ASCE National President Elect Greg Diloreto Visit

Yesterday ASCE National President Elect Greg Diloreto visited New Hampshire, meeting with several ASCE-NH Board members for lunch, visiting Portsmouth with views of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and the Memorial Bridge project in the afternoon and closing the evening by providing the keynote speech for the Order of the Engineer ring ceremony at the University of New Hampshire.

ASCE National President-Elect Greg Diloreto and ASCE-NH President Ken Milender are pictured with the Memorial Bridge in the background yesterday. The center span of the bridge was floated out earlier in the year, Pictured is the Kittery section of the bridge.

In addition to the key note speech, members of the engineering societies spoke about the pride and ethics of being a professional engineer. University of New Hampshire professors provided a history of the ring ceremony. The Order of the Engineer dates back to a bridge disaster in Quebec City, Canada, where the engineer of record allowed his pride to cloud his judgement leading to the deaths of many construction workers when he was repeatedly cautioned about issues in the field, but fielded to heed the warnings ultimately leading to a dramatic failure of the bridge. The rings are symbolic of earlier rings that were made from the steel from the failed bridge. The rings are worn on the little finger of the engineer's dominant hand as a continuous reminder of the responsibilities we each share to protect the public even above our duties to ourselves and our reputations.