Inaugural Editorial

It is with great pleasure and honor that I serve as the editor-in-chief (EIC) for one of the world’s most prestigious journals in our profession. This is an exciting time for the journal and our authors, readers, and colleagues. The journal celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2016, marking a continuous legacy of premier contributions. I have been involved with the journal over the past 30 years as an author, reviewer, associate editor, editor, and now EIC. I take this opportunity to salute our mentors and role models who came before us and showed us the way. I particularly thank Pat for his dedication and leadership over the past 5 years, and consider Pat’s exemplary success as EIC to be an inspiration for us to sustain the excellent reputation of the journal.

As the EIC, my first order of business is to work with editors Rodrigo Salgado, Timothy Stark, and Joseph Wartman, new incoming editor John McCartney, and our colleagues on the editorial board to maintain the rigor of the peer review process and continue to publish articles of the highest quality. We are also fortunate to have John Christian continue his role as our ombudsman and I take this opportunity to thank him for the sustained excellent service he provides the journal. I would also like to thank Mike Duncan for the many contributions he makes and the guidance he has provided over the years and continues to provide.

We will continue to solicit original research articles with forward-looking perspectives as well as lesson-learned case studies and practice-oriented papers that are of broad interest and lasting value to our readership. It is also exciting that we are now able to embrace new and emerging trends quickly through the introduction of the Technical Breakthrough Abstracts. In the future, we will consider publishing special issues on geotechnical themes related to national security, sustainability, and economic development to facilitate a greater interchange of ideas with the wider geocommunity, much like the special issue published under the leadership of John Christian after Hurricane Katrina. I am also excited about the recent introduction of Fourm articles to our journal. I would like to solicit contributions from our colleagues on a wide range of topics, and especially on historical perspectives that can serve as professional memory depository for future generations.

I have always understood that excellent mentoring is a key component to having our journal as one of the most premier forums to disseminate knowledge. We will strive to ensure that worthy papers are published, and provide mentoring to authors whose papers have yet to achieve the threshold of acceptance for publication. We will endeavor to better serve our authors and try to improve the submission experience with system improvements. Some of the ideas that I will pursue with our ASCE staff colleagues include article tracking through production, simpler uploading of figures and tables, and reduction of publication time for officially accepted manuscripts.

Finally, I salute our peer reviewers who generously contribute their time and expertise for the benefit of sustaining our tradition of excellence. We thank them for their continued commitment to elevate the status of the journal and serve its stakeholders. I plan to initiate a program to recognize the excellent services rendered by the peer reviewers to the journal. As always, we welcome feedback from our worldwide constituents as we work together to continue the tradition of excellence for the Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering.