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	Indoor winter: skiing in Dubai. (Photo courtesy Michael Goodman/ENR)

Double Fantasy? Deflating U.S. Housing Bubble and the Boom in Dubai
By Jeff Rubenstone
November 10, 2006

While the fever dream of real estate wealth in the U.S. fades away, halfway around the globe, the nation of Dubai is trying to make its dream a reality.

The housing market in the United States has been in the spotlight a lot in recent years, if only because leading economists had identified it as one of the few engines of growth in the nation's economy. Yet that balloon seems to be continuing it's slow deflation, as recent reports show a drop in the price of new homes and analysts predict a rougher time ahead for builders.

This dip was not unexpected, and normally would be considered part of a regular economic cycle. The problem is that many homeowners took advantage of their rising property value to shore up their personal finances, and growth in home construction was one of the few bright spots in an otherwise listless economy. While there is still plenty of new home construction, industry analysts have been waiting for the first signs of a slowdown, and recent data from these last months shows the free ride is probably over.

Yet while the U.S. housing market is finally finding its way back down to earth, construction in the oil rich Arab Emirate of Dubai is reaching for the sky. It is no secret that Dubai has been at the center of a whirlwind of construction in recent years, but it is difficult to grasp the breadth of these efforts. Any one of the major projects underway could be considered a new landmark, but they are all part of the dream of making Dubai the greatest high-end resort city in the world. There is probably no equivalent place in modern history so determined to reinvent itself as a home of tremendous monuments and spectacle. What was once a mid-sized Gulf port is quickly becoming a place of architectural and engineering wonders.

The scale of some of the Dubai projects defies description: massive artificial peninsulas shaped liked palm trees, an artificial atoll shaped like the world's continents, and a tower set to be the tallest in the world once completed. Most of these bold projects are intended for residential and tourist use, and are to be packed to the gills with apartment villas and hotels. You can see ENR.com's reports on these projects, but even there it is hard to convey in words the sense of unreality the new Dubai evokes.

With their oil reserves predicted to run out sometime in the coming decades, many see Dubai's cavalcade of projects as a scramble to turn the country into a magical playground for the rich. Yet even that scenario doesn't fully explain the monumental nature of Dubai's construction; there is a grandiosity of vision and even megalomania that drives these projects, the kind you don't see outside the biographies of famous architects or the gloating speeches of James Bond villains. It's rare today to find a city so willing to divorce itself from it's sleepy past and erect a host of new, very expensive landmarks to redefine itself.

Yet maybe the dreams of Dubai's builders aren't so far removed from those of humble homeowners and builders in the United States. Those looking to exploit the final days of the U.S. housing bubble are rushing to get that last bit of profit before the market deflates completely. Meanwhile in Dubai, it's a race against the clock to get their billionaire's paradise up and running before the oil money dries up. In both cases we can see that nothing lasts forever, but while rampant housing construction is losing it's luster in America, Dubai sees new construction as their chance for survival once the oil runs dry. Indeed, there could be a bright future for Dubai in high tourist traffic and being the second (third? fourth?) home of a money-laden international jet-set.

Now the larger-than-life route Dubai is taking wouldn't work everywhere, but as reminders of inexorable economic forces grow louder at home, it's encouraging to see a small country try something unique and spectacular to escape decline.

Jeff Rubenstone is a contributor to ENR.com and a graduate of the College of William and Mary. He is based in Sparkill, N.Y.

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Do We Really Appreciate the Need for Sustainability?
By Pat D. Galloway
November 5, 2006

Sustainability continues to be a hot topic. It was a prime discussion at the ASCE “Civil Engineering 2025 Summit” in June and was the key focus of the World Federation of Engineering Organizations meeting two weeks ago. As noted in one of my recent blogs, whether or not you agree with the politics behind the movie “An Inconvenient Truth” is at least putting sustainability in the public’s vocabulary.

Why is sustainabity becoming increasingly important? The keynote speaker at the WFEO international luncheon pointed out that are at a point in time where 50% of the world population lives in urban areas and 50% lives in rural areas. On the demographic front, the world is well on its way to a population exceeding 10 billion people in 2050. Today, people occupy more space on the planet than they did 30 years ago, and we are straining the earth’s environment, particularly the needs for energy, fresh water, clean air, and safe waste disposal. Shifting demographics and population growth continue to strain our overburdened infrastructure. The shift of people moving from rural areas to cities and ex-urban areas has accelerated. Around the world, population density is increasing. And-unfortunately, in the developed world our infrastructure continues to age and maintenance or replacement has not kept pace with deterioration. In contrast, in the developing world, the need for new infrastructure outstrips our ability to put it in place.

The profession is finally moving towards more acceptance of green design and more conferences are focused on green design, such as one being held this week in Pittsburgh. (http://www.nthpconference.org/) With continued design of green buildings, our future will see new processes, less harmful to the environment and most new construction based on green- and smart-building technologies. The future may result in many new buildings actually producing more energy that they consume.

Demands for sustainable energy, fresh water, clean air, and safe waste disposal will begin to drive infrastructure development on a global scale. Constrained resources and growing energy demands have already led to the need for prioritizing energy resources and for use of alternative fuels. For example, there is a key issue on the ballot this week in Washington State concerning renewable energy sources. Despite that the major power source in Washington is hydropower, a clean source of energy; the voters will decide whether to add pressure to the utility companies to develop more environmentally friendly forms of energy such as wind power and ethanol. While credits will be given to those who develop alternative forms of energy, penalties will be assessed against those who do not. Improved water purification methods, desalination technologies, and increasing use of closed-loop systems will be necessary to meet clean water needs. Our investment in continuing to highlight the issue of sustainability will see advances in nuclear technology that will change the requirements for disposal of highly radioactive nuclear waste.

While it is difficult at times for us to see the potential in the applicability of a sustainable mindset and while it may sound like a crazy idea, I can see life-cycle design philosophies taking hold that could result in nearly zero net waste and great savings in energy consumed for waste disposal. Virtually everything in the future could be recycled and re-used. Crazy? Maybe not if you truly appreciate the need for a sustainable future.

Pat D. Galloway, P.E., Ph.D., CPEng Dr. Patricia D. Galloway, PE, is CEO of the Seattle-based Nielsen-Wurster Group. In June 2006 she was appointed by President Bush to serve a six-year term as a director of the 24-member National Science Board, the National Science Foundation's governing body.

Crooks and Architects
By Andrew G. Wright
October 29, 2006

Andrew G. Wright, Online Editor Andy is managing senior editor of enr.com. He lives in Manhattan.

For someone who’s made a living tracking current events, I must admit that sometimes I’m a little late to the party. A friend recently lent me his DVD of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, the 2005 documentary about the rise and fall of the Houston-based conglomerate. Alex Gibney’s treatment of the book by Fortune magazine reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkin is a riveting account of corporate criminality at the highest levels.

We already know the story about how Ken Lay, Jeffrey Skilling and Andy Fastow, feeling protected by political connections that reached into the White House, ran a high-stakes three-card Monte game in an era of energy deregulation. No question that these guys were incredibly bright. It’s also apparent that they had absolutely no scruples at all. This film should be required viewing for first-year MBA students, especially at Skilling’s alma mater Harvard University.

There are many depressing elements to this story; not the least of them is a Portland General lineman account of how his 401K, valued at more than $300,000 less than a decade ago, is now virtually worthless. I was cheered to see the judge give Skilling get 24 years to reflect on his actions, but disheartened to see another court set aside the late Mr. Lay’s verdict. This could enable his family to keep a portion of the loot stolen by the man George W. Bush called Kenny Boy. Fastow, who some say was the most slippery of the trio, cut a deal to do only six years. My guess is that he’ll end up living more comfortably than the Oregon lineman and hundreds of other honest, hard-working Enron employees who didn’t have a heads-up that Enron’s house of cards was about to tumble.

The scary thing about this movie, and why it should be viewed as a cautionary tale, is how much the characters aren't that different from the rest of us. Fastow was a nerdy kid from Union County, New Jersey. Skilling was a short, plump, prematurely bald kid bent on self-improvement. Kenny Boy was a preacher’s boy gone wrong. Here’s an idea: skip Sunday school this week and watch the movie instead, with the kids. Here’s a trailer. I’d love to hear your comments.

If the Enron movie was depressing, an exhibition that just concluded at New York’s Guggenheim Museum provided an uplifting counterpoint. Zaha Hadid an amazing architect. She was born in Baghdad in 1950 and educated in London.

As a girl she was interested in math and art and eventually found a creative outlet studying architecture, where she could fuse both aptitudes. She studied with Dutch master architect Rem Koolhaas and later worked for him at the Office for Metropolitan Architecture.

Hadid’s deconstructivist vision was so far ahead of her time that she worked for nearly two decades before any of her concepts were built. She won many competitions, but it has been only in the last 10-15 years that her concepts have moved from blueprint to bricks, mortar, concrete, glass and steel.

Cincinnati’s Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art, completed in 2003, was her first U.S. commission. Another stunning museum design is the Phaeno Science Center in Wolfsburg, Germany. Take a QuickTime virtual tour. Hadid considers a structure’s space, environment and function in ways that few other architects do. Take for instance the BMW plant in Leipzig, Germany. The production line moves through the company cafeteria and the corporate offices, effectively removing the barrier between company executives and workers on the line. I realize that Detroit’s problems are tied in large part to the weight of pension plans. I’m not suggesting that better architecture would solve Ford and GM’s problems. But BMW’s commissioning Zaha Hadid to help the German automaker plan for the future is evidence of forward thinking that is sadly absent in the U.S. Her 2004 Pritzker Prize, the first awarded to a woman, is well deserved.

Hadid’s life’s work is also an interesting contrast to those whiz kids at Enron. She had a vision, worked hard at it for many years before a client was willing to take a chance. Now she is recognized as one of the best and brightest architects in the world. The smartest guys in the room, on the other hand, went for maximum short-term profits. They worked hard at it for a few years before anyone caught on.

Pat D. Galloway, P.E., Ph.D., CPEng Dr. Patricia D. Galloway, PE, is CEO of the Seattle-based Nielsen-Wurster Group. In June 2006 she was appointed by President Bush to serve a six-year term as a director of the 24-member National Science Board, the National Science Foundation's governing body.

Just What We (Don't) Need--Another Engineering Organization
By Pat D. Galloway
October 29, 2006

While attending the annual American Society of Civil Engineers convention last week, I was handed a letter to provide comment relative to a matter I thought had died when I was president of ASCE. The issue is the formation of the World Council of Civil Engineers (WCCC). While ASCE along with many other engineering organizations wrote letters as to why this new organization was not needed, it appears that some civil engineers think otherwise. I’ve been in the professional engineering community nearly 30 years, what we don’t need is another engineering organization!!

We already have ASCE, the largest civil engineering organization in the world with members worldwide. We have the UK version, ICE with members worldwide. We have country engineering organizations that typically comprise over a dozen different discipline organizations. We have UPADI, the Latin American umbrella organization for the Latin American engineering organizations. We have the ACECC that looks at civil engineering issues in the Asian Region. We have the World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO), which is the world umbrella organization representing about 80 different countries, which in turn represent all the engineering organizations in their respective countries. Is this not enough???

The engineering community’s problem is that the profession is splintered. We seldom speak with one voice and continue to compete with each other and splinter off into “specialty” organizations. Why can’t our profession play well together like the medical, legal and scientific professions do? The result of pulling together as a coalition can have a powerful force. Just look at the way bills are passed and research funding is obtained. While we complain that no one looks at engineering, it is not difficult to appreciate why those governing and funding bodies pay a lot more attention to millions of constituents instead of a few hundred thousand. With global issues at the forefront, and the inroads that WFEO has already made with the United Nations, why would we consider forming another organization which could seriously hurt the efforts already under way? What is even more astonishing is that the majority of the WFEO members are civil engineers.

So why start another world civil engineering organization? Maybe I’m cynical, but I think that the reasons may be self-serving--if I can’t get a leadership position in the main organization I will just start my own organization where I can assure a leadership position. How short-sighted and egotistical! Worse, these individuals are far from showing “leadership” and “leading the engineering community.” Leadership means pulling individuals together that when working as a group, love what they do and will do more and produce more than any one or a few people could do.

Instead of thinking how we can form more organizations in order to reach smaller and smaller sectors of our profession, why don’t we try a new idea? Why don’t we pull all engineering disciplines together to deal with both the public policy issues we have in the U.S, and global engineering issues. Let’s think “out of the box” and maybe consolidate. It is happening in industry with larger profits and better products/services to the consumers

The number of civil engineers versus engineers in general tends to support a more interdisciplinary approach. The numbers quotes are from 100,000 civil engineers to a million engineers in the U.S and 1 million civil engineers world wide versus 10 million total engineers world wide. The larger numbers will of course have better leveraging for the world engineering issues that must be addressed. The best way to support multi-national and multi-disciplinary projects and implementation is through our existing organizations such as WFEO and not through another start-up organization representing only a partial sector of engineering. Let’s stop with the “ego trips” and at work with our existing organizations. Think what we could really do if we walked onto the world stage with 10 million engineers. Do you think we might then get attention?

The Expert Witness: Truly Independent or Hired Gun?
By Pat D. Galloway
October 21, 2006

Cheryl Kunde - FOTOLIA

Last week I was in Santa Fe attending the National Academy of Construction. It was a great feeling to be part of such an esteemed group of construction professionals, including some of the top names in the construction industry. The academy studies several issues that affect construction including labor, education-specifically in regard to professors who have not practiced K-12 awareness through such groups as ACE. The Ace mentoring program is spearheaded by Charlie Thorton, a member of the academy. Another area in which the academy is making strides is dispute resolution. The Dispute Resolution Practices Group has made some great contributions to this area and will have a report out within a few months.

During the meeting, I found the occasion to chat with a few of my fellow members regarding the role of the expert witness in construction matters. Being an expert witness, it is a major beef of mine when an individual holds him or herself out to be an independent expert, but based on the actions and/or expert reports written is clearly not independent. In the litigation world, we have all seen the quotes that are taken out of context or the use of selected facts in order to sway the story on the side of his or her client. But when the expert intentionally misleads the reader of his or her report and/or uses information in an incorrect way, the expert, in my opinion has stepped over the line. It comes to a point of being more than just an advocate.

Experts are retained to review and analyze the facts in a case in order to determine the issues and arrive at opinions that will assist the parties in resolving who was responsible and why. Experts are particularly critical when involved in a jury trial since jurors, as laypeople, are not typically knowledgeable on construction issues. Thus, it is the role of the expert to assist the jury in understanding the issues and to provide opinions that will assist the jury in its deliberations. Of course experts may come to different conclusions based on their respective interpretations of the facts; however, the facts are usually the facts!

Interesting things are occurring out there. For instance, I have seen experts state that their analysis is according to a widely accepted methodology, seen the same expert publish an article or even a book on the use of that methodology, only to then not follow the methodology in his or her analysis. Worse yet, the expert really does not follow any methodology but selectively uses mixed analyses and selected facts to arrive at the conclusion desired.

In a prior blog I wrote about ethics in scheduling. The ethics not only apply to what is being done during the job, but should apply in the analysis of schedules after the fact. It is discouraging as a professional to see another professional mix and match work activities on a schedule in order to tell a certain story. The problem is that unless the reader is an experienced professional, there is probably little chance the reader would determine the fallacy in the arguments being made.

Worse yet is the advisement or instruction that an expert receives from counsel that is then applied to the experts analysis. What happens if the advisement that an expert receives is not supported by the facts in the case? Or what if no project documents exist upon which that advisement can be vetted? Does simply stating that you were told something is true sufficient enough for you as an expert to cast an independent opinion? If it is independent, wouldnt it be necessary to vet the statement and to explore whether the statement is true? In regard to counsel instructions, while it is not unusual for an expert to take instructions and rely on those instructions, it is questionable whether an expert should rely upon an instruction which in the experts opinion goes against his or her beliefs or industry understanding in a particular area. Maybe its just me, but seems like an independent expert must hold to his or her basic philosophies

In a world where litigation has become the norm, we who hold ourselves out as experts need to recognize the importance of our role in this area. Between experts we may disagree, but the one premise that must hold true, is that we can look each other in the eye and tell one another that we indeed looked and considered all the facts, assured ourselves that the opinions upon which we relied were based on contemporaneous project support and proven analysis that we have attempted to follow to the best of our abilities. Why? To provide the independent advise necessary to assist in the resolution of matters. Otherwise one becomes simply the hired gun and thus not independent at all.

C.J. Schexnayder is a journalist based in Lima, Peru reporting on issues across South America. He has contributed to ENR's coverage of the region since 2004.

Panamanians Vote on Canal's Second Lane
By C.J. Schexnayder
October 19, 2006

graphic: © PASQ - FOTOLIA

The future of the Panama Canal will be decided on Sunday when approximately 2 million Panamanian voters will decide on the fate of a proposed $5.25 billion upgrade to the famous waterway.

Recent polls show that as much as three-fourths of Panamanian’s support the plan which will involve the construction of a second shipping lane to the 80-kilometer long canal and the building of a new set of locks.

But the impact of the constitutionally mandated Oct. 22 referendum is expected to reach across the region and affect the future course of trade and development for the whole of Latin America.

Currently the Panama Canal is running at capacity with 14,000 transits annually and permitting a maximum ship size of 79,000-tonne boats. The upgrades will double the amount of traffic that can utilize the waterway and create a passage sufficient for 120,000-tonne boats.

Approximately 5 percent of the world’s shipping passes through the waterway and more than 275 million tones of cargo was transported along the canal last year. Each day, 38 ships pass through the canal. Within the fleet, 24 positions are booked, one is auctioned, and the rest are queued.

The amount of traffic creates serious delays that can stretch to weeks during periods of maintenance.

The promised surge in shipping the widening would bring has sparked a wave of port improvements up and down the Pacific and has created proposals for the creation of mega-ports in several countries including Colombia, Panama, Peru and Ecuador as well.

Most analysts doubt the West Coast of South America could support more than a single mega-port when the canal expansion is completed and the lack of supporting infrastructure and financing makes most of these proposals farfetched. But a few of the mega port proposals, such as Colombia’s $850-million plan for a facility in the Palo Seco-Farfan area, are believed to be realistic possibilities.

By far the most noticeable response to the Panama Canal upgrade plan has been the recent unveiling of a possible rival canal in Nicaragua. Earlier this month, Nicaraguan president Enrique Bolanos announced the proposal for the construction of an $18-billion canal through his country.

The booming international shipping business would make the "Inter-Oceanic Nicaragua Canal" a viable project even with the Panama Canal expansion, he argued, and it would also permit the passage of 250,000 tonne tankers that would still be unable to use the widened Panama waterway.

The possibility of a canal through Nicaragua goes back as long as the history of the Panama Canal and as recently as a decade ago, proposals for its construction were being seriously considered.

The current proposal would include a 277-kilometer (173 miles) long waterway running along San Juan River to Lake Nicaragua and then into the Pacific across the Isthmus of Rivas. It would require 12 years to construct.

	Don Fornes is the CEO of RiverGuide, a website dedicated to helping construction businesses research and select software. Don runs RiverGuide from Big Sky, Montana. His background includes eleven years as a Wall Street analyst in New York and software company executive in Silicon Valley. He can be reached at don@riverguideinc.com or 415-516-1769.

Excel: As Good as It Gets for Preconstruction Management?
By Don Fornes
October 10, 2006

I just finished a report on preconstruction management software and decided to share some of my finding in a post here at ENR.com.

When I say "preconstruction management software" I am referring to software for quantity takeoff and cost estimating, as well as RFI and bid management solutions.

What was most amazing to me is how many construction firms perform takeoff and estimating in Microsoft Excel® (about 60%), rather than using a packaged application designed specifically for takeoff and estimating.

Don't get me wrong, I love Excel. As a former finance guy, my mind tries to analyze any problem in a two-dimensional grid.

I got to thinking about what trends in construction IT might have an effect on the adoption of packaged applications over the next five years:

Digital takeoff and the building information model (BIM) tcould collapse, or even eliminate, the takeoff process. This could shrink the takeoff software market, but might also shift more attention to better cost estimating solutions.

Collaborative estimating processes - many people working on one bid - is getting more common as projects are getting larger. This gets unwieldy in Excel, so larger firms will have to adopt more scalable estimating software systems.

Analytical tools that allow firms to review their estimate accuracy, win rates and business processes could create great value for those that make use of them. This type of analysis would require a more structured database, like those found in packaged applications.

On-line plan rooms are reducing the need for paper plans and encouraging adoption of on-line takeoff. We could also see quantities and materials specs hosted in plan rooms and downloadable by bidders. Again, this collapses takeoff and shifts the focus to cost estimating.

On-line materials pricing and catalogs are integrating with cost estimating systems to generate faster, accurate bids. If takeoff goes away and cost data is integrated, estimators can get more strategic by analyzing bids, negotiating more intelligently and improving the preconstruction process.

Will any of these trends be strong enough to push the late majority to adopt packaged applications? Or will these trends shrink the demand for takeoff and estimating systems?

Photography: © André Souroujon

Building Community
By Robert A. Ivy, FAIA
October 9, 2006

Community. Building community. Those buzzwords are flowing through the halls of corporate America with the ubiquity of the latest flavor of Starbucks. Architects seem to have already forged the bond: By virtually any standard, we form a tight-knit community. We have a language in common (who continually refers to “space” the way we do?). Our education bears striking similarities, including the design laboratory and the juried system of critique. As we progress in our careers, our bank of experiences may vary in scope or scale, yet the commonalities outweigh the differences. We even dress alike. So why do we need or want to build community even further?

The ways we already share this common culture seem well established: Hardly a week passes without another professional panel or symposium, whether held formally through the local chapter of the AIA or as sponsored by the universities or the civic arts organizations. We drink in the latest ideas, and share means and methods with remarkable freedom. Publications like this one expand the dialogue, offering points of view on the best books to read or the exhibitions not to miss. If you want to be a real architect, down to the round glasses, the opportunities for development surround you wherever you live.

Enter the digital age. While the architectural culture has remained fairly intact for more than one hundred years, the advent of cyberspace and the free flow of electronic systems has radicalized our world, cracking it open like an egg. No longer bound by place, we are expanding our practices literally around the globe, at the same time that opportunities for sharing information have exploded. In parallel with the development of new software tools and the rolling out of the digital highway has come the concomitant need for information—we have become learners, whatever our age or station within the practice, as well as talkers to clients and to each other.

Even the language is changing. In the past, the individual experts and consultants we worked with, including our partnering engineers and other consultants, spoke their own lingo; now the nature of design demands a lingua franca, in which every team member can point to the same basic data, perform its own calculations, and bring its own experience to the evolving project, while contributing to a cohesive, comprehensive whole. Organizations such as the International Alliance for Interoperability have reached out to all those who are engaged in the construction process, seeking common ground. Today, building information modeling carries this idea to a kind of logical conclusion, in which all attributes of a project are represented in three-dimensions. Powerful software is bringing this expectation to reality.

Such a global explosion, and such a need for knowledge, demands more intense communication. In the next months, architectural record and McGraw-Hill Construction will be introducing tools that will allow our communities of architects and others in the professional design world to reach out to each other through the Web. Initially, you should look for two forums—one concerned with building information modeling, and the second with sustainability. Everyone should have an opinion or a lesson to share. Following these early opportunities, we will offer places for you to reach out more effectively than you have in the past, when you were limited to the occasional letter to the editor, or a rant at a chapter meeting. Instead, you will find ways to contribute to the body of knowledge, share best practices, give your opinions on works of architecture, and establish your own design persona more effectively in a new digital space. Look for the announcements as they roll out throughout the year.

Ultimately, you will become as vital a contributor to architectural record, and to the community of architecture, as our professional writers (whom we trust you will continue to read). Now the medium will be in everyone’s hands. And this publication, rather than responding to our community, will be connecting the world of architects by giving it the spark to grow.

Richard Korman is an award-winning journalist and author and is senior business editor of ENR.com.

PBSJ's Politics:
What the Accusations Mean to Me
By Richard Korman
October 3, 2006

If you see something unsafe and verging on collapse, aren't you obligated by your ties to society to try to stop it?

Here's what I'm getting at.

A few days ago I asked PSBJ Corp., the big Florida-based engineer, if the three former employees who had recently pleaded guilty to stealing $36 million of company money were providing to federal prosecutors information about illegal company campaign donations in hope of gaining leniency. PBSJ's spokeswoman didn't want to get into the matter and PBSJ's attorney, Mark Schnapp, said the few violations PBSJ committed didn't amount to much and the company should not be charged with any crime or violation.

Then the Miami Herald, which has covered the story aggressively and broken important news related to PBSJ's campaign donations, had a long interview with Maria A. Garcia, one of the three admitted felons and the former payroll supervisor. What she told them amounts to a bombshell that could reverberate within PBSJ for years but also has implications for other engineers and architects.

Garcia described what she claimed was a long-practiced system through which the company and senior managers, including the former chairman, directed employees to make donations to key candidates and illegally reimbursed them. Garcia's job allegedly was to make the illegal reimbursement, she told the Herald. A lawyer for the former chairman denied in the newspaper that anything illegal had been done. You can read the rest yourself via the link below.

Let's for a little while longer give PBSJ the benefit of the doubt. Garcia seems to have provided the newspaper as buttressing evidence only one faxed letter that the Herald described. The rest is her word alone as far as the widespread systematic practice she alleges of "straw man" donations. We know that her boss at PBSJ Corp., former chief financial officer W. Scott DeLoach, pleaded guilty to organizing such donations. Instead of immediately taking the reported word of someone who is an admitted prolific thief and liar and now is hoping to trade her revelations for a lighter sentence, I'll wait.

At the same time, I'm worried not just that the accusation could be true but that the campaign donation disease, a form of legal corruption that drains the vitality from our democratic institutions, may have contributed to an atmosphere of laxness among the financial staff at PBSJ. We already know it has dragged down the ethics of engineers in the capital of pay-to-play in public works—New Jersey—and countless other places.

The context, partly explained by Garcia herself in the Herald, is that PBSJ is just trying to keep up with the competition in gaining access to and consideration from elected officials. Homebuilders, finance companies, health care companies, communications companies, attorneys, they all supply donations to parties and politicians. Engineers do so in order to enjoy the same "stature," if you can call it that, and keep even with direct competitors.

What a pathetic road for engineers to travel down. I find it especially telling that the embezzlement scheme run by the three admitted felons at PBSJ was cloaked partly as election campaign donations: the secret bank accounts kept by DeLoach were disguised as political action committee accounts and named that way.

If the accusations are true, PBSJ and its implicated managers should be held responsible. Rules are rules and systematically cheating to improve political influence should be punished. What I'd rather see are engineers and architects supporting the shaky democratic underpinnings of U.S. government by collectively refusing through ethical codes ever to make political donations again.

Schexnayder

Time for a Change
By C.J. Schexnayder
October 3, 2006

In 1950, Dimas de Melo Pimenta, a businessman in Sao Paulo, Brazil, purchased his first pocket watch. From that humble purchase he began an obsession with time. He became a specialist in watches, clocks and timepieces and later founded Dimep, a company that today specializes in clocks and timekeeping services. And he started collecting.

Franck Boston — FOTOLIA

Today there are more than 700 timepieces in the late-inventor's collection displayed at the Dimep offices in Sao Paulo. The oldest is a silver clock from Germany made in 1535 that consists of just an hour hand — minute hands wouldn't arrive for another century and a half.

The existence of a museum in Brazil might strike some as incongruous in a region of the world where the perception of time is often a bit less…restrictive…than in most English-speaking countries.

Robert Levine, Professor of Psychology at California State University, Fresno spent a year in the mid-1970s teaching in Brazil and his experience with the different perceptions of time sparked a lifelong inquiry into the subject.

"During my year in Brazil I was repeatedly bewildered, frustrated, fascinated, and obsessed by the customs and ideas of social time Brazilians sent my way," he wrote in this book "The Geography of Time."

Levine's theory is that different cultures often have dramatically different perceptions of time, which he divides into "event time" and "clock time." The former, common in Latin America, conducts life as events occur while the latter adheres to schedules that organize events, business as usual in the United States.

For U.S. businesses interested in becoming involved in Latin America this divide can be a formidable obstacle. Moreover, many in the region are starting to understand how much it can dampen their ability to catch up with more developed countries.

Last year, Ecuador kicked off Campa??ontra la Impuntualidad, a nationwide effort to be on time. According to a New Yorker article on the event, chronic lateness costs the country $2.5 billion a year

"The fundamental challenge for a modern economy is to co?nate the actions of millions of independent people so that goods may be produced and services delivered as efficiently as possible," wrote James Surowiecki. "It's a lot easier to do this when people are where they're supposed to be when they're supposed to be there."

And in a society that accepts lateness as a part of the way things are, it tends to become assumed. Why be on time when you know everyone else is always going to be late?

The problem is that this perception can become ingrained enough that it becomes part of the framework of the society. The final step is to institutionalize the practice with the creation of a bureaucracy.

Peruvian economist Hernando De Soto, the director of Peru's Institute for Liberty and Democracy in Lima, has argued that formal property system where ownership and transactions are clearly recorded is vital for an economy. It provides a way for poor, forced into an informal economy due to their impoverishment, a means of accessing the capital and strengthening the overall economy.

And what is the key impediment to this process in developing countries? The bureaucracy. Particularly the amount of time and effort it requires to traverse.

De Soto's famous experiment in the 1980s was for his team of researchers to try and set up a two-sewing machine garment factory in one of Lima's shanty towns. "We discovered to become legal it took more than three hundred days working six hours a day," he wrote. "The cost: Thirty-two times the monthly minimum wage."

Receiving approval from the Municipality of Lima, one of 11 agencies they were required to deal with, took more than 700 bureaucratic steps.

This situation, common in most developing nations, makes it impossible for the poor to leverage their informal ownerships into capital, leaving them outside the system. Moreover, cutting through the bureaucracy, thereby saving time, is a key point where corruption begins to sink in.

And, as Levine points out in his book, "A Geography of Time", there is a social aspect to the value of time. The more affluent you are, the more valuable your time is.

"The least accessible people are often elevated to savoir like dimensions," Levine notes. "For the people doing the waiting, there is nothing like a long delay to put them in their place."

Perhaps there is no better example of this precept than Vladimir Montesinos, the spymaster and dealmaker for former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, for 10 years until their ouster in 2001.

As journalist Michael Smith described his role: "When anyone needed a solution in Peru, the most efficient choice was to turn to Montesinos. He could cut through red tape and across bureaucratic barriers. He was also able to call on technological resources that no other government institution could obtain. He also had tremendous economic power."

He also was almost completely impossible to meet. According to the book The Imperfect Spy, by Sally Bowen and Jane Holligan, Montisenos was almost impossible to obtain an audience with and those who did were often forced to wait hours, or even days, before he would assent to appear.

Reforming the system is a constant refrain of politicians throughout Latin America but the problem has proven remarkably difficult to achieve. And, for the foreigner looking to do business in this strange new world, it is best done with some caution and preparation.

"The rules of punctuality are inseparably intertwined with cultural values," Levine writes. "And when we enter the web of culture, answers come neither simply or cleanly."

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