Distinguished Colleagues, Dear Friends,

This is my forty fourth progress report after 1335 days as your President. Note that previous reports are on the ISSMGE web site at http://www.issmge.org/en/the-society/the-president/progress-reports if you need them. In this report, I will talk to you about our upcoming webinar, a correction on the awards for Paris, and the Paris 18th ICSMGE conference.

Webinars. Our next free webinar and the last of my Presidency will be presented by Harry Poulos (Australia) on Thursday morning 25July2013 (Sydney time) on the topic of “Meeting the Challenges of Foundation Design for Tall Buildings”. You can also find further information on our web site http://www.issmge.org/en/conferences-and-events/upcoming-webinars or by contacting my assistant, Theresa Taeger, at ttaeger@civilmail.tamu.edu. If you missed any of the webinars, you can access the ISSMGE web site at http://www.issmge.org/en/resources/recorded-webinars and listen to the recording at your leisure.

Awards (correction). I need to make a correction on the date of the award ceremony in Paris. The awards will be given during the lunch on Tuesday 3 September 2013 (not Monday as stated in my last progress report) at the Palais des Congress where the conference will take place.

Paris conference: the 18th ICSMGE. Every four years our profession gets together to celebrate and to learn. This time we will be in Paris, one of the most beautiful and enjoyable cities in the world. The conference will be a wonderful occasion to get together, to exchange opinions about the past, the present, and the future of geotechnical engineering. I truly hope to see all of you in Paris; this is an opportunity you cannot miss as a geotechnical engineer. You can find all the details on the web site at http://www.issmge2013.org and I attach the program. Here is a summary.

Some Board Level Committees and Technical Committees will meet on Friday 30Aug2013. I will try to attend as many as I can. The ISSMGE Board meeting will take place on Saturday 31Aug2013 and the ISSMGE Council meeting on Sunday 1Sept2013; this is where the election of the next President and the location of the 19th ICSMGE will be decided. The International Young Geotechnical Engineers Conference will take place on Saturday and Sunday 31Aug and 1Sept2013. The plenary sessions will take place on Monday and Tuesday (2 and 3 Sept 2013). They include the Terzaghi oration by Suzanne Lacasse, 7 other honor lectures organized by TCs, 3 special lectures organized by the French Society CFMS, a report and presentations from the Young Members and a discussion forum on innovations. The concurrent sessions will take place on Wednesday and Thursday (4 and 5 Sept 2013). In addition to the 28 TC-organized discussion sessions, there are 16 workshops also organized by TCs, a Franco-Chinese workshop, a workshop on pressuremeters-ISP6, 3 sessions organized by the International Geosynthetics Society, and more. A total of 772 papers have been received and accepted. About 300 will be presented orally and 120 through posters. Friday is devoted to the technical visits and to a francophone event at the CNAM Museum (where a geotechnical exhibition will be staged starting in June 2013). On the social side, the welcome reception will be on Monday night and the Gala Dinner on Tuesday evening..

We owe a great deal of thanks to all those who have and are contributing to the organization of this huge event. Please don’t forget to thank them when you see them next. While it was a team effort, I wish to acknowledge the contributions of Philippe Mestat, Alain Guilloux, Valerie Bernhardt, Pierre Delage, and Roger Frank. I probably forget some key people but rest assure that I appreciate everyone’s contribution. Thanks to your gift of time to organize this conference the registration fee is a small fraction of what it could be. To all our members, please register at http://www.issmge2013.org. Note that the reduced registration period has been extended until 16June2013. Hurry up and take advantage of the discount.

Best wishes and see you in Paris,

Jean-Louis Briaud

President of ISSMGE

International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering

Professor and Holder of the Buchanan Chair

Zachry Dpt of Civil Engineering

Texas A&M University

College Station, TX 77843-3136, USA

Tel: 979-8453795

Cell: 979-7771692

Fax: 979-8456554

Email: briaud@tamu.edu

URL: http://ceprofs.tamu.edu/briaud/