The ASCE Region 9 California Infrastructure Symposium will be held at the Hilton Long Beach Hotel (701 West Ocean Boulevard, Long Beach, CA 90831-3102) from April 24 to 25, 2025. This annual convention is a key event for professionals in the water, transportation and general infrastructure in the field. More program details can be found at https://cais.r9-asce.org/.
Networking is essential for professional growth and public stewardship. This symposium provides a unique opportunity for infrastructure consultants, owners, managers, builders, and suppliers to network and contribute. Contributors help attendees anticipate and mitigate future challenges, advance their fields, and work toward more resilient and sustainable infrastructure.
The Golden Gate Branch encourages its members to take advantage of early-bird registration before the February 28, 2025. We organized a virtual briefing with this year's organizers on February 26. There are still ample time to register. The symposium offers a full-day instructor-led "Envision SP Training" session and ASCE local younger member groups pre-conference mixer with separate tickets on April 23, 2025, at the same venue (Hilton Long Beach).
The Program on Thursday, April 24 – Includes a full day of sessions (three concurrent tracks, with three sessions each) with industry leaders in transportation, water, and other disciplines of civil engineering, as well as a reception in the evening. A few of the industry leaders who have confirmed their attendance include:
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Toks Omishakin, (Keynote, see intro at the end) Secretary of Transportation
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Dina El-Tawansy, District 4 Director, Caltrans
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Darrell Johnson, CEO, Orange County Transportation Authority (OCTA)
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Mario Orso, Executive Director, San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG)
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Adan Ortega, (Keynote, see intro at the end) Chair, Southern California Metropolitan Water District (MWD)
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Andrew Fremier, Executive Director, Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC)
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Dina Aryan-Zahlan, Deputy Executive Director, Port of LA
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Sean Gamette, Director of Engineering Services, Port of Long Beach
The Program on Friday, April 25 – Awards Luncheon / Technical Tours – An ASCE Region 9 Awards ceremony will be held mid-day. Technical tours of Port of Long Beach and the Long Beach Aquarium will be held in the morning.
2025 CAIS – Registration
ASCE Members – Log in to the Region 9 website using your ASCE Member # to unlock member pricing. If logging in for the first time, select the "Lost Your Password" option to set your password. Once logged in, your booking will be associated with your ASCE Region 9 member account, accessible to all Region 9 Sections, Branches, and Groups/Institutes. Here are rates:
Keynote Speaker:
Adán Ortega, Jr. took office as chair of The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California on January 1, 2023. As board chair, he has organized the board's leadership and committees around climate adaptation action to secure long term water reliability.
The principal of Ortega Strategies Group, he has worked in government relations for 30 years and has helped lead efforts to bring technical assistance to small community water systems in disadvantaged communities around California.
Ortega was re-elected unanimously by the board in October 2024 and is the first Latino to serve as the board's chair. He served as Metropolitan's vice president of external affairs from 1999 to 2005. Prior to joining Metropolitan, Ortega served as chief deputy for then-Secretary of State Bill Jones and as assistant general manager of both West Basin and Central Basin municipal water districts.
In 2013, he was appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown to the California Water Commission. Prior to that, he was appointed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to serve on the California State Board of Food and Agriculture, where Ortega chaired its water committee from 2005 to 2012.
A Fullerton resident, Ortega has a bachelor's degree in English and history from Whittier College.
Toks Omishakin, CalSTA was appointed the 4th Secretary of Transportation for the state of California by Governor Gavin Newsom in February of 2022. As Secretary of the California State Transportation Agency (CALSTA), he has oversight of 8 State Departments, Boards and Commissions that, combined, have more than 42,000 people and a budget that exceeds $30 billion annually. Safety, Equity, Climate Action, and Economic Prosperity-the Core Four-are the top transportation priorities established for the state. Prior to his appointment as Secretary, he was Director of the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) where, as the chief executive of the department, he managed a $17.5 billion budget and more than 22,000 employees that oversee 50,000 lane miles of highways, maintain more than 20,000 bridges, provide permitting of more than 250 public-use airports, fund 3 of Amtrak's busiest intercity rail services and provide transit support to more than 400 local and regional transit agencies. In 2020, he and the Caltrans executive team established a new strategic direction for the department prioritizing partnerships and community engagement to accomplish its goals to create a cleaner, safer, more equitable and connected transportation system for California.
Omishakin came to Caltrans following eight years as Deputy Commissioner with the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT). There, he successfully established environmental and multimodal local and national groundbreaking planning policies and programs, including a new Multimodal Access Grant program and new Office of Community Transportation. Prior to that, he served as Director of Healthy Living Initiatives in the Nashville Mayor's Office. In that capacity, he led development of Metro Nashville's Complete Streets Policy and helped establish a more balanced approach to transportation planning and design for the city. This included spearheading the creation of two bicycle sharing programs.
In 2019, Omishakin became Chair of the Council on Active Transportation for the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). This came after two years serving as Vice Chair as well as serving as Inaugural Chair of AASHTO's Multimodal Task Force. He served for 10 years on the board of America Walks and is now an emeritus advisor to the national organization. He also serves on boards at the Mineta Transportation Institute, Veloz and has advised the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis through its Transportation Council Board. In work with institutions, he serves on the advisory board at Tennessee Tech University for Civil and Environmental Engineering and at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Institute for Transportation studies.
In October of 2020, Omishakin was appointed to then-President-elect Biden-Harris Transportation Transition Team. In December of 2020 he was recognized with the Excellence in Leadership award by the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials (COMTO) NorCal and named Person of the Year by the California Transportation Foundation (CTF) in May of 2021.
Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, Secretary Omishakin and his wife have two children. He has a Ph.D. in Engineering Management from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; a master's degree in Urban and Regional Planning from Jackson State University; and a Bachelor of Arts in Engineering Technology from Mississippi Valley State University.
Message to GGB Members: One of the main reasons the San Francisco Section Golden Gate Branch is promoting this year's Symposium is that the Section will be leading the organization of the 2026 California Infrastructure Symposium. The Golden Gate Branch aims to engage local members in participating and serving as hosts for this major Civil Engineering convention.
We encourage you to attend this year's conference to learn more about the annual event. If you're unable to join, be sure to follow the Golden Gate Branch newsletter or LinkedIn to stay updated on the preparations for the 2026 CAIS.
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Edward Wang Ph.D., P.E., F.ASCE
San Mateo CA
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