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Geotechnical News • March 2013
51
ASFE NEWS
been looking at our
meeting format
,
too, and you can expect to start see-
ing some changes over the next few
meetings, beginning with our 2013
Spring Meeting in Charleston. Most
of you have met Barb Nappy, our new
Program Director, and we’ll be taking
advantage of the tremendous experi-
ence and know-how she brings to bear
on our behalf.
I believe it’s clear that we are in not
just a period of transition, but a period
of rapid transition. ASFE sees this as
an opportunity to reach out to more
so we can create a far better business
environment for our members; more
respect and demand for those who
believe in continuous improvement,
and more and better tools for dealing
with the perils we know that exist and
– more important – know how to man-
age. Rest assured that every member
of ASFE’s leadership understands that
we have a history of excellence and
innovation to maintain; a history that
has benefited not just our members
and all geoprofessionals in private
practice, but really, all of our nation’s
design professionals.
Limitation of
liability
was an ASFE innovation. We
were vilified for believing that geo-
professionals should not be required
to accept an unreasonable amount
of liability for what we did. Today,
limitation of liability is commonly
used by all design and environmental
professionals.
Alternative dispute resolution
was
another major development for which
ASFE is responsible. We created the
first new ADR method in 100 years,
then developed another five or six for
good measure, helping to make dis-
putes faster, easier, and far less costly
to resolve.
We also created
Peer Review
. In
1999, contemplating its 125
th
anni-
versary,
Engineering News-Record
selected ASFE as the only trade
association or professional society in
America to have contributed a major
innovation to the construction industry
in the prior century and a quarter, and
that innovation was Peer Review.
We can also thank ASFE for conceiv-
ing and leading the development of
Recommended Practices for Design
Professionals Engaged as Experts
in Construction Industry Disputes
, a
document now endorsed by more than
40 national and international organiza-
tions that has helped resolve an untold
number of disputes, especially because
of faulty work by expert witnesses on
the other side.
And let us not forget one of the most
important innovations of all; one that
came into being at the same time as
ASFE, when the people who created
ASFE also created Terra Insurance
Company, which today is the highest-
rated professional-liability insurance
company in the United States.
You can rest assured that ASFE will
continue to lead the way in an effort
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 www.asfe.org.
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 • info@asfe.org
When you belong to ASFE, ASFE belongs to you.
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