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Celebrating the Past, Engaging the Present, and Envisioning the Future
December 8, 2023   |   San Francisco
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Christopher RojahnChristopher Rojahn
Director Emeritus

Christopher Rojahn, a registered Civil Engineer in California, served as Executive Director of the Applied Technology Council (ATC) from 1981 to 2015 and is currently serving ATC as Director Emeritus.  During his 34-year tenure as Executive Director, Mr. Rojahn served as Principal Investigator/Project Manager/Senior Advisor on more than 100 major research and development projects involving earthquake and natural hazard mitigation issues, including development of: earthquake risk mitigation strategies for urban areas; earthquake damage and loss evaluation data and methodology; methods for the seismic vulnerability assessment of buildings, bridges and other lifeline structures; methods for rapid and detailed seismic capacity evaluation of buildings; guidelines for the seismic rehabilitation of buildings; and procedures for post-earthquake safety evaluation of buildings.  He has also led numerous workshops on various technical issues related to the seismic design and performance of buildings, bridges, and other structures.

Mr. Rojahn has testified before the U. S. Congress and has advised the White House Office of Science Technology Policy on issues relating to earthquake hazard mitigation.  He has also served in leadership capacities on a variety of National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded programs, including the Board of Directors of NEES Inc., the organization that managed and operated the initial 5-year Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) program in Davis, California, and the Governance Board of NEEScomm at Purdue University, the organization that managed and operated the second 5-year period of operation of NEES. 

Prior to joining ATC, Mr. Rojahn served as a Research Civil Engineer for the Seismic Engineering Branch of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).  His work there focused primarily on the acquisition and analysis of earthquake strong-motion data from instrumented structures as well as the development of methods for instrumenting buildings and bridges.  While at the USGS he also participated in post-earthquake investigations in California, Hawaii, Argentina, Nicaragua, Romania, and the Soviet Union.

Mr. Rojahn is currently a member of the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute and the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California.  He has also served on the Board of Trustees of GeoHazards International in Menlo Park, California, and on the Board of Advisors of the STRAAM Group in New York City.

HONORS

  • Alquist Medal, Earthquake Engineering Research Institute “Alfred E. Alquist Special Recognition Award”, March 2017.
  • Honorary Member of the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California, June 2009.
  • The Western States Seismic Policy Council Lifetime Achievement Award in Earthquake Risk Reduction, April 2006.
  • Recognized as Structural Engineer of the Year by the Journal on The Structural Design of Tall and Special Buildings, September 2005.
  • Honor Member, Chi Epsilon, Bucknell University, March 2004.
  • Award for Leadership, Innovation, and Outstanding Accomplishments in Earthquake Risk Reduction, presented by the Earthquake.
  • Engineering Research Institute, Northern California Chapter, April 2003.
  • William Penn Senior High School Hall of Fame (1997), along with Keys to the City of York, Pennsylvania.


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Ayse Hortacsu
Director of Projects

Ayse joined ATC in 2008 and has managed over 30 ATC projects, first as Research Applications Manager, and most recently as Director of Projects. She has led ATC projects both in the U.S. and abroad on a variety of subjects including post-earthquake safety evaluations, seismic performance assessment of buildings, seismic retrofit of existing buildings, seismic performance of nonstructural components, vulnerability assessment and retrofit of wood-frame dwellings, and performance of tall buildings. She was named an EERI Housner Fellow in 2014 and is the Chair of the EERI Oral History committee. She has also served as a Director on the board of the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California (SEAONC) and the Northern California chapter of EERI. She is the founder of Women in Structural Engineering (WiSE), an online network connecting women in the profession by facilitating local events, and one of the founding members of the Structural Engineering Equity and Engagement (SE3) committee of SEAONC.

Prior to joining ATC in 2008, Ayse spent six years as a consulting engineer in private practice, performing risk and vulnerability analysis of varying sizes for both earthquake and manmade hazards. She also has extensive experience in the design and analysis for blast loads, having completed new design and retrofit projects for both military and private clients. Ayse is a licensed professional engineer in California.

 

 

        

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Justin Moresco
Director of Projects

Justin joined ATC in 2018 and is responsible for project management, oversight, and quality control during the development of ATC products and publications. Justin comes to ATC as an experienced project manager with expertise in structural engineering, seismic risk analysis, and natural hazards risk mitigation.  Previously, Justin was a product manager for a leading risk modeling firm where he focused on developing earthquake risk models for the Americas.  Justin has participated in post-event damage investigations following the 2011 Christchurch, New Zealand; 2014 South Napa, California; 2016 Muisne, Ecuador; and 2017 Puebla, Mexico earthquakes.

Justin has also worked as a professional journalist and editor, with a focus on urban development.  He has extensive international work experience, including in Europe, West Africa, the Caribbean, and South America.  He holds a B.S. in structural engineering from the University of California, San Diego, an M.Eng. in structural engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Postgraduate Diploma from the London School of Journalism.  Justin is a licensed professional engineer in California.

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Bernadette A. Hadnagy
Director of Operations

Bernadette has been with ATC since 1993. Since then her responsibilities have evolved into performing all financial management and accounting functions, updating the ATC website, registration, and online store, supervising report order processing and event registration activities, implementation and conduct of webinars, training coordination on client projects, and working directly with the staff, Board of Directors, clients, and Project participants.  She is responsible for scheduling and conduct of ATC trainings, seminars, workshops, and special events, and has extensive experience in managing ATC's organizational effectiveness and risk management.


        

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Ginevra Rojahn
Assistant Project Manager

Ginevra joined ATC in 2021 as a recent graduate obtaining her Master's degree from University of California, Berkeley. Ginevra brings her experience to ATC by assisting staff to manage projects, edit technical publications, oversee report production, provide graphic design capabilities, improve ATC's online presence, and support the ATC Hazards by Location Website and API.


        

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 Welcome to the ATC Team!

Valley Mike cropMichael Valley As a former Principal at Magnusson Klemencic Associates in Seattle, Mike Valley comes to ATC with more than 30 years of structural engineering experience in new design, evaluation and retrofit of existing buildings, applied research, and codes and standards development. Mike’s design experience includes the landmark Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, and his research and development experience includes the FEMA 356 Prestandard and Commentary for the Seismic Rehabilitation of Buildings, FEMA P-2012 Assessing Seismic Performance of Buildings with Configuration Irregularities (ATC-123 Project), and NIST GCR 10-917-9 Applicability of Nonlinear Multiple-Degree-of-Freedom Modeling for Design (ATC-76-6 Project).

Mike also has extensive experience as an ATC consultant serving as a reviewer, a technical contributor, and Project Director on multiple ATC projects. We look forward to how Mike’s unique experiences as a successful team member will contribute to ATC projects in the future.

Michael Mahoney
Michael Mahoney

Retired from federal service as a Senior Geophysicist with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Mike Mahoney comes to ATC with more than 30 years of experience in hazard mitigation program management and policy development, post-disaster response and recovery, and problem-focused research and development in support of FEMA’s efforts under the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP). He has led FEMA’s earthquake-related work with the International Code Council and has been involved with the development of national model codes and standards since 1984.

In his career at FEMA, Mike has led the development of countless major FEMA publications, including: FEMA 350 Recommended Seismic Design Criteria for New Steel Moment-Frame Buildings and its series of companion reports (ATC-41 Project series), FEMA P-58 Seismic Performance Assessment of Buildings, Methodology and Implementation (ATC-58 Project series), FEMA P-695 Quantification of Building Seismic Performance Factors (ATC-63 Project), FEMA P-2018 Seismic Evaluation of Older Concrete Buildings for Collapse Potential (ATC-78 Project), and FEMA P-2090/NIST SP-1254 Recommended Options for Improving the Built Environment for Post-Earthquake Reoccupancy and Functional Recovery Time (ATC-137 Project). With Mike’s extensive knowledge of federal government programs, and past collaboration with state and local agencies, hazard mitigation partners, and code development organizations, we look forward to how his unique experiences will help serve ATC’s client needs and objectives in the future.