  After a long winter, spring is finally here, which marks the start of our second season in Illinois- construction session. We all get busier and have more things to do than any time of the year. But here at AAAEA, we have been very busy every month of the year and not just during spring. We have offered programs that are customized to fit our members’ needs throughout the year. In March and early April, we conducted several events including the Annual Social Dinner event on March 29th at Alhambra Palace Restaurant, our monthly dinner seminar, and our monthly networking luncheon. I would like to say THANK YOU to everyone who participated in these events and helped makes them a huge success.
  We have planned great events for you. On April 17th, our student chapter at UIC will have their first events. On April 25th, Mr. Vijay Chandra will be our guest speaker for our monthly dinner seminar. On April 26th, we will have our networking luncheon at UIC and we will be focusing on minority status for Arab Americans. On May 10th, you do not want to miss our Spring Technical Conference, where we will have six topics-allowing you to earn up to 6 PDH for your PE or SE renewal. On May 17th, we will meet again at UIC for our election day, were we will select the new leaders for this association. Please show them your support by attending and participating in our election. On June 7th, we will spend the day at the golf course, attending our second annual AAAEA golf outing. Last year’s event was a major success, so please invite a client or a friend to join us. We also have planned picnics for the entire family on June 29th, and on July 27th. Please mark your calendar for great picnic. The picnic on July 27th is a joint-association outing where we will be joined by the NAAMA-IL at Ty-Warner Park. Please visit our website for more info.
  Our By-Laws Committee has been very busy reviewing and proposing changes to our by-laws to reflect the modifications needed for our scholarship program and chapters. Every member will be receiving hard copies in the mail of the proposed amendments to our by-laws for our election meeting on May 17th. Many thanks to Ayoub Talhami, chairman of the bylaws committee and to all the members of the by-laws committee for a well job done. I also would like to thank the scholarship committee for revising the application due date and the scholarship award requirements. Please visit the website to learn more.
  With great pleasure, I would like to inform you that I have appointed Mr. Ray (Raed) Milhem to the AAAEA Board of Trustees. Mr. Milhem joined Motorola as Vice President & General Manager in the Motorola Software Group (MSG) to lead, enhance & coordinate the Network Management side of the MSG as well as Network applications. Ray was a delegate to our 2nd National Conference in Dearborn Michigan on September 1, 2007. He was selected as a Steering Committee member for the National AAAEA. Ray was also a major contributor to the formation of the AAAEA group at Motorola. Ray was the Chairman of the Computer Society of IEEE and helped coordinate various technical & business meetings across the Telecom/Networking Industry. Ray volunteers with several US-based charities and is a Co-Founder of a Silicon Valley based Hi-Tech Networking Group (Tech Wadi).
  I would like to remind you that today is the end of our fiscal year. If you did not renew your membership to AAAEA, then your membership expired. Please take a minute and send us your renewal fee or log on our website and renew your membership on line. To be able to vote and receive member discounts on all of our programs, you need to have your membership up to date. As of today we have approximately 150 renewed members out of a total of more than 500 in our database. Please encourage everyone to renew and rejoin the association.
  As always, we hope you will share with us your news, thoughts, requests and suggestions to help us serve you better. Your involvement in this association and its activities will help not only you, but also all of us. We want all of you to be part of the association’s success. Please give helping hands to the community and to our students-our future leaders. With everyone’s help, we can continue to grow and flourish as we look ahead to the future

Sincerely,
Jamal Grainawi, P.E., S.E.
AAAEA President

Illinois News

Nomination for 2008 Elections

On behalf the nomination committee, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the candidates who nominated themselves to lead our association for another productive, challenging and succesfull year. Our anual election meeting has been scheduled for May 17, 2008. The nomination dead line was March 31st, 2008 and for any member who is still interested to run for an office and was not able to submit his/her petition by March 31st, 2008, may still seek election by submitting a petition to the Nomination Committee no later than April 20th. The petition shall be signed by at least fifteen (15) voting members who have been members for at least one year prior to signing the petition. The petition and the statement can be sent to the attention of: AAAEA, P. O. Box 1536 , Chicago , IL 60690-1536 . Or E-mail to: aaaea@aaaea.org Attn: Election Committee.

Regards,

Ahmad Basrawi, Ahmad Hammad, Raghad Adeis-Dahhan, John Dasoqi and Bilal Almasri Nomination Committee

AAAEA Set New Records and Reaches New Heights

AAAEA was very active in the month of March. The activities in the last month covered a wide range of areas.
3/1/08 AAAEA @ UIUC -Presentation on internship and work in US by Bilal Almasri, Raed Milhem, Abder Ghouleh and Basman Dahleh
3/1/08 Teaching the Teachers – Math #1
3/1/08 ACT Review Class, Science
3/8/08 Dr. Hiba attended the IEC Delegate Meeting
3/8/08 Teach the Teachers – Math #2
3/8/08 ACT Test
3/14/08 Hani Miri and Talal Almasri assisted AAFS with computer programming
3/15/08 AAAEA 2nd Network Luncheon
3/18/08 Peoria Chapter - Mr. Ali Bitar –Manager at CAT Electronics-Presented Project Management Methodologies
3/21/08 Hani Miri and Talal Almasri assisted AAFS with computer programming
3//22/08 Donated furniture to Arab Family Services by Raed Mihem.
3/22/08 ACT Review Class, Science
3/26/08 AAAEA Monthly Dinner Seminar, Cathy Kibble - I-55 Project
3/28/09 Community Service, Attending Planning meeting in Bridgeview by four engineers.
3/29/08 ACT Review Class, Reading.
3/29/08 Annual Hafleh at Alhambra Palace Restaurant

ACT Completion:

AAAEA held an ACT course review in the last 11 Saturdays at Universal School. The course attended by 2 students from Universal School and 6 students from other public schools. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our members and our friends from the community who contributed in a major way to the success of this service to our members and community at large.
I would like to thank Mrs. Ruba Abozir, Ms. Taha, Dr. Khudeira, Dr. Kazkaz, Dr. Hammad, AAFS, and Ms. Abdullah of Universal for all their support. AAAEA truly appreciates your time, energy, and efforts to serve our community.

Status of Peoria Chapter:

   It is amazing how time flies. It has been a little over a year since the creation of the Peoria Chapter. This year for the Peoria area chapter has been exciting and challenging. We had our challenges in starting and establishing the organization despite some doubts. We had to face the challenge of answering the question of what is in it for me to join and commit especially when every one of us is extremely busy with everyday life challenges. These days the Peoria chapter has been active on the national front and on the local front. We have representatives on the National Steering committee, on the newsletter committee and on the logo committee.
   On the local front the Peoria chapter since its inception held over 6 technical conferences successfully and one social function. The executive board decided to engage members of the organization for technical speakers. Our organization has a tremendous amount of resources which we have tapped on and will continue to do so. Our last presenter was Mr. Ali Bitar –Manager at CAT Electronics-Presented Project Management Methodologies. Our next speaker will be Dr. Riyad Hindi who will be discussion with us his current structural patents. Our social function was extremely successful with members and spouses attending dinner and socializing. Our next planned social function would take place in May and will be a picnic and cook out.
   With everyone’s schedule busy, it is a real challenge to participate and organize these functions, whether social or technical. However, I do want to thank all of the executive board in Peoria for helping and assisting in keeping the organization alive and moving forward. I believe that people have realized the benefits of the organization, and the common goals that it represents by bringing fellow engineers together and extend a helping hand when needed. This organization provides a good networking opportunity for all, regardless of the ethnic background, religious beliefs or political affiliation. I want to strongly encourage everyone in Peoria and else whether to participate.
   Personally and during the involvement with the national front, I have been lucky to be able to socialize and network with an outstanding group of Arab individuals from Michigan, Chicago, Florida to California. This organization is as good as the people in it are involved, so stay involved !

Sincerely,
George Ghareeb, P.E.
AAAEA-Peoria
President

Job Seeker:

Ibrahim Odeh is a PhD Candidate in Construction Management group of Civil and Environmental Engineering Department. He holds a master in business administration (MBA) with a concentration in Financial Management and a BSc in Civil Engineering with a specialization in construction and structure. Odeh’s research interests focus on Nighttime Construction Management and Sustainability Design and he is been closely working with Illinois Department of Transportation for the past three years.
He is the founder and the current president of the Arab American Association of Engineers and Architects chapter at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. Moreover, Odeh now serves as a member of the Graduate and Professional Affairs Committee of the Student Senate at the UIUC, and helps the Civil Engineering department in arranging and organizing the Global Leader MS program in Construction Management where he organized a trip of eleven U of I faculty and students to Dubai, UAE for 10 days to visit ongoing construction projects as well as a trip to China for 14 faculty and students for a month to visit ongoing and finished construction projects. He is a also a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Odeh now is preparing to take his preliminary exam this coming Tuesday April 15th, where after that will be preparing for his defense later in the end of this year. This summer Odeh will be working with JPMorgan and Chase & Co. in Manhattan NY where he will be working on the global real estate development and focusing on three main markets: Middle East, China, and India.

Tech Article: The Need For and the Development of Seismic Codes in the United States - Part I by Mustafa Mahamid, Phd. , P. E.

   The purpose of building codes in general, as stated in the International Building Code is “to establish the minimum requirements to safeguard the public health, safety and general welfare through structural strength, means of egress facilities, stability”.
Structures meeting minimum requirements should be capable of resisting applied earthquake loads without serious structural damage that lead to collapse that may cause loss of human lives. Where non-structural and architectural damages would be expected as a result of a major earthquake, these damages can be reduced if the owner of the building/structure is willing to pay for additional precautions beyond what is required by the minimum standards.
   Earthquake design requirements were not in any building code before 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Review of design drawings for buildings in San Francisco showed that buildings were designed for 30 psf wind load not for earthquake load. In fact, the word “Earthquake” was mentioned for the first time in Palo Alto Code in 1927.
The records showed that there was no building code in San Francisco until 1906. As a result of the 1906 Earthquake and the investigations of buildings damages, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) San Francisco Section prepared a report entitled “the effect of San Francisco Earthquake of April 18 1906 on Engineering Construction” stated that the buildings designed for 30 psf wind load will resist safely the forces produced as a result of an earthquake with a magnitude similar to the San Francisco earthquake. Therefore the 1906 San Francisco code required any building with a height equal to or greater than 100 feet to be designed for 30 psf lateral load. This was changed to 15 psf later in 1906 and to 20 psf in 1910 and back to 15 psf in 1926. This value was maintained until 1947 and it was applied to buildings with height over 102 ft or if its height exceeds three times its least horizontal dimension, but there was no wind or earthquake provisions for buildings with height less than 102 ft.
   As a result of the 1923 earthquake in Japan, several structural engineers from San Francisco went to Japan and investigated several buildings. They noticed that three buildings that were deigned for a lateral force equal to 10% of gravity showed good resistance behavior. As a result the Board of Fire Underwriters of the Pacific adopted the static design using 10% of gravity for lateral forces.
   Santa Barbara earthquake in 1925 was the turning point in the seismic codes in the United States as a result of the heavy damage observed in buildings. This resulted in requirement for earthquake insurance that lead to the urgent need for adequate standards of building construction and reasonable resistance of such construction against earth movements.
At the same time, a group of structural engineers from San Francisco who observed the 1906 earthquake were concerned about the reduction of the 1906 30 psf design lateral load and about the poor construction practices developing in the 1920’s. This lead to the establishment of the ASCE San Francisco code committee that later became part of the State Chamber of Commerce Code Committee. Santa Barbara earthquake was the beginning of the earthquake studies in the United States. In 1925 the United States Congress gave the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey the responsibility to investigate and provide reports on seismology which had a significant effect on the seismic code development. As a result the 1927 Uniform Building Code and the Palo Alto Code were the first two codes in the United States to incorporate seismic provisions which were based on the Newtonian concept “mass times acceleration.” The coefficient of acceleration varies depending on the soil bearing capacity but it is approximately 10% of the dead load.
   In 1928 the State Chamber of Commerce realized the need for a building code that provides guidelines to design buildings to resist earthquakes and prevent collapse and loss of human lives. Significant amount of work and studies performed by structural engineers across the state of California resulted in a report that formed the foundation of the codes that followed.
The first Mandatory seismic codes used in the United States were published in 1933 following the March 10, 1933 Long Beach earthquake when two California State Laws were passed due to the extensive damage occurred in school buildings.
   In this code, masonry buildings were required to be designed for a lateral load equals to 10% dead load plus portion of the live load. Other types of building were required to be designed for 2% to 5% dead load plus portion of live load.
   In 1937 the coefficient were revised to 6% to 10% for buildings 3 stories or less in height, or buildings without a moment resistant frame. Buildings with height more than 3 stories with a complete moment resisting frame had coefficients of 2% to 6%, provided the frame could resist 2% of the load. In 1941, the coefficients were to 6% to 10%, depending upon the type of foundation materials.

Interview with Dr. Soliman Khudeira, SE, PE

Q1-What is the most important factor that kept this Association successful?
I will cite three factors. First: AAAEA has been providing tangible services to members and families. A not-for-profit association (like AAAEA) is similar to a business, but without the profit. A business must provide the customers (members in this case) a wide range of services and benefits and AAAEA has been providing such benefits. Second: AAAEA continues to be professional and follows its by-laws in conducting its activities and services. Third factor: AAAEA has a core of dedicated members that are willing to serve generously even though they do not receive any direct benefits. The only indirect benefit they receive is the satisfaction that they get from seeing the association grow and the members benefiting both directly and indirectly. Widening the core members is critical to sustaining this growth.

Q2-What motivated you to be part of AAAEA and to run as AAAEA President for 2 terms?
Two reasons. First: it is a natural desire to belong to a group. In the case of AAAEA, it is a professional association in addition to being an Arab association; hence the two factors attracted me. The second reason: both of the previous presidents that preceded me served two terms and it was an expectation of me to follow. Since then, it appears that all presidents are committing to two terms, and I hope this continues.

Q3-- In the past 2 years, AAAEA members are trying to take AAAEA to the next level, what shall we do to make a successful move?

- Increase membership
- Improve the current activities
- Create new activities
- Hire a part time secretary
- Plan on having an office
- Coordinate joint activities and programs with other professional associations

Q4- In your opinion, What is the most important activity AAAEA has been organizing
Educational classes (EIT classes, PE classes, seminars, annual conference), community math and science tutoring, and ACT classes. Also, the career enhancement activities and other activities, ex. picnics, etc. are all equally important.

Q5- How can we attract more members to join AAAEA?
- Print a brochure and distribute to all
- Distribute CD’s summarizing past and current AAAEA activities
- Prepare a package to be mailed to prospective members to include: application form, brochure, CD, a letter from the president, a simple gift, etc.
- Provide incentives to current members to recruit new members
- Improve the quality of the current activities
- Delegate the task of following up with current members and recruiting new members to a part time secretary. In the past, this task has been done by the Membership Committee; however, a paid secretary will certainly have more time to devote to this important task.
- Hold an “AAAEA Open House”. This could be done by visiting companies that have Arab employees and present to them during lunch or after work. The same presentations could be done at colleges and universities.

Q6-Finally, do you enjoy reading our E-newsletter
Printed materials have human touch that E-newsletter can NOT provide. I believe we should have printed semi-monthly newsletter. This is what AAAEA has done in the past years. This is also what is being done by all other professional associations that I know, i.e. print and mail. E-newsletter should supplement the printed one, but not replace it.

Members Corner

AAAEA is pleased to welcome New Memebers :

Ehab Shqairat

Hasan Bayyari

Muath Safarini

Mustafa Shihadeh

Congratulations :

To Suha Saber on landing a new job with Integrys Energy Groupe

To John Dasoqi for Landing a Vice President Position at STV Inc.

To Yousef Alhamid for landing new job.

Jokes of the Month

Q: How can you tell an extroverted engineer?
A: When he talks to you, he looks at your shoes instead of his own.

Q: What do engineers use for birth control?
A: Their personalities

Q:When does a person decide to become an engineer?
A: When he realizes he doesn't have the charisma to be an undertaker.

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