Dear Colleagues,

I hope that all of you had a wonderful holiday break and I wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous 2009.

Once again, The FES Miami Chapter closed the year with an animated and very well attended dinner at La Palma Restaurant, jointly with our ASCE colleagues. Special thanks to David Reynolds, P.E, our Membership Director and Rafael Piña, P.E., ASCE President Elect for putting together the event as well as Lockwood, Andrews & Newman (LAN) for sponsoring it. Thank you Francisco Bermudez, P.E for livening the event with music and popular songs.

At the holiday dinner, we were able to collect a great amount of gifts and donate them to a great organization called “Fabulous Women Doing Fabulous Things” lead by a fabulous woman named Annie Gorayeb. This organization main purpose is to building a support group to work with the children and young adults at the Homeless Assistance Shelters in South Dade. Their mission is Encourage, Empower and Educate children and young adults in these facilities. Thank you to all of you that brought a gift to the event; because your generosity, we were able to make these children very happy.

Last year the board continued reaching out and working on retaining our members and attaining new members. For those of you that have not renewed the membership, I would like to remind you that payment of the renewal fees are now over due. This organization cannot exist if not for your support. Your membership dues provide many benefits to you and our profession including continuing education and representation in Tallahassee on critical issues that affect us.

In line with one of my goals for this term: promote engineering as a career at all levels of education; the K-12 committee has been visiting several high schools to expose students to the engineering profession as well as participating in the Academy of Engineering Advisory Board. The MathCounts committee has provided several presentations to middle schools math teachers in preparation to the oncoming competitions; and the Future City committee has been working closely with FIU in the coordination of the upcoming Florida Regional Competition.

We have several exciting events planned for 2009. First up on January 17 the Future City competition will take place at FIU Engineering Campus with the participation of over 25 schools.

In February, as part of the Engineer’s Week celebrations, we will have the MathCounts competitions. We are having two competitions: one on February 26 for the Hebrew schools, and one on February 28 for all other schools. The Engineer’s Week celebrations will conclude with our Annual Awards Dinner and Gala on February 28. In the near future you will be receiving the invitation and the sponsorship form for the Dinner Gala; this year it will take place at the Hyatt Regency of Coral Gables.

We are also planning our Annual Student Development and Scholarship Golf Tournament for July.

At this time I would like to welcome the following new members of the Miami Chapter and invited them to attend our next chapter meeting and encourage them to get involve in the chapter activities:
• Rafael Caballero, P.E; PEPP; HILTI Inc.; Sponsored by Rudy M. Ortiz, P.E.
• Ronald M. Colas, P.E.; PEPP; Burns & McDonnell; Sponsored By Maria J. Molina, P.E.

Finally, the nomination entry forms for the annual awards have been sent out by the nominating committee; I would like to encourage all the nominees to complete and submit the entry forms by the indicated due date to allow the committee processing of the applications and be able to recognize the recipients at the Dinner Gala.

Kind Regards,

Juan “Tony” Hernandez, P.E. FES Miami Chapter President Tel. (786) 251-8056