Articles

October 2025 President's Message

Dear ASCE Houston Branch,

I am honored and excited to serve as the ASCE Houston Branch President for 2025-26. I’m looking forward to building on the success of past president Johnny Kim. I also want to express my appreciation to the other 2024-25 Officers, Committee Chairs, and local Institute Chapter Chairs for their service to the ASCE Houston Branch.

This past year, I was proud to conduct the first membership survey our Branch has done in nearly a decade. To prepare for this new fiscal year, a Leadership Orientation meeting was held on September 4, where we gathered new and returning volunteers to discuss opportunities and goals for the upcoming year, and I shared the results of the membership survey to help guide our discussions.

The survey made one thing very clear: our members come to ASCE for connection, for networking and for building relationships that support them both personally and professionally. This was a powerful reminder that while we are an engineering society, at our core, we’re a people society. With a membership base as large and diverse as ours — spread across 13 counties — we must make sure that those opportunities to connect are truly accessible. This year, one of my primary goals is to bring more tech sessions and social events to other parts of town, so members across our region feel seen, supported, and engaged. As we progress into this year, please know that I’m open to suggestions from all our members on how we can achieve this together.

At our September Branch meeting, Rich Byrnes, Chief Infrastructure Officer for the Port of Houston, provided updates on latest key developments and future plans to expand access and capacity to Port Houston, including the Project 11 dredging efforts to widen and deepen the ship channel, and several terminal infrastructure upgrades. Both of these initiatives are critical investments for maintaining and growing Port Houston’s role as the nation’s largest port by total waterborne tonnage. At this meeting we also recognized our 2024-25 Officers and Committee Chairs for their service over the past year, and awarded the Presidential Medal of Merit to Osvaldo Diaz, whose exemplary involvement in numerous committee chair positions over the past few years has been integral to the success of our programming. We are so fortunate to have so many dedicated members like Osvaldo who bring passion and energy into their roles within ASCE – it truly makes such a difference! This meeting concluded with the installation of our new 2025-26 Board, which is excited to serve you all over this next year. We do have a few volunteer opportunities remaining for various committees - if you are interested in becoming an active member please send me an email and we’ll find a way to plug you in!

I look forward to all that this next year holds as we continue to expand and enhance our programming to better serve the members of the ASCE Houston community. Please feel free to reach out to me with any questions or suggestions.

Thank you,

Anna Chamberlain, PE, CFM, ENV SP

President

[email protected]