Technical Committee Membership

[Gumpmaster]

For those of you who are committee members for ACI, AISC, ASCE and the like, how much time to you spend on your committee work? How many get togethers do you have a year and do you have to travel to the meeting or is it an online meeting? I know it varies vastly by committee and organization, but I'd just like to get an overview.

Thanks.

 

[Archie264]

Great question and I'll be interested to see the results.

I've long been of the belief that membership in such organizations is biased towards academicians and employees of large manufacturing and consulting firms as these are the entities who can afford to sponsor attendance in such committees, while the small practitioners can't. Accordingly the provisions then seem to reflect that; that is, overly-complicated codes that allow an academician's research to gain acceptance or a manufacturer's product to gain utmost efficiency. Meanwhile the large consulting firms can dedicate thousands of hours of research towards learning how to comply with the new codes with little noticeable effect to their bottom line; not so the small practitioners...

It seems to be a bit of a feed-back mechanism resulting in ever-thicker code books and ever-more-complicated codes. I don't know how to affect the process other than to voice concern over it, such as I'm doing with this post...

 

[ajh1]

Most committees meet an average of twice a year for face to face meetings. There may be additional conference call or webinar meetings depending on the committee or subcommittee. Meetings will generally run from 1-3 days depending upon the person's involvement with the subcommittees of the applicable main committee. NOTE, most real work gets done at the subcommittee level rather than the main committee level. Many committee have "mail list" or "corresponding" members who do not necessarily have all voting privileges but can make comments and be informed of committee developments prior to final implementation without the travel and expense demand. Obviously people who regularly attend the meetings tend to have their comments given stronger weight than the random or infrequent participant. The committees that I am on do a very good job of discussing and responding to ALL comments received during the balloting process. Personally I can't say the same about comments received during the typical "public review" comment period. Good comments may get dealt with as future committee business but it is extremely rare that they actually get immediate attention that would cause the new provisions to be revised before issue.
In addition to the meetings themselves there is preparation time, ballot reviews and voting. Each of these may involve as much or more time annually than the actual meeting attendance and travel, but obviously not the out-of-pocket expense, although obviously this tends to be non-billable time.
Yes, it can take a lot of time and money and that does limit the ability of the small firms to participate. Consider becoming involved with just one committee that has direct influence on your area of expertise and see how it goes.
Note that while most committees have some sort of balancing requirement between types of people (academics, consulting, manufacturing, etc.) in may cases subcommittees are more open to diversity without particular restrictions and become a good place to start your committee involvement.

 

[StrPE]

The AISC committees that I serve on normally meet twice a year, sometimes 3, usually 1-3 days each event. Depending on the amount of balloting, as ajh1 states "... In addition to the meetings themselves there is preparation time, ballot reviews and voting. Each of these may involve as much or more time annually than the actual meeting attendance". I remember when the AISC 13th Edition was being developed I probably spent close to 30 hours some weeks, at home, at night, reviewing documents and developing proposals. Committee work can be exhausting but exciting as well being on the cutting edge of code development.

 

[TXStructural]

ACI meets nationally twice a year, and with few exceptions, each committee meets for 2-4 hours on one day only. The 318 and 301 committees are very closely held, and getting on these usually requires prior participation on other committees. There are 4-5 days of meetings during each convention. Outside of conventions (which you need to attend at least once a year), committee work varies and you can quickly get dragged into frequent conference calls and writing proposed language. BUT, many committees work very slowly and do very little outside of conventions.
ASTM meets twice a year, and involvement can be as much or as little as you like, but if you join and participate, please be sure you vote on ballots, to assure that the process works as needed.
ASCE committees vary widely as to the amount of commitment required, but I am only starting to get involved with ASCE committees, so I can't speak intelligently about them.

For all of these groups, bear in mind a few things:
1) people paid to participate tend to have more time, which means industry representatives (like me) and academics tend to dominate the conversation. However the committees require a certain balance, depending upon their ANSI accreditation, so your voice is important and needs to be heard. I am in the somewhat unique position of having been a designer recently, so I don't only represent the industry, but also view this work from the position of a user.
2) There is often longstanding politics and history that should be respected, since proposed changes sometimes just reverse the course - sometimes for the better, sometimes because the underlying reasons are not apparent but make sense in the greater context. If you want to reverse the course, be prepared to politic and work behind the scenes to build consensus.
3) Get involved and stay involved, so you become the constant voice of reason. Don't expect to make sweeping changes quickly. It is frequently a game of survivor, and the people who consistently participate and work hard tend to get their items adopted (if the proposal stands on its merits.)
In the end, the people who are the constant face of the committee act as the elders and the voice of reason when the guys like me proposed crazy, big changes (like simplification of the development length equations.) Good committees work well with a mix of new and old members, and fresh voices bring good perspective and valuable input to the committee's work. It is very easy to get over-committed, so go cautiously.

 

[IFRs]

The API committees I have participated in meet twice a year. In between meetings, those with agenda items that are still working must prepare their documents, usually working with other members via phone or meetings. When ballots come out, which is between meetings, we have to vote which often means reviewing the whole thread and takes time. I'd say that I spend a week a year plus meetings. And I'm just a member - if you are an officer, secretary, etc, you have a lot more time invested.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

Don't let StrPE's response scare you. My guess is that his "30 hrs some weeks" is really a reflection of how much work the 13th edition steel code was. Which is understandable considering what a major re-write of the code that was. But, if he was involved in the other recent AISC codes (LRFD 3rd, AISC 14th, or the upcoming 15th editions) then he would probably tell you that the amount of work was a significant'y less.

Don't want to put words in his mouth, of course, I'm just reading between the lines based on my own experiences on the periphery of the committee process.

 

[concretemasonry]

I was fortunate that when I was hired (1968) it was required to complete my PE and could join any professional association, attend all meetings AND participate if it related to concrete, masonry and contracting.

The most difficult was getting to be a voting member on ASTM standards. It took 10 years of being on the waiting list until they purged the list of deceased voting members and maintain a "consensus" standard of representation. fortunately my acquaintance with other professional members from ACI and industry associations helped a little bit. There is nothing worse than developing/amending a document or standard for a year or two, have it get through the questions and subcommittees and have it shot down by a few "interested parties" that finally participated and out-voted the active members after they left assuming that everything was done. Things have now been improved.

The activity can be very costly because on the twice a year meetings (travel and meetings) can count up. You can always participate and vote on line periodically, but meeting face to face during the meetings and later is difficult to get any other way. That provides you with insight into other factors and activities that is not available anywhere else.

Dick

Engineer and international traveler interested in construction techniques, problems and proper design.

 

[dhengr]

I take my hat off to all code committee members for all their diligent effort and time and expenses expended. One of my career regrets is that I could never afford the time or expenses involved in really being more involved on committees. I was involved a few times on issues really important to something we were involved in, otherwise I usually knew a few important committee members who I could call when I had an issue I wanted to talk about or wanted addressed. Those were the days when we still used the phone and called people to discuss a problem, rather than inundating them with e-mail tweets which get lost in the fog of excessive activity.

It seems to me that something constructive that all committee members, and committees in general could do, is take a well earned vacation. If it ain’t broke, leave it alone for a few cycles, and let those of us who have to buy and relearn that stuff every three years or so catch up and actually learn to use one version of the code. We are spending lots of time and money on codes, both the code committees and the end users, and we aren’t producing appreciably better infrastructure, just making the whole process much more complex, because we can. The only people who benefit are the publishers who have made a major industry and profit center out of code churning, a whole new end in itself. If there is a real life/safety issue, by all means issue an addendum; but when some multiplier gets changed from .9 to .91 because some college got a grant to study it, lets give it a rest, I can’t get W18x59.33 to save pound of stl. Part of our need for republishing is the publishers and committees earlier rush to publish unvetted stuff in the first place.

I don’t mean to discourage anyone from participating in various industry committees, that is a good part of the way we advance our profession and our technical knowledge. At lease that is what that used to be all about, and the effort showed up in technical journals and had some time to be used and evaluated by knowledgeable users. Now, it seems to me, the effort is to see how much new junk we can churn out before the next publishing deadline. We’ve gotta make some changes or we are not going to be relevant. And, I have little sense that this is really improving our profession or causing us to produce a better product. I daresay, if we spent the same time, effort and money to teach drafters to draw buildable plans and details; and we taught young engineers the fundamentals and how to make smart engineering decisions and solve real engineering problems by thinking through them, and we still inspired experienced engineers to mentor and supervise the work being done under them; we would end up with less expensive construction with no loss in utility, and fewer ulcers.

 

[IFRs]

In most cases, our work clarifies, updates or fixes the code, at the request of stakeholders or from receiving technical questions. Might be different with other organizations and committees.

 

[Ron]

I am a member of two ASTM Committees and active in several subcommittees. It usually takes me from 2 to 4 hours per proposed change to review, make comments and then defend my comments. Afterward, voting is relatively quick. It also depends on how much discussion/disagreement there is with proposed changes to standards. For some, we have had comments, arguments, discussions and compromises that have lasted for many months. Usually not, but it happens.

As for annual meetings, ASTM holds two per year, at different times depending on the committees because of the number of committees, standards and members in ASTM. Mine are usually in May/June and October/November.....I have not been able to attend the annual meetings because of my schedule, which is usually dictated by court order per project (sometimes a scheduling nightmare!).

I have been a member of ACI committees in the past and they work similarly, but are generally less active than ASTM, particularly with respect to standards revisions.

 

[concretemasonry]

Ron -

I have some experiences in both ASTM and ACI. My ACI activity was somewhat limited but I did get to particate in writing ACI 530, although it was mainly done but other organizations and it was published as an ACI document since the other groups did not want to bother with the publishing and distribution. Our local chapter of ACI had a rather narrow direction, so I dropped my membership after a few years.

I have been active in ASTM for about 25 years and was impressed with the committee organization for main committees and subcommittees. The "summer" and "winter" meeting are scheduled to people with a central interest have meetings in a 2 or 3 day span instead of the week long. The locations are always in a little "pricey" locations, but that is necessary to have enough rooms for the many meetings. Also, they do pay attention to climates (no Detroit or Chicago meeting in the winter) and have been to several meetings in Scotsdale.

The good thing about ASTM is the extremely low cost and availability of standards (less than $100/year membership with access to the standards for your committee) and the general practice of no corporate votes and a limit on the voting member lists to avoid the corporate politics. Also, I ran into several situations where the subcommittee chairman scheduled some joint meetings between the subcommittees setting product standards and the subcommittee on testing methods and sampling - very productive. I also agree on the ease of voting if you cannot be at a meeting because the on-line voting process is fast because you have on-line access to most relating standards instead of using hard copies. If you don't vote reasonably frequently, you lose your position as a voting member.

Dick

Engineer and international traveler interested in construction techniques, problems and proper design.

 

[Gumpmaster]

Thanks for all your input (and hard work).

It sounds like you can give as much (or as little) as you want.