Three new factors relating to the selection of a consulting engineer are defined and related. Compatibility between engineers and clients requires a high degree of agreement on priorities and purposes. Judging the appropriate “level of effort” demands extensive two‐way communication and common understandings, as well as good compatibility and mutual trust. Competitive bidding can undermine the professional relationship, and harm the client's interests.

Formal quality programs first appeared in the 1960s through numerous government agencies. Methods by which the contractor administers these programs is often as varied as the projects constructed. Regardless of the method, the result is a cost to the project. Often, conflicts occur between the quality control procedures and the production of a construction project. At times, there is much duplication of quality control effort when there is more than one contractor on a given project. This lends itself to a central quality control system. In order to provide quality in the construction project, adequate attention must be given to the design and working drawings. Prequalification of participants in a project and firm allowances for quality control should result in competitive pricing and better‐constructed projects. Much attention needs to be given to the selection of an engineer, contractor, and, in some cases, construction manager, by the owner, for the best overall end result.

Many recent collapses of U.S. buildings have occurred both during construction and following occupancy. Such failures have received professional and public attention due to the attendant major losses of life and property. Five recommendations resulting from the Engineering Foundation Conference, Building Structural Failures—Their Cause and Prevention, held in Santa Barbara, California, November 6‐11, 1983 are highlighted. The recommendations address structural integrity, life safety assurance, peer review, definition and assignment of responsibility, and unified risk insurance. The nature and magnitude of the problem, the design process, the construction process, legal implications, and the regulatory process are covered.

The professional liability crisis has reached historic heights and there has been a marked increase in interest in the character of lawsuits filed. A number of states have enacted “frivolous lawsuit” legislation, which attempts to curb those suits that have no merit. Lawsuits are filed for reasons other than liability and legislation‐enacted attempts to remedy those cases where there is not a justified cause for action. In order to minimize lawsuits there has also been a surge of interest in loss prevention activities. A resource survey has been compiled for the publications and programs currently available in the engineering and construction industry. The survey is presented with a request for input from the membership on resources not listed.

Civil engineering has become overshadowed by the more glamorous engineering disciplines such as electrical engineering and computer technology. The high tech explosion has everyone believing that if you are not into high tech, you must be low tech, but the fact of the matter is that both high tech and traditional tech are prevalent in civil engineering. Another identity problem with the civil engineer is the trend in the past two decades toward specialization. The public can understand a bridge engineer, an environmental engineer or a structural engineer. But what is a “civil” engineer? The National Science Foundation dealt the civil engineer a deadly blow when it dropped the category of “civil” from its program. This was most unfortunate. In truth, the civil engineer has the leadership qualities to guide projects from conception through reality. The young civil engineer is a product of recently redesigned college curricula incorporating communication and leadership courses and programs. These courses and programs were sorely lacking in the curricula of today's senior engineer. The Younger Member Council of ASCE and its programs are examples of this leadership quality. These young engineers are the leaders of tomorrow and they are moving into these leadership roles today.

The issues of our time, increasingly laden with science and technology, are generally resolved by elected leaders as matters of public policy. With such decisions, questions arise as to how political leaders deal with complex technical content. All technologies carry side effects, some with such high risks that the costs of error are unacceptable. For this and other reasons, a practice has evolved over the past few decades of science policy research, drawing on individuals from the technical professions, but requiring additional capacities to interpret and translate purely factual information in terms of social, economic, legal, political and ecological repercussions. The writer explains the nature of science policy research, the functions of science and technology advisors, and how engineers, if they are to engage in science policy affairs, must reinforce their expertise with broad understanding of the socio‐political process. The paper concludes with a discussion of social responsibilities of engineers as members of a profession to develop both aptitudes and attitudes to enrich their practice by better understanding of the social context.

As civil engineers use computer software for design, they must be aware of their responsibilities. They have a responsibility to maintain competency in their field and to be aware of existing software limitations. Through awareness and wise use, engineers can uphold their responsibility to the public to deliver safe and effective designs.

Guidelines for civil engineers dealing with media personnel are presented. The need for engineers to understand media personnel and use them to communicate needed information to the public is highlighted. Tips for newspaper, radio, and television interviews are presented.

To stay in business, engineering firms have to become active in the preparation and execution of external marketing plans. Have the employees been left behind? The preparation of an internal marketing plan, an organized approach to assuring the employees of management's concern for their continued growth and welfare, deserves every bit as much time, money, and anguish as an external plan to generate sales. The employees represent tremendous potential for generating good or bad impressions throughout the community due to their circle of individual contacts within that community. Employees have an enormous influence on the image the firm projects.

Engineers have relied generally on judgment in selecting a design period for a project. Yet it can be argued that designers of public works owe a duty to future people to minimize constraints upon future actions to the extent that such constraints arise from present decisions. It is held that the public policy which most nearly satisfies this moral obligation to the future is to find an “economic life” over which the annual total project cost is minimized. Total cost is defined as capital cost plus all future cost throughout the design period. A mathematical model is developed, a nonhomogeneous compound Poisson process which gives optimum design period. One required parameter is the ratio between capital cost and initial annual maintenance and operation cost. The other parameter is an empirically determined exponent which accounts for the increase of annual costs with time. Parameters are estimated and examples given.

Work‐terms implicit in co‐operative engineering programs lengthen the academic program but are shown to have a noticeable, positive effect on professional development. The work‐terms are shown to help the students understand the theories presented in academic work‐terms, and to provide them with a clear and improved picture of civil engineering concepts. A correlation of 0.55 is apparent between the students' academic marks and work‐term ratings by the employers which indicates a student who performs well at work also does well academically.

The biennial salary survey of the civil engineering profession conducted by the Committee on Employment Conditions of ASCE during the fourth quarter of 1985 is presented. Results are analyzed on the basis of ASCE professional grades for consulting firms, construction firms, and design/construction firms, and compared against 1979–1983 survey data.