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Geotechnical News December 2011
Forward Together:
An Alliance of Geoprofessionals
ASFE’s purpose – to maximize
the importance and value of the
geoprofessions to the marketplace –
will not be quickly or easily achieved,
especially if ASFE is the only one
beating the drum. It no longer is.
In fact, ASFE’s leaders have been
astonished by the extent of the support
being demonstrated. But how best to
coordinate that support? Based on work
conducted by the External Relations
Committee, ASFE developed a concept
statement that we issued in mid-June. It
reads, in part, as follows:
“Geoprofessional services in many
markets have become increasingly
commoditized over the past four de-
cades, and those who provide them
– geoprofessionals – are becoming
marginalized in many markets: They
are treated as tangential project partici-
pants who are called on only when oth-
ers believe they’re needed, as opposed
to being involved meaningfully from
a project’s inception to its conclusion.
The consequences take the form of
serious detriments for all geoprofes-
sionals and those who could otherwise
derive far more value from the services
geoprofessionals can provide. No geo-
professionals are spared. Consultants;
constructors; geoprofessionals em-
ployed by business, government, and
institutional entities; even geoprofes-
sional educators and students – all are
diminished by these trends.
“In 2009, ASFE/The Geoprofes-
sional Business Association adopted a
new purpose designed specifically to
counter geoprofessional commoditi-
zation and marginalization; “to maxi-
mize the geoprofessions’ importance
and value to the marketplace.” ASFE
remains intent on causing a tide that
will lift all boats, not just their own
member firms and not just consultants;
all geoprofessionals….[And] ASFE
is not alone. Responsible geoprofes-
sional organizations have been quick to
acknowledge that their members, too,
believe “enough is enough,” and they,
too, want to make a difference. They
agree that this can best be done through
cooperative endeavors that, on the one
hand, help geoprofessionals enhance
the quality of their services (technical
and otherwise) and, on the other hand,
inform clients and those who influence
clients that high-quality geoprofession-
al services (like so many others) are the
least costly, thanks to the experience,
knowledge, judgment, and integrity of
those who provide them. Clients and
those who influence clients should be
receptive to such outreach given that
– predictably – geoprofessional issues
are the single largest source of claims
on their projects.
“Precisely this issue was discussed
at the June 6-8, 2011 annual meeting
of the GeoCoalition, [a seven-orga-
nization “umbrella group” of which
ASFE is a part]…ASFE explained that
it could not achieve its purpose alone;
that accomplishment would require a
cooperative, coordinated effort through
which each interest could help the oth-
ers, and that a vehicle of some type
would be needed to take geoprofes-
sionals from here to where they want
to be. ASFE floated the concept that
one such vehicle might be a 501(c)(3)
educational foundation dedicated to:
creating widespread awareness of the
value geoprofessionals can bring to the
projects for which they are engaged
and those who own, use, and otherwise
benefit from those projects, and helping
geoprofessionals improve their abil-
ity to provide such value. Tentatively
titled The Geoprofessional Foundation
(TGF), the organization would pursue
those activities all geoprofessionals
could benefit from – e.g., advertising,
PR, speakers’ bureau, assembling and
maintaining a resource library – while
encouraging consistency and programs
unique to one organization or another,
so all groups would sing from the same
hymnal.
“To some extent, the creation of one
organization supported strongly by its
constituent groups would represent a
reversal of the fragmentation that has
so weakened engineering over the
years…. The geoprofessional segment
of the engineering profession is no dif-
ferent from engineering itself, explain-
ing why a worsening situation has been
allowed to reach crisis proportions un-
challenged. Geoprofessionals’ inability
to speak with a common voice and a
common purpose eliminated their abil-
ity to authoritatively address their com-
mon interests. Now they realize that,
unless they hang together, they will
hang separately. An organization such
as TGF could unify the geoprofessions
by serving as a catalyst for the lower-
ing of barriers now separating geopro-
fessionals; by creating awareness and
understanding that would encourage
geoprofessionals to work with one an-
