I don’t travel too much for work, so the last three weeks has been a bit different from my normal routine. On August 30, I attended an unreinforced masonry retrofit workshop in Memphis, had a sales meeting the following week in St. Louis, and the annual SEAOC convention last week in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
I have been remiss in not talking about an important summit taking place in California next month. SEAOSC is hosting the 2nd annual Buildings at Risk Earthquake Loss Reduction Summit on October 11 in downtown Los Angeles, California. The summit is a precursor to the “Great California ShakeOut” event that will be held on October 18.The summit will serve as a forum to not only increase awareness of seismic risk, but spur action. This will be an important conference not only for structural engineers working in seismic areas, but for building officials, architects, building owners, insurance companies, and first responders. The sessions will stress the benefits of mitigation and encourage the different stakeholders to work together on solutions.
Early registration for a discounted rate and a chance to win an iPad ends today, but there is still time to register.
– Paul
Author: Paul McEntee
A couple of years back we hosted a “Take your daughter or son to work day,” which was a great opportunity for our children to find out what their parents did. We had different activities for the kids to learn about careers and the importance of education in opening up career opportunities. People often ask me what I do for Simpson Strong-Tie and I sometimes laugh about how my son Ryan responded to a questionnaire he filled out that day:
Q. What is your mom/dad's job?
A. Goes and gets coffee and sits at his desk
Q. What does your mom/dad actually do at work?
A. Walks in the test lab and checks things
When I am not checking things in the lab or sitting at my desk drinking coffee, I manage Engineering Research and Development for Simpson Strong-Tie, focusing on new product development for connectors and lateral systems.
I graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and I am a licensed Civil and Structural Engineer in California. Prior to joining Simpson Strong-Tie, I worked for 10 years as a consulting structural engineer designing commercial, industrial, multi-family, mixed-use and retail projects. I was fortunate in those years to work at a great engineering firm that did a lot of everything. This allowed me to gain experience designing with wood, structural steel, concrete, concrete block and cold-formed steel as well as working on many seismic retrofits of historic unreinforced masonry buildings.
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