List of Contributions

I worked at an agency that thought it had a great safety program. We brought in an external expert consultant, and found out that it was actually very deficient. So, the two lessons for me were a) management does set the tone for everything, and b) a periodic external assessment is critical. ---- ...

Two of my favorite books on engineering and design are by Prof. Henry Petroski: 1. The Evolution of Useful Things, and 2. To Engineer Is Human. Not new books, but very thoughtful and insightful, and good reads. ------------------------------ David Hook P.E., M.ASCE CIVIL ENGINEER San Jose ...

Dear Hale, One more thing I should have mentioned. During the design phase, it would be expected that you might be contacting suppliers and contractors to help formulate the requirements for items to be supplied or fabricated in the contract documents. This would be to ensure you have a well-rounded ...

Dear Hale, The fact that you're asking the question shows that you are on the right track. This is an area with substantial slippery slopes. I worked for a public agency in California for 30 years, mostly in design but dealt extensively with bidding and engineering support during construction. ...

Robert, I love it. This is very funny, and yet important as well. One of the biggest challenges of my career involved erroneous open channel flow calculations where the engineers involved used average side slopes and not actual side slopes. It made a huge, huge difference, forcing us to go back to ...