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Geotechnical News December 2010
ASFE NEWS
Gaboury:
As we see it, Scot, risk
management means being in the um-
brella business.
Litke:
In what way?
Martin:
Risks rain down. Over the
years, ASFE has helped its members
by creating umbrellas. Contract terms
like limitation of liability, for exam-
ple. Model contracts. Alternative dis-
pute resolution. Training programs of
various type. So ASFE-member firms
have the umbrellas they need to pro-
tect themselves, and the data show that
those umbrellas been extraordinarily
effective. So we’re not going to stop
making umbrellas.
Litke:
So your new purpose is to
stop the rain. And until you’re success-
ful, you’ll keep on making new um-
brellas, too.
Martin:
Exactly.
Litke:
And how do you propose to
stop the rain?
Gaboury:
Through outreach. We
want to work with the many fine or-
ganizations like ADSC that are made
up of geoprofessionals, in whole or in
part. And we also want to work with
the organizations that represent owners
and other client types, including archi-
tects, civil engineers, structural engi-
neers, and others. We all have a vested
interest in this. Things don’t have to be
as they are. Projects that involve delays
and disputes should be rarities. Right
now, they’re not.
Litke:
So you want to shrink the
market for commoditized services.
Do you really believe you can you do
that?
Gaboury:
If we thought we
couldn’t, we never would have set out
on this path. We want to stimulate the
market for the kind of geoprofessional
service that makes problems far less
likely, and we want to increase the sup-
ply of people and firms able to fulfill
that demand.
Litke:
But you’re not a technical
organization. How do you plan to in-
crease supply?
Martin:
Elevating technical com-
petence is always important, and a
number of other organizations are do-
ing a great job of it. But even the most
technically astute geoprofessionals are
still treated like commodities in part
because they lack the ability to deliver
what many client representatives re-
gard as a top-of-the-line professional
consulting service, or because they’re
not given an opportunity to provide
that kind of service, in part because
they don’t know how to create the op-
portunity for themselves.
Litke:
So it’s far more of how to
succeed in a service business than it is
how to improve one’s technical capa-
bilities.
Martin:
Exactly. We need to edu-
cate more geoprofessionals in how
they go about performing what client
representatives regard as an outstand-
ing professional service. And that’s not
difficult for ASFE; we’ve been doing it
since day one. What we want to do, and
what we have to do, is share our knowl-
edge and experience in this arena with
other geoprofessionals and geoprofes-
sional organizations. We want to create
and cultivate allies who have the same
Tired of being marginalized?
Tired of having your services treated
like a commodity?
You are not alone.
ASFE’s new purpose is to maximize the geoprofessions’
importance and value to the marketplace, and we have a plan to get it done.
Read about it at
.
Please give ASFE membership your serious consideration. The more
geoprofessionals we represent, the more we can do for each.
Membership is available to consulting and design/build geoprofessional firms,
contractors, individual geoprofessionals whose employers are not eligible to
be ASFE-Member Firms, and full-time geoprofessional faculty.
8811 Colesville Road / Suite G106
Silver Spring, MD 20910 • 301/565-2733 •
When you belong to ASFE, ASFE belongs to you.
Memb rs ad Horiz 8-19-10.indd 1
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