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than Mentoring
I was one of the
fortunate dozen or so men who attended the Sept. 30 all-day
conference called "Groundbreaking Women in Construction,"
along with 300 women, in San Francisco. Your editorial, "Both
Men and Women Should Mentor Youth with Talent," builds
on the topic of mentoring, which speakers and panelists discussed
throughout the day (ENR 10/11 p. 48). The audience may have
thought mentoring was the intended major theme of the conference.
To me, the conference was a great deal more than that. At
one level it was a celebration of how far women have come
in the design and construction arena since the pioneering
days of Julia Morgan. I think the data presented clearly shows
there has been progress. At times it seems that there was
a tacit assumption that anything less than 50% representation
of women in this field is a regrettable shortfall. Whether
numerically equal partic-ipation by women is imperative and
desirable for its own sake was seldom questioned.
But the final riveting keynote speech by Midge Costanza had
even greater meaning for me. To her it is not the absolute
number of women in construction that counts, but the absolute
need for women to have the freedom and opportunity to follow
any career they choose. And why? Midge’s simple point–because
it’s fair. Ms. Costanza’s speech was inspiring even
to the men in attendance, and it elevated the level of the
event. The conference was truly worthwhile and should be repeated
in some form and place periodically.
WTC Disagreements
After reading the
article, "WTC Findings Uphold Structural Design,"
that concluded there was nothing wrong with the design of
the World Trade Center towers, I felt the need to disagree
(ENR 11/1 p. 10). The new design methodology of strong core
and relatively weak surrounding structure goes against the
basic tenets of structural engineering and may be the primary
cause of the disastrous failure of the towers. Just as box
beams are the strongest structural steel sections, so are
buildings where the perimeter structure is the strongest and
stiffest component.
If the WTC had been designed in
accordance with box beam philosophy, which has been used for
generations, not only might the buildings have withstood the
heat better, but the relatively light airplanes might not
have been able to destroy as much of the structures as they
did.
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