ATC Announces the 2015 Champions of Earthquake Resilience Award Winners

2015 Champions of Earthquake Resilience Awards

The Applied Technology Council (ATC) and the Structural Engineering Institute (SEI) of the American Society of Civil Engineers awarded the 2015 Champions of Earthquake Resilience Awards on December 11, 2015. The awards dinner was held at the Maritime Museum in San Francisco and was attended by 120 award winners, presenters, and guests. The ATC-SEI Award Winners were selected from a broad range of nominated projects and programs resulting from a “Call for Nominations” distributed to more than 50,000 structural engineering and earthquake hazard reduction professionals in the United States, Canada, and other countries. The purpose of the awards is to recognize and publicize innovative earthquake engineering programs and projects that have (or will have) substantial impact on public safety and property loss reduction.

The awards were given in three categories and the winners were announced at a press conference held in conjunction with the ATC-SEI 2nd Conference on Improving the Seismic Performance of Existing Buildings and Other Structures. The 2015 Champions of Earthquake Resilience Award winners (7 in total) include:

*Category: Exceptional Public- and Private-Sector Research* *and Development (R&D) Programs*
	Development of Guidance and Procedures for the Seismic Design of Tall Buildings Jointly Awarded to the Pacific Earthquake Engineering Research (PEER) Center and Los Angeles Tall Buildings Structural Design Council
	*Development of FEMA P-58, Seismic Performance Assessment of Buildings Methodology and Companion Performance Assessment Calculation Tool* (PACT)** Awarded to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
Category: Extraordinary Innovation in Development of a Community Earthquake Safety Program
	Los Angeles Resilience by Design Program Awarded to the City of Los Angeles
	San Francisco Earthquake Safety Implementation Program Awarded to the City of San Francisco
Category: Extraordinary Innovation in Seismic Protection of Buildings and Lifelines
	Development of Performance-Based Seismic Retrofit Guidelines for Schools Awarded to the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia, University of British Columbia’s Earthquake Engineering Research Facility, and the British Columbia Ministry of Education
	Transbay Transit Center, San Francisco Awarded to the Transbay Joint Powers Authority and the Design and Construction Team
	San Francisco Water System Improvement Program Awarded to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission

Detailed citations for each award are provided here. For any questions, please contact the Applied Technology Council at (650) 595-1542 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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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.