Geomechanical Musings

One of the Atlas Crew shared with us this fantastic bit of Corporate correspondence from the past. I attach just the first (of two) pages below. Let’s pause a moment for you to scroll down and bask in its magnificence.

As background, in 1922 F.P. Summers was Purchasing Agent for Standard Oil Company, with offices at 260 Bush Street in San Francisco. There are just so many interesting aspects to this, it’s hard to know where to start. In no particular order:

Yes, Purchasing always has, and always will, forever and ever, send department managers notes about profligate expenditures. If they didn’t there would be no need for Purchasing. Save those notes, carve out a special place in your Corporate folder, and 91 years from now some hardworking engineer will unearth it and marvel at the smallness of corporate priorities.
The exorbitant $32.85 in pencils that the Bakersfield refinery ran through in 1922 is now worth a cool $455.51 according to the CPI calculator. Paltry compared with an Autocad upgrade, but honestly, that seems a little steep for a medium-sized refinery. One wonders where all the pencils went?
On the one hand, it is good to know that the Bakersfield refinery pencil expenditures didn’t bankrupt the company before the Great Depression, so that it could grow to global prominence, change its name to Chevron, and report 2013 earnings of $21.4 billion. They can afford all the pencils they want now.
On the other hand, maybe it is only because of F.P’s parsimonious management that the CEO now enjoys a seemingly permanent invitation to the World Economic Forum at Davos. If so, we must examine our minor line items if our strategic plans intend global domination.
Office Boy!? Seriously, Office Boy? Wow. And I love how F.P. refers to that person as just “the boy.” What would a modern HR department make of that job title? The memos would just be flying back and forth. All potential efficiencies that Purchasing expects from “the boy” and his mobile pencil sharpening service would be consumed by lawsuits.
Any savings not litigated into extinction would be necessary to replace the lost pencil sharpener because it’s nailed to a board and not bolted to the wall.
Can you imagine interviewing for that job? “…And this is your pencil sharpening board…” I like to imagine “the boy” as an office-bound Gunga Din, but with a pencil sharpener instead of a water skin, bravely sharpening while the Engineers wear down their points in glorious battle.

I didn’t share with you Page 2, wherein F.P. offers pencil sharpening advice, task-based criteria for selection of proper hardness, praise for pencil holders, and a rather long discourse on “delivery wagon” drivers’ preference for the short stubs that, apparently, the wastrels in the Bakersfield refinery have been throwing away.

All in all, a delightful diversion for a cool and rainy afternoon. I hope that you all enjoyed this little bit of classic pettifoggery. Drop me a note in the Comments if you’re interested in having a copy of the whole document.

We’re buried under a mountain of work here at Atlas Geotechnical World Headquarters, but you all know I advocate for action (or as our good friend Andreas says “MSH, man, make s*%# happen.”) One aspect of busy times in the office is that always there remain nooks and crannies in your schedule for brief tasks. So, I’ve been meaning to put this out to you all for some time, and now seems to be my best opportunity.

This post involves a bit of Bay Area folklore, a distilled version of the management philosophy of the seminal high-tech firm and it;s two founders who left an indelible mark on every discipline of engineering : Bill Hewlitt and Dave Packard. In 1935 both graduated with EE degrees from Stanford (the “junior university” across the tracks from Cal, from whence all good engineering emanates…). Despite these meager origins (joking – all in jest) four years later they formed a partnership that they named, by coin-toss, Hewlett-Packard. Their original premises were the 1-car garage at 367 Addison Avenue, Palo Alto. Their success at that location created the epicenter of what we now call the Silicon Valley.

Wikipedia tells the story better than I ever could: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Garage

The part of the story that I want to emphasize are the “Rules of the Garage.” I have no knowledge about how the Rules were developed or by whom. All I know is that these are the Rules, and that we all would do well to adhere to them.

I suggest that you all follow the Rules. They’re widely publicized because they work, and not just for high-tech startups (which is what HP would have been called if such a thing existed in 1939). Of the 11, these are the three that I keep close to my heart:

1. Believe you can change the world

4. Share – Tools, ideas. Trust your colleagues.

7. Radical ideas are not bad ideas.

Each of the Rules is important to your practice. Customer satisfaction, innovation, collaboration.; these are the hallmarks of successful consultancy. Clip that photo and refer back to it while you’re revising your strategic plan or deciding to branch out into new fields. Positive and innovative thinking is crucial to success, and the Rules that Hewlett and Packard formulated for us are a beacon on our roads to success.

More information about the actual structure and HP’s commitment to preserving the birthplace of Silicon Valley is here: http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-information/about-hp/history/hp-garage/hp-garage.html

Cal State Northridge Parking Structure

This past week marked the 20^th anniversary of the M6.7 Northridge earthquake. In addition to 57 fatalities, over 40,000 buildings sustained damage amounting to an estimated $25 billion in losses, making it the most costly earthquake in the United States.

Good friend and extraordinary structural engineer Gene Trahern shared with us an update on changes in earthquake engineering during the intervening years. Although I had not yet met Gene in 1994, I worked in a support role on the Northridge response effort, a big project for Gene and a pivotal time in my career. Since then Gene has further developed his expertise in evaluating seismic vulnerability of existing structures and founded Cascade Crest Consulting Engineers. More information about Gene’s practice is here: http://www.cccengr.com/

IBC replaces UBC, BOCA, and SBC

Three semi-regional codes were combined into one uniform document, the International Building Code, causing engineers nationwide finally to use the same design procedures. As part of that change, design ground motions changed from the 475-yr earthquake to two-thirds of the 2500-yr earthquake. The change elevated design forces in areas with large but infrequent earthquakes like some parts of the Midwest, Salt Lake City, and the Carolinas. Design forces increased in Seattle and slightly decreased in Sacramento and Portland.

ASTM Seismic Loss Estimation Standards

Two new standards, E2026 and E2557, now define a uniform method for assessing potential earthquake damage to existing buildings. The standards define several terms that used to have various meanings, eliminating conflicts in insurance and valuation procedures. They also establish four discrete levels of analysis, improving quality and reliability of seismic loss estimation studies.

Improved Seismic Evaluation and Upgrade Methods

At the time of the Northridge Earthquake, seismic evaluations of existing buildings used basic ground motions similar to the outdated UBC seismic zone system. ASCE-31 (2003) improved evaluation methods by changing to the current USGS seismic hazard maps. ASCE-41 followed 3 years later and carried the evaluation method improvements forward into seismic upgrade of existing buildings.

Gene Trahern can be reached at (541) 549-1331 and cccengr@msn.com

Interesting thoughts about decision making from a large company that I admire.

Arup on Decision Making

Two observations:

1. It’s so reassuring to see some firms spending time on these types of issues. More like this, please. And,

2. The Arup blog has an “ethics” tag. What insight does that offer, when a company has an ethics tag on their outward-facing media? Sure, there are only 2 posts in that category, but that’s 2 more than most companies, let along companies of that size. We are shamelessly copying that.

We’re celebrating an unexpectedly early strategic success here at Atlas World Headquarters, winning our first project from a client that we had targeted in our 2014 strategic plan. It wasn’t much of a project, and by no means are we assured of continued success. But one thing is clear from our track record: once somebody with interesting problems starts working with Atlas, that nascent relationship almost always grows stronger, more durable, and more valuable to both parties.

Unexpected success causes interesting problems to an organization like Atlas, so dedicated to methodical plan-and-execute efforts. Strategic goals need to be adaptable to developing conditions, especially changes required by success. In this case, we simply modified our plan from “Win our first project with…” to “Win three new projects with…” We assigned more budget to this initiative as well, necessarily downrating other parts of the plan, but parts that had not yet borne fruit.

Atlas has another strategic initiative from 2013, an opportunity that fell out of the sky in the second half of the year (through a longstanding, durable relationship, of course). Succeeding at that initiative could very likely require us to grow the company. And yes, our strategic plan includes a contingency plan for such rapid growth that we can implement on short notice, so that we maintain focus on the project and the client.

I hope that you all achieve some strategic milestone early in 2014. It’s a good feeling, knowing that your plan is effective enough to force modifications in the plan. And if you don’t already have an explicit strategic plan for your practice, I encourage you to set aside a half-day to begin one. Make your first goal nothing more than to adopt a strategic plan in Q1 2014. Drop me a note when you achieve it, and I’ll send you a congratulatory message. Go. Start. Have a great week, everyone.