RAND Director of Technical Design and SEAoNY President Jimmy Vignola, PE speaks with a delegation of civil engineers from Tianjin, China.
On November 6th, I hosted a delegation of Chinese civil engineers at RAND's office in Chelsea, Manhattan. The delegation, which included ten senior engineers from the Tianjin Municipal Engineering Design and Research Institute, a private engineering company in China, had contacted the Structural Engineers Association of New York (SEAoNY), of which I am the current president, inquiring about engineering in New York. The meeting was set up by Triway International Group, an American company dedicated to advancing Sino-American relations by facilitating educational opportunities between like-minded groups in the two countries.
Jimmy receives a painting representing prosperity as a token of appreciation from the Tianjin delegation.
During our meeting, we touched on various industry issues that SEAoNY is interested in, and this sparked many questions from the group resulting in some lively discussion. They were very interested in issues regarding licensing, expectations regarding working overtime, and how projects get priced. Obviously there are some pretty big differences in how we determine fees in the US vs the state mandated fees in China. Another topic of interest was job satisfaction and what American companies do to offset the long hours and high stress that our profession entails.
As part of a brief presentation I gave, I introduced the delegation to SEAoNY and detailed the services that SEAoNY provides. They were impressed that an organization like SEAoNY even exists. According to the delegation, nothing like SEAoNY exists in China. They expressed surprise that people would give up personal time and volunteer outside of work hours, and asked me why I volunteer. I told them I believe that all volunteers want to contribute to our community, industry, or society beyond just producing drawings, specs, etc, and that opportunities like this - meeting industry professionals from other communities and exchanging ideas - are another great reason to volunteer.
Jimmy Vignola, PE is Director of Technical Design at RAND and the current President of the Structural Engineers Association of New York (SEAoNY). Jimmy has been on the Board of Directors of SEAoNY since 2012, first as a Director then as Treasurer, and has also volunteered on several committees particularly the Student Outreach committee. SEAoNY is a member of the National Council of Structural Engineers Associations (NCSEA) and provides resources and programs for structural engineers and other industry stakeholders throughout the year.
