DFI Educational Trust Update: 2012 Will Be a Busy Year! David Coleman, Chair The Trust Board me t dur ing DF I ’s 3 6 t h Annual Confer- ence in Boston and reported on progres s during 2011 and made many decisions for 2012. First of all, the new Larry Rayburn Scholarship Fund is being set up at the University of Cincinnati. Rayburn, who served for several years on the Trust Board, is the former president and CEO of Richard Goettle, Inc. Douglas Keller, the current president of Goettle, is following through on this effort. The Trust’s goal has been to create a scholarship at one university every year for five years. With the Larry Rayburn Scholarship Fund, that goal has been met so far. Right now, the Board is considering the seventh school to have a scholarship fund. The goal is to award this money on a geographical basis, and the next university will likely be in the Midwest. The announcement will be made in the next few months. The Trust Board is also looking at setting up student chapters at those schools awarding scholarships. A related accomplishment is the creation of a Student Chapter Operations Manual, which will be available to the public this spring. This document will facilitate the process of acquiring new DFI student chapters and help those chapters already up and running: University of California at Berkeley, the University of Illinois and City College of New York. The Board membership has changed, with Larry Rayburn retiring from the Trust after many years and Dick Short stepping down as chair last year. During the DFI Annual Conference Awards Banquet – a fundraising event for the Trust – Rayburn and Short both received plaques recognizing their years of service and contributions to the Trust. Additionally, William F. Loftus, charter member of DFI and original trustee of the Educational Trust is stepping down mid-term at the end of DEEP FOUNDATIONS • JAN/FEB 2012 • 21 this year and will be recognized for his many accomplishments for both DFI and the Trust during next year’s dinner in Hous- ton. New board members are Dan Dragone, Bauer-Pileco, taking Rayburn’s seat and Clyde Baker, AECOM, to fill the seat of Loftus. Stan Merjan, who founded and helped fund the scholarship at City College of New York was invited and accepted a non-voting honorary board position. The Trust had a very successful financial year. The Trust funds are growing about 6% even in the current economic conditions, and while spending close to $100,000 for scholarships and other activities. One such activity is funding travel and honoraria to the best paper written by a student and one by a young professor (under 40 years of age). This year, those awards went to Young Professor Paper winners Ann Lemnitzer, Ph.D., Uni- versity of California, Irvine and Leonardo Massone, Ph.D., University of Chile for The Influence of RC Nonlinearity on p-y Curves for CIDC Bridges, and Student Paper awardee Fawad S. Niazi, Georgia Institute of Technology, for Axial Pile-Displacement Evaluations from Seismix Piezocone Data and Back-Analysis of Load Tests. The Trust finances were also augmented by Golf Outings this year in Pleasanton, Calif., Pittsburgh, Pa., and Northern N.J. that generated about $72,000 during 2011, and Gala Dinners, such as that held to honor the Ben C. Gerwick Award, the Osterberg Lecture and the Gala Dinner in November, in New York City with Fred Kulhawy as the guest speaker for the event. The Educational Trust website will debut this summer. Byrl Williams and Dick Short are heading up this effort to promote to the industry the ongoing activities that are funded by the Trust and explain how to support their mission through donations. Web pages will include information on the various Scholarship Funds managed by the Trust, upcoming and past fundraising events and student chapter activity pages. Last, but not least, DFI and the Educa- tional Trust have plans to jointly provide a seminar that will feature “Giants in the Deep Foundations Field.” This noteworthy event will be presented to undergraduates at a university yet to be chosen. Stay tuned. Young Professor Paper winners Ann Lemnitzer and Leonardo Massone with DFI President Jim Morrison
