California Seismic Safety Commission Receives "Overall Excellence and New Technology Award" from the Western States Seismic Policy Council

NEWS RELEASE
December 10, 1997

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650/595-1542
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At its recent annual meeting in Victoria, British Columbia, the Western States Seismic Policy Council awarded the California Seismic Safety Commission its Overall Excellence and New Technology Award for the recently released ATC-40 report, SEISMIC EVALUATION AND RETROFIT OF CONCRETE BUILDINGS. Prepared by the Applied Technology Council under the Commission's Proposition 122 Retrofit Practices Improvement Program, the 2-volume, 612-page, report provides a state-of-the-art methodology for the seismic evaluation and retrofit of concrete buildings.

Accepting the award on behalf of the Commission and the Applied Technology Council (ATC) was Mr. Craig Comartin, ATC Senior Structural Consultant and ATC-40 Project Principal Investigator (PI). In his brief acceptance speech, Mr. Comartin commended the Commission, its staff, and the 18-person consulting team who produced the report for ATC: Richard Niewiarowski (Co-PI and Project Director), Christopher Rojahn (Senior Advisor), Sigmund Freeman, Sunil Gupta, Thomas Hale, Ronald Hamburger, William Holmes, Charles Kircher, Marshall Lew, Gregory Luth, Geoffrey Martin, Lelio Mehia, Jack Moehle, Yoshi Moriwaki, Maurice Power, Wendy Rule, Thomas Sabol, Gail Shea, and Nabih Youssef.

The report was recognized for its clear, concise, and beautifully formatted and illustrated descriptions of new and emerging technologies for evaluation and retrofit of older concrete buildings. Making the report doubly valuable is the fact that the methods are applicable to most building types (i.e., not only concrete buildings). Specific guidance is provided on performance objectives, seismic hazard, determination of deficiencies, retrofit strategies, quality assurance procedures, nonlinear static analysis procedures, modeling rules, foundation effects, response limits, and nonstructural components.
Copies of the report can be obtained from the Applied Technology Council (555 Twin Dolphin Drive, Suite 550, Redwood City, California 94065; Telephone, 650/595-1542; Fax, 650/593-2320).; E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Welcome to the ATC Team!

Michael 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

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.