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The YMF Challenge
By Deryk Daquigan Younger Member Forum President I would like to propose a challenge to all engineers and companies: Help boost ASCE Younger Member Forum (YMF) membership, involvement, and activities even further over the next year! Just this past year, YMF has already experienced so much growth and success, and we need to continue with that trend this coming year. I am always very thankful for the motivated younger members that volunteer to assist in the growth of the YMF. We have excelled dramatically in the three types of activities we focus on: Social Activities, Professional Development, and Outreach. The YMF is known for its Social Activities. Our “Thirsty Thursday” monthly socials have been a big hit since we started rotating locations between Walnut Creek’s Pyramid Brewery, San Jose’s Tied House, and San Francisco’s Embarcadero Fuzio’s. Even our annual “Whitewater Rafting Extravaganza” is so popular that the RSVP list was filled three days after the official sign-up opening. This year we are excited to have our first annual YMF Golf Tournament that doubles as a social event and fundraising event. All the proceeds for this first golf tournament will fund the 2009 Western Regional Younger Member Council (WRYMC) meeting hosted by us in San Francisco. This meeting brings together young engineers and helps shape them into the leaders of tomorrow. Our Professional Development events are also occurring more frequently and receiving great responses. One of YMF’s goals is to provide Professional Development dinner meetings on a monthly basis. The meetings offer networking opportunities, tasteful dinners, and of course presentations on technical, managerial, and leadership topics to promote the growth of engineers. Our most recent topic was on Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design (LEED), and the upcoming topic for the month of June is “Terrestrial LiDAR: 3D Imaging of the Natural Environment – Next Generation Surveying.” Even our Professional Development events are filling up as fast as our Social events. In the past, the PE Seismic Reviews that we offer had an average class size of 25 attendees. Our latest review that we offered this past March had an outstanding class size of over 60 attendees. This vast increase can be attributed to the review’s high passing rate, YMF’s active members who promoted the review, and engineers who want to learn the changes in the building code. Even our annual Bay Bridge Tour has consistently filled to maximum capacity. This tour is so popular, we are planning to setup another Bay Bridge Tour, but this time it will be a tour of the inside of the bridge, under the road surface. This past year the YMF was awarded for its Outreach activities. We were recognized for providing workshops to university students on the topics of resume writing, interviews, salary negotiations, obtaining the FE and PE, public versus private work, as well as other topics that will increase their chances of getting on their career paths. For the future, we want to continue to provide these types of workshops at the universities, but also inform middle school students about civil engineering. There is a lot in store for YMF, but we need your help! If you want to help boost YMF, all I want you to do is accept my challenge. I challenge all engineers to get involved in YMF. You can get involved as an officer, committee member, event planner, or even simply show us your support by attending our events. We want you to get connected with the YMF network, grow as an engineer, give back to the community, and most importantly have fun doing it! I challenge all companies to get involved by promoting our events within their company and sponsoring our events. Our Thirsty Thursday monthly socials are great events to promote your company and sponsor the food and beverages. The socials also provide a great networking environment and recruiting opportunities for companies to meet YMF affiliated engineers. Companies have the opportunity to sponsor our Professional Development Dinner Meetings by giving presentations about their projects, products, or any topic that will help our engineers grow. Companies can also join in our Outreach efforts in talking to students of all ages. If you are interested in any of these YMF opportunities, please contact me at
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and we can all give YMF a boost. Thank you! |