ENGINEERS CLUB OF THE WEST VALLEY

MARCH 7, 2014 NEWSLETTER

The Engineers Club is a social organization which meets regularly for lunch with a speaker on a technical topic. Spouses are invited and many attend regularly. Short field trips are occasionally scheduled. Membership is open to anyone who has worked in or had close ties to the engineering or scientific fields. Meetings are

held at 11:30am on the first Friday of each month, October through June, at Briarwood Country Club, 135th and Meeker in Sun City West, Arizona. Visitors are always welcome - - Reservations are required - - Just call (623)544-0942 or mail to: reservations@engineersaz.com

www.engineersaz.com

NOTES FROM . . .

President Dave Campbell

Over the course of the last number of years we have been seeing a gradual declining of mem-bership. The Board in the past and now the 2014 Board have and are having discussions about what we could do to attract new members. The “invite a friend” is still probably one of the most effective ways to bring in new people to see and hear about the Club. Over the past few years we have seen our membership drop from a high of 200 in 2006 to 134 in 2013. This year looks like we will hold near last year's level.

One of the keys to membership is our monthly luncheons and the invited speaker. Daryl Lund and Bob Farrell have done an outstanding job in providing us with interesting topics and excellent speakers. We also offer from time to time interesting field trips and Lanny Barness is working on a possible tour of Taser International, a manufacturer of CEW’s (conducted elec-trical weapon) used by many police departments around the world.

We have also discussed the possibility of changing our name to include the words “science and technology” in the club name. It’s still up for discussion and your ideas and inputs would be welcomed. With the increase use of social media, like Facebook, Linkedin, Meetups, and others we have been dis-cussing how we might best use these mediums to publish infor-mation about the Club, luncheon dates, speakers, and field trips in an effort to reach more people who might find an inter-est and come to a meeting. Mo Hoyt and Jerry Miller do a great job in promoting our club with ads that appear in the AAA magazine, PORA, The Rec Center News, and many of the local newspapers. But, we need to reach more people! And this is where you can help your Club the most. I ask each of you to please talk to friends and neighbors and tell them about our Club. Invite them to come to one of our luncheons as a guest. Explain how they can learn more about the Club from our web site. E-mail a friend with the web site address shown (www.engineersaz.com) so they can just click on the link.

Perhaps you could take copies of our latest newsletter with you to other clubs that you may belong to or set them out for people to read. I urge you to make an effort to promote your Club and of course please feel free to contact myself or any of your Board members with comments, ideas or opinions. If we all work together, we can make a difference.

MARCH 7

TH

PROGRAM

Sewage Epidemiology - Taking the Chemical Pulse of a Nation at the Sewer Municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) play a key role in protecting eco-systems and human health. This presenta-tion explores their potential additional role as observatories for judging the sustainability of chemicals used by modern society, and for the biodegradability of an-thropogenic compounds in engineered and natural systems. Rolf Halden, PhD, PE Rolf is a Professor of Environmental Engineering and Found-ing Director of the Center for Environmental Security at Arizo-na State University’s Biodesign Institute. He has 20 years of experience in wastewater treatment and environmental reme-diation. Rolf has presented over 270 papers at national and international symposia, with much of his work focusing on biological treatment of traditional and emerging contaminants. Rolf received his M.S. in Biology (1992) from the Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany, and his M.S. (1994) and Ph.D. (1997) in Civil/Environmental Engineering from the University of Minnesota. Prior to joining academia, he was a project engineer (1998 - ‘01) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Links:

Physical Review Letters

Jami Shah (last months speaker) web sites:

Ideation Spaces

Problem Formulator

Mammoths Enjoyed Wildflowers (podcast)

APRIL 4

TH

PROGRAM

Todd Sanders, President of the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce will discuss the Future of Phoenix and the current thoughts on a strategic plan.

Todd has been the president & CEO of the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce since May 2009 after spending more than three years as the GPCC’s Vice President of Public Affairs and Economic Devel-opment. In that role Sanders worked on behalf of the busi-ness community on important issues such as immigration re-form, tax policy and health care. He oversees a staff of 30 and works with the Board of Directors to develop and imple-ment long-range goals and strategy for the state’s oldest and largest business organization.

ENGINEERS CLUB OF THE WEST VALLEY MARCH 2014 NEWSLETTER Page 2

LUNCHEON MENUS

March 7 Entrée #1: Salisbury Steak Entrée #2: Baked Cod Both Entrees Salad, Lyonnais Potatoes, Green Beans Al-mandine, with Apple Turnover and Ice Cream for desert Entrée Option: Grilled Vegetable Plate or Fruit Plates are available

as alternate choices for those on a special diet

2014 OFFICERS

COMMITTEES

RESERVATION POLICY

The cost of the monthly luncheon is $18.00 per person. The reservation deadline is 5 PM Monday before the meeting. Late reservations cannot be guaranteed the regular meal. Call Dave Whitehouse if you cannot keep your reservation. The full luncheon cost is due for “no-shows” and cancel-lations after 5PM on the Wednesday before the meeting.

RESERVATIONS: Dave Whitehouse (623)544-0942

BOARD EMAIL ADDRESS: Board@engineersaz.com

Current Club Membership is 111

Field Trip to ADOT

Traffic Operations

Center

Lanny Barness led a group on February 20th to visit the ADOT Traffic Control Centre. The 2,100-square-foot control room includes 32 video monitors mounted on a wall and large screens used to display traffic speed and weather infor-mation. There are four workstations in the control room.

Operators at two of the stations monitor traffic in the Phoenix metro area, and the operators at the other two stations monitor traffic throughout the remainder of the state. There are 15 operators that work various shifts to ensure that there is 24-hour coverage in the control room. TOC staff constantly monitor the Department of Public Safety (DPS) Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system, speed maps and CCTV monitors. When staff become aware of an incident, they use cameras to verify the incident and determine the appropriate response. Five valley television stations have access to live CCTV camera feeds from ADOT's cameras to show freeway iconditions. For further information please visit the ADOT web site.

Jami Shah Ph.D. receives a certificate of appreci-ation from Daryl Lund for his presentation on “The Digital Sandbox” program at the February luncheon.

President Vice President Secretary Treasurer

Dave Campbell Ralph Palmer Lee Roach Graham Harris

623-518-4871 623-815-8143 623-810-7413 623-546-1480

Programs Membership Reservations Luncheons Scholarship Member at Large Newsletter Event Support Web Site Publicity Field Trips Past President

Daryl Lund Philip Main Dave Whitehouse Tom Watkins Len Cohen Les Sherry Rick Scott Dick Stout Dave Campbell Jerry Miller Lanny Barness Don Block

608-250-0659 623-748-8222 623-544-0942 623-584-5811 623-546-3741 623-975-9081 403 931-3115 623-815-0985 623-518-4871 623-214-2642 623-546-3364 623-546-0557

Raffle Results and Donations

The Winner of the February 50/50 raffle was Rick Cecil who won $ 127 and $ 128 was received for the scholarship fund.

Zircon crystal is oldest piece

of Earth

Scientists using two different age-determining techniques have shown that a tiny zircon crystal found on a sheep ranch in western Australia is the oldest known piece of our planet, dating to 4.4 billion years ago.

Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience on Sun-day, the researchers said the discovery indicates that Earth's crust formed relatively soon after the planet formed and that the little gem was a remnant of it.

John Valley, a University of Wisconsin geoscience professor who led the research, said the findings sug-gest that the early Earth was not as harsh a place as many scientists have thought. …. more