INNOVATION May-June 2017

as soc ia t i on notes

Annual Conference and AGM to Take Place in Whistler, BC, October 19–21

Join us and some 900 of your colleagues at APEGBC’s Annual Conference and Annual General Meeting, October 19–21, 2017, in Whistler, BC. This year’s event will be held at the Whistler Conference Centre and will include two days of professional development, networking and an industry tradeshow. Professional development streams include engineering and geoscience in the resource sector, municipal engineering, environmental engineering and geoscience, emerging professional, management, structural, better business, energy efficiency and renewable energy, diversity, and climate change.

We encourage all members to attend APEGBC’s 98 th AGM, from 8:30 am–12:30 pm on October 21, 2017. There is no charge to attend the AGM business portions of the conference. For conference information and to register online, visit apeg.bc.ca/ac17. Sponsorship opportunities are available, with benefits to meet businesses’ needs, including recognition onsite or online, at events, and on promotional materials. For information on available sponsorship opportunities, contact APEGBC Marketing Specialist Maria-Carmen Kelly, mckelly@apeg.bc.ca.

The Canadian Safety and Security Program – Post-Disaster Damage and Safety Assessment of the Built Environment is the first such project in Canada. Although developed in BC, the assessment system will be scalable and apply to rural and urban communities of all sizes throughout Canada. Damage assessment gauges the type, quantity, cause and sometimes cost of damage to a building and can include an evaluation of the repairs needed. Safety assessment determines whether the building can be occupied and used immediately and, in some cases, identifies short-term countermeasures to reduce risk in order for the building to be occupied. The goal of the two-year, multi-agency research project is to develop tools, models, processes and approaches to empower community-level professional and public engagement in emergency planning and safety assessment. Specifically, the research team will develop a model that allows, enables and supports credentialed and non-credentialed members of the public to assess safety in an emergency situation. Such a model would reduce the social impact of disruptive events, allowing communities to recover more quickly and reducing impact on emergency and social services. Defence Research and Development Canada is funding the post-disaster damage and safety assessment project. For information, contact Peter Mitchell, APEGBC Director, Professional Practice, at mitchell@apeg.bc.ca or 604.412.4853.

APEGBC to Help Develop Tools to Increase Post-Disaster Community Resilience A major earthquake, flood, wildfire or tsunami could cripple BC communities and leave thousands of residents homeless, with many buildings and residences no longer safe to occupy or even enter. APEGBC is partnering with BC Housing, the Architectural Institute of British Columbia and the Justice Institute of British Columbia to design a framework that will enable communities to manage and recover more quickly from major disasters. The framework will allow communities experiencing a disruptive emergency to quickly assess the safety of structures and allow people to remain in or return to their homes and businesses as soon as possible, thereby increasing the communities’ resilience.

APEGBC to Prepare Post-Earthquake Building Evaluation Training APEGBC will be developing a training program for post-earthquake building evaluation with a portion of the funding for emergency preparedness announced by the BC government in March. “This training program will combine the latest research with engineering “By equipping a pool of qualified professionals with the necessary tools and techniques to perform these assessments, we will be better able to respond to the needs of the community in an emergency situation.” The training program will be based on

and those identified as post-earthquake administrators. The goal of the project is to create a professional community with the specialized skills to provide post- earthquake structural assessments and aid in the immediate response and recovery efforts of all levels of government. For information, contact Peter Mitchell, APEGBC Director, Professional Practice, at mitchell@apeg.bc.ca or 604.412.4853.

the methodology employed in APEGBC’s award-winning Seismic Retrofit Guidelines, 2nd edition (SRG2), and will be delivered for qualified professionals, such as engineers, architects, building inspectors,

expertise to provide a way to rapidly and effectively evaluate the safety of buildings following a seismic event,” says APEGBC CEO and Registrar Ann English, P.Eng.

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