Michael's Message

Michael A. Ports, P.E., D.WRE, P.H., F.ASCE EWRI 2004-2005.President

Last summer, our membership voted for the proposed amendments to the ASCE Constitution concerning governance restructuring. Since then, the leadership has been working furiously to revise the Society Bylaws and Rules of Procedure to implement the changes in governance at the start of the next fiscal year. One important change concerns the composition of the Board of Direction. For the first time, the institutes will elect their representative as a full voting member of the Board of Direction. Your Council of Institute Leaders met in January to consider candidates. They selected two official nominees: EWRI member Dr. Jeffrey B. Bradley, of Salem, Oregon, and AEI member Mr. Stan R. Caldwell, of Dallas, Texas.

Your Governing Board strongly supports Dr. Bradley and urges you to vote for him. Many of you know him. He is the Chief Executive Officer of WEST Consultants, Inc. and is a nationally recognized expert in hydrology, river hydraulics, and sediment transport. His professional experience includes service in the private sector with his firm, in the government with the Corps of Engineers, and in academia at Colorado State University. Since its inception, he also has also been quite active in EWRI by serving on the first Governing Board and as the second President. He represented the institutes well as a member of the ASCE President’s Task Committee on Institute Operating Procedures and again on the Task Committee on Governance Restructuring. His hard work and steady leadership helped to steer EWRI through its formative years as well as foster a strong and collegial relationship between the Board of Direction and the leadership of the institutes. He has served as a member and chair of numerous other ASCE committees and task committees. Moreover, he gained valuable experience as a leader in local sections and branches in Colorado, Washington, and Oregon. His breadth of experience and deep commitment to our profession will enable Dr. Bradley to represent all of the institutes as a member of the Board of Direction. We urge you to vote for Jeff when the balloting begins in May. To learn more about Jeff Bradley, visit his West Consultants website at: http://www.westconsultants.com/bradleyinfo.pdf.

As of this writing, EWRI has approximately 22,000 members. The overwhelming majority of our members belong to ASCE as well. To date, relatively few environ- mental and water resources professionals have joined EWRI as "Institute Only" members. Nonetheless, overall our membership is strong and growing, slowly but steadily. To help further boost our membership we are embarking on a membership drive. Dubbed Every Member Get A Member, all of you are challenged to invite your friends and colleagues to join EWRI. Specific incentives will be awarded for every new member. The names of those members who bring in the most new members will be noted each quarter on these pages. More details about our membership drive will be presented and explained elsewhere in this on the EWRI website in May.

I am proud to announce that the new EWRI website is scheduled to be launched at the end of April. This new website will feature all the information on our current website plus an updated, more modern look. A new feature coming soon to the website is a "member only" section where members can log on to E-rooms, PAES and get in contact with other members. EWRI staff plan to work with the newly formed Knowledge Management Task Committee, featured in this issue, on how to further improve communication both internally and externally through this new website.

During the recent annual meeting of EWRI Councils held in Atlanta, we were surprised to learn that one of our more active participants was not an official member of EWRI. He had neglected to check off any institute on his annual ASCE dues statement. While his situation has been corrected, it is important for all of us to take the time to ensure that we officially join EWRI by checking the appropriate box on our annual dues statement. In addition, your annual dues statement has another check off box concerning your acceptance of e-mail and other electronic messages. If you check no, EWRI will respect your wishes and will not send any general e-mail or other electronic information to you. However, you should be aware that you will miss out on our monthly E-Update message, as well as other EWRI news and announcements.

The 2005 Congress in Anchorage is only a few weeks away and I look forward to seeing many EWRI members and potential members there in May. Registration is now open through the Congress website at http://www.asce.org/conferences/ewri2005/index.cfm and I strongly urge you to support your organization's premier event.