5
Proceedings of the 18
th
International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Paris 2013
1
ISSMGE – The State of the Society (2009-2013)
SIMSG – État de la Société (2009-2013)
Briaud J.-L.
President of ISSMGE, Professor and Holder of the Buchanan Chair, Zachry Dpt. Of Civil Engineering, Texas A&M
University, College Station, Texas, 77843-3136, USA.
Distinguished Colleagues, Dear Friends,
The very first thing I wish to tell you is thank you, thank you for
letting me serve you as your President for the last four years.
You have given me four of the very best and most exciting
years of my professional career. It has been an honor and a true
pleasure for me to work with everyone of you for the betterment
of our profession. Sometime people ask me how I feel about the
Presidency, I answer it feels like a very hard working vacation!
You elected me in Alexandria, Egypt in 2009 and I
suddenly found myself on a list next to the names of Terzaghi,
Peck, Cassagrande, Skempton, Kerisel, and many other giants
of our field (Fig. 1). This prestigious and enviable position also
placed a tremendous sense of responsibility on my shoulders
and generated a lot of pressure for me to do the very best job I
could do. I can assure you that I gave it my very best effort, at
the detriment of some of my other responsibilities in life. My
wife Janet kept me honest during all this time. I recall asking
her how she felt to be married to the President of the
International Society. She promptly answered President Briaud
don’t forget to take care of the garbage!!
Fig. 1 Presidents of ISSMGE
1 VISION
My vision as President was
a. To involve the membership and generate a sense of
ownership in every one of you. I wanted you to feel that you
were part of your professional family and that the family
cared about you. This would be done for example by creating
Board Level Committees where more members could
participate and make high level decisions, by writing progress
report to ensure that you felt connected, and by creating new
awards to recognize those who excel in our profession..
b. To modernize the society and further advance it into the
electronic age. This would be done for example by starting a
series of free webinars, revamping the web site, creating
GeoWorld, transferring the Lexicon to an addressable data
base available on the web site, having the Board start meeting
by Skype conference calls to save money.
c. To help developing countries and the young geotechnical
engineers. This would be done for example by raising money
for the new ISSMGE Foundation which would receive
applications and distribute grants, by creating a special group
with direct access to the President.
d. To mobilize more actively the practitioners side of our
society and help bridge the gap between academics and
practitioners. This would be done by creating a special group
for practitioners with direct access to the president and
recruiting more Corporate Associates into the Society.
e. To enhance the image of the geotechnical engineer
worldwide. This would be advanced by creating a Public
Relations Group dedicated to simple steps that would increase
the visibility of our profession.
My basic tactic to realize my vision was pretty simple:
1. Develop a vision of what I wanted to accomplish
2. Surround myself with very smart people. Here I was very
lucky to be able to convince the outstanding people including
Harry Poulos, Suzanne Lacasse, Mike Jamiolkowski, Marc
Ballouz, Dimitris Zekkos, François Schlosser, Jennifer Nicks,
Michael Lisyuk.
3. Share with them my vision and check if they truly
embraced it.
4. Give them a lot of freedom and support.
5. Be a strong cheer leader for those who did well
6. Be a gentle but steady nudge for those who dragged the
team down
7. Keep thinking and acting with a vision for the relentless
pursuit of excellence in a just and friendly atmosphere.
Fig. 2 The 2009-2013 ISSMGE Board Members
(in India)
