News Detail

Unlimited Opportunities

5/1/2015

I am honored to serve as President of the American Concrete Institute. The next 12 months will provide unparalleled opportunities for professional growth, and I am excited about the prospect of meeting and interacting with ACI members from across the United States and around the world.

My decision to pursue an engineering career was made as a young child, and so I followed in the footsteps of my great-grandfather, grandfather, and father. I was about 10 years old when I accompanied my father to a construction site and had the opportunity to explore. The story would be much more compelling if the building we visited had been a concrete frame—it was a prefabricated steel building—but my life-long fascination with construction had begun. Immediately south of my office building on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin is the site of a new engineering building—and this is a concrete frame. After years of constructing test specimens in the laboratory, I am thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to watch the building emerge in real time from my office.

I joined ACI as a graduate student at the University of Illinois and gave my first presentation at a technical session at the 1985 Spring Convention in Denver, CO. I don't think that I have missed an ACI convention since. As a graduate student and young faculty member, my participation in ACI accelerated the development of my professional network and I made life-long friends in the process. After each convention, I would return to campus with new ideas about my research and new stories to share with the students in my classes. I still have strong memories of a conversation during a convention in Seattle, WA, when a friend and I exchanged ideas about reinforced concrete walls as we ate lunch in a food court. I was analyzing data from a series of laboratory tests and he was designing buildings on the West Coast using walls to resist the design earthquake effects. Toward the end of our meal, a stranger asked if we were engineers because our conversation had been the most boring that he had ever heard. Luckily, most engineering students do not share this opinion.

My participation in ACI also provided me with my first leadership opportunities at a national level. I was appointed Chair of ACI Committee 442, Response of Concrete Buildings to Lateral Forces, after serving as a member for 5 years. As a Chair of a technical committee, I learned important lessons about building consensus within a group of people who each have different opinions and points of view. While the rules for balloting a technical committee document and receiving Technical Activities Committee (TAC) comments often seem onerous, they are excellent preparation for future leadership roles, where listening and understanding the situation from multiple perspectives are essential skills.

My ACI committee service also taught me the importance of setting long-term goals. The reorganization of ACI 318 is an example of the extraordinary accomplishments that can be achieved when a group of dedicated individuals sets an ambitious goal and is committed to achieving it.

As I plan my term as ACI President, I will focus on activities that are aligned with the 2013 Strategic Plan. All Board-level committees are making recommendations related to the four pillars: engagement, outreach, leadership, and structure. Several recommendations have been implemented by the Board, but many others are still being developed. This is an exciting time to be working with the concrete community and I look forward to discussing many possibilities with you during the next year.

Sharon L. Wood