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The New Mexico Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Meets with New Mexico Legislators at Capitol Hill

March 27, 2017

fernando and tom udallAs part of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Legislative Fly-In initiative, three ASCE NM representatives, Fernando Moreu, Lambis Papelis, and Roy Gibson (professors at UNM and NMSU and senior project manager in Bohannan Huston, respectively), travelled last Tuesday and Wednesday to Capitol Hill.  They met with New Mexico US representatives to promote specific priorities to advance and prioritize New Mexico infrastructure initiatives. The three delegates met with representatives of the two senators, Congressmen, and Congresswoman. The main point of the meetings between the delegation and the US representatives was the 2017 ASCE infrastructure report card, released on March 9th, prior to the meeting.  The new infrastructure report card gives a grade of D+ to North American Infrastructure, to the surprise of the US representatives, who kept the copies of the report handed by the delegation. The representatives paid specific attention to the different notes related to the infrastructure categories and their specific notes for the state of New Mexico. The three ASCE representatives showed in their various meetings the priorities of the state and helped the staff of senators and congressmen to download the ASCE “save American infrastructure” smartphone App on their phones. The delegation discussed specific infrastructure suggestions with Dominic Saavedra, representative from US Senator Heinrich. Mr. Saavedra stated that Senator Heinrich is an engineer (“the only one in the senate that I know of”, said), and that is probably why technology and advancement were well received in their office. Dr. Moreu discussed possible collaborations with ASCE NM and US Senator Tom Udall. At the end of the day, the ASCE NM delegation reported to ASCE headquarters the conclusions of their individual meetings with legislators and will follow up with their staff to advance the development of infrastructure initiatives in the state of New Mexico as a joint effort between engineers and legislators.