SE3 Committee Mid-Year Recap

2016-17 has been a big year for the SE3 Committee, and it started with the group being officially made a SEAONC committee at the end of the summer of 2016! With our new, official committee status, we hit the ground running and have accomplished a number of tasks in the pursuit of advancing engagement and equity in structural engineering over the last year. Below is a list of major milestones in our journey along the way, which would not have been possible without the tremendous support of our committee members, SEAONC, and the structural engineering community at large.
 
2016-17 SE3 Milestone Timeline
 
September 2016: Present preliminary findings from the 2016 SE3 nationwide survey at the SEAONC Monthly Meeting to approximately 130 attendees at Thornton Tomasetti’s office in San Francisco. 

SEAONC September Monthly Meeting, 2016

​October 2016: Present findings from the 2016 SE3 survey at the SEAOC Convention in Maui.
 
December 2016: Present findings from the 2016 SE3 survey at an ATC webinar for approximately 500 registrants nationwide. This webinar is now available on our website at SE3project.org/webinar!
 
December 2016: Release the SE3 2016 Survey Report, a 12,000-word document that outlines the detailed findings and best practices related to the most relevant survey findings in the areas of overall career satisfaction, career advancement, pay and benefits, and work-life balance.
 
January 2017: Inaugural SE3 Symposium—LISTEN, ASSESS, CHANGE—a half-day event hosting 120 attendees at SPUR in San Francisco, with presentations and panel discussions to explore issues of engagement and gender equity in the structural engineering profession, focusing on what individuals and companies can do to improve.

2017 SE3 Symposium

March 2017: Committee establishes five task groups to address specific projects that relate to the Committee’s mission. Task groups and leaders:

• Best Practices Resource Guide – Rupa Garai, SOM
• Follow-up Interviews with survey respondents – Nick Sherrow-Groves, Arup
• Mentorship – Faith Silva, Thornton Tomasetti; Neelima Tapata, Simpson Strong-Tie
• Outreach – Zahraa Saiyed, Tipping
• Pay Report – Angie Sommer, ZFA Structural Engineers

 
April/May/June 2017: Present 2016 SE3 survey findings at:

• ASCE/SEI Structures Congress in Denver, April 6
• SEAOSC dinner meeting in Orange County, April 19
• Groundbreaking Women in Construction Conference in San Francisco, May 2
• Buro Happold’s office in New York, May 12
• SEAOI meeting via webinar, May 16
• SEAONY meeting in New York, June 21

Groundbreaking Women in Construction Conference Panel Presentation

​June 2017: Announce the first SEAONC SE3 Mentorship event to be held August 3, 2017 from 6-8pm.
 
And, at the end of June, one of the crowning achievements of our committee over the last year: our proposal to begin a national SE3 Committee through NCSEA was accepted! Starting in 2017 there will be an NCSEA SE3 Committee that will oversee the creation and administration of a biennial survey of structural engineers nationwide and assist other chapters in starting their own local SE3 Committees. We are extremely humbled and grateful for the national support of the mission of SE3 and look forward to working within SEAONC and NCSEA to further the mission of the organization.
 
As for the future of the SEAONC SE3 Committee…leadership for the upcoming 2017-18 year will be announced very soon, and we’re confident that the next year will build on the work of previous years to bring continued success. In the remainder of 2017, the Committee will be hosting its first mentorship event on August 3; a best practices resource guide will be released on the SE3 website over the summer; a pay report with detailed information about compensation of the 2016 survey respondents will be released in the fall; and personal stories from members of our profession will be shared to help us understand anecdotal experiences within structural engineering in the summer and fall.
 
THANK YOU to everyone who has supported the SEAONC SE3 Committee and its mission over the last year and beyond—we can’t wait to see what’s next!         
 
To be part of what’s next, join us at our next meeting on July 18 at SOM in San Francisco! We welcome new members and contributors.
 
For more information about the SE3 Committee, or to read the SE3 2016 Survey Report that discusses detailed findings from the 2016 nationwide survey, visit SE3project.org.
 
If you have questions or would like to join the SE3 Committee, please email se3@seaonc.org.