ATC Sponsors 2-Day Symposium Commemorating the 20th Anniversary of Hurricane Hugo

On October 22-23, 2009, ATC sponsored a 2-day symposium commemorating the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Hugo that hit Charleston, SC in 1989. The symposium theme was “Building Safer Communities – Improving Disaster Resilience.”

23 papers were presented at symposium, on topics ranging from discussions of coastal flood mapping to building code compliance. There were two plenary sessions: one was given by Margaret Davidson, the Executive Director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coastal Services Center and Dr. Tim Reinhold, the Vice-President of Engineering for the Institute for Business and Home Safety. Both plenary sessions were well received and seemed to perfectly start and end the symposium, respectively. Lunch times were also full of information shared by Drs. Peter Sparks and Ben Sill, both retired professors in Civil Engineering from Clemson University and Todd Davison, the Director of NOAA’s Gulf Coast Services Center.

Feedback from the approximately 80 participants has been very positive, and ATC is proud to have been actively engaged with the wind and flood engineering community in sponsoring this symposium.

10/2009

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.