direct access to the President of ISSMGE and will be able to have a direct impact on the future of the Society. The reason for forming this group is to try to increase the participation of practitioners in the Society as well as increase the number of Corporate Associates. Along with Harry Poulos, I am working on establishing this important new group. More on this later.

Kerisel Lecture: I am very happy to report to you that the TC on Preservation of Monuments and Historic Sites lead by Carlo Viggiani as Chair and Yoshinori Iwasaki as Vice Chair has started the Kerisel Lecture. This new ISSMGE lecture was proposed by the TC to the ISSMGE Board and approved unanimously. The Kerisel lecture adds to our list of TC named lectures including the Ishihara Lecture in Earthquake Engineering, the Mitchell Lecture in Site Characterization, and the Bishop Lecture in Laboratory Testing. I hope that more TCs will follow suit and develop their own lectures as appropriate. These lectures are typically presented at conferences organized by the TCs.

ISSMGE Board meeting in New Delhi: The Board met in New Delhi on Sunday 7Nov2010. In the Open Session, reports were presented by Mahavir Bidasaria, President of the Indian Geotechnical Society, by Manoj Datta, Chair of the Int Conf on Environmental Geotechnics, by Kenichi Soga on behalf of Suzanne Lacasse on the progress of the Technical Oversight Committee, by Askar Zhussupbekov on behalf of Harry Poulos on the progress of the Membership, Practitioners, Academicians, Committee, by Charles Ng on behalf of Dimitris Zekkos on the progress of the Innovation and Development Committee, by Imen Said on behalf of Jennifer Nicks on the progress of the Student and Young Members Presidential Group. The Board then moved to Executive Session and heard reports from all Board Members on their achievements and future plans. Also discussed were the 2013 Int Conf in Paris, the ISSMGE budget, a request from IDC, four requests from SYMPG, an update on FedIGS, a possible change for future Presidents terms, the name of the Society, the ISSMGE Foundation, the ISSMGE Bulletin, enforcement of ISSMGE conference fees, and the image of our profession.

Happy holiday season, best wishes, and don’t forget your present,

Jean-Louis BRIAUD

President of ISSMGE

International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering

Professor and Holder of the Buchanan Chair

Zachry Department of Civil Engineering

Texas A&M University