Applied Technology Council A Nonprofit Corporation Advancing Engineering Applications for Hazard Mitigation California - Washington, DC Area

ATC Seeks Candidates for Steering Committee for new FEMA-Funded Project to Develop Performance-Based Seismic Design Guidelines (ATC-58 Project)

The Applied Technology Council (ATC) is seeking candidates for a newly established Steering Committee to oversee and guide a recently initiated effort funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to develop Performance-Based Seismic Design Guidelines. The ATC-58 project will consider and build on the FEMA-349 report, Action Plan for Performance-Based Seismic Design, which was developed by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute in 2000 and proposes a 10-year, multi-million dollar re-search and development plan to create and implement comprehensive Performance-Based Seismic Design Guidelines for both new and existing construction. It is anticipated that the project products will include Structural Performance Products, Nonstructural Performance Products, Risk Management Products, Per-formance-Based Seismic Design Guidelines, and a Stakeholders Guide. Though the project focus is on the development of performance-based seismic design guidelines, it is anticipated that much of the technology developed will be relevant to other extreme loads, including blast, fire and severe winds.

ATC will engage a 12-person Steering Committee composed of leading representatives of interested stake-holder groups, including designers, researchers, regulators, building developers and owners, risk managers, and members of the financial community. The role of the advisory Steering Committee is to oversee and guide all aspects of the project, including recommending needed products, identifying timetables for various activities, and reviewing documents produced under the project. All Steering Committee members will be engaged as consultants to ATC. The composition of the Steering Committee is expected to change over time, depending on project focus and personnel availability. During the initial phase of the project, which encompasses the first 18 months, it is anticipated that the Steering Committee will meet three times, two of which will be in conjunction with workshops.

Steering Committee members will be selected by the ATC-58 Project Management Committee, in consulta-tion with the FEMA Project Officer and the FEMA Technical Monitor. The goal is to create a Steering Committee that includes broad expertise from different regions of the country and different professions that will be involved with or could benefit from performance-based design, including architects, building offi-cials, building owners, developers, engineers (specialists in the seismic design of structural and nonstruc-tural components), insurers, lenders, researchers, and risk managers. In addition, to ensure that the products are relevant to performance-based design for other extreme loads, consideration is also being given to the inclusion of blast specialists and fire specialists.

Persons interested in being considered as candidates for the ATC-58 Steering Committee should submit an expression of interest not to exceed four pages in length (a two-page letter and a two-page resume) to ATC by December 31, 2001. If more than four pages are submitted, only the first four pages will be considered. Expressions of interest should be submitted to: ATC-58 Project, Applied Technology Council, 555 Twin Dolphin Drive, Suite 550, Redwood City, CA 94065; Fax: 650/593-2320; e-mail, atc@atcouncil.org. The names of candidates who are not selected to serve on the Steering Committee will remain on file at ATC and those persons will be considered for possible involvement in other aspects of the project.

The ATC-58 Project is being led by a 6-person Project Management Committee that includes Christopher Rojahn of ATC (Project Executive Director), Ronald Hamburger of ABS Consulting (Project Technical Director), and Jack Moehle of the University of California at Berkeley. (The three other members have not yet been identified.) The FEMA Project Officer is Michael Mahoney and the FEMA Technical Monitor is Robert Hanson.

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