Mark Pierepiekarz - Engineer of the Year 2009, SEAW/Seattle President 2004

Mark Pierepiekarz (BSCE 1984, MSSE 1985 University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana) gained visibility in the community by actively promoting seismic safety in Western Washington. As one of the leaders of the “Seattle Fault Scenario” project, Mark promoted actions to protect our communities and infrastructure from future earthquakes, effectively focusing attention on key regional safety issues. In addition, Mark developed numerous technical seminar materials illustrating the application of the latest earthquake-resistant principles, codes, and standards. He frequently speaks to public organizations, trade groups, and media on relevant earthquake lessons, mitigation practices, and engineering solutions to earthquake risk. As part of his engineering practice at Seattle-based MRP Engineering, Mark consults on practical approaches to the seismic risks of structures.

Mark's 25+ years of professional experience focus on structural and earthquake engineering. He personally performed post-earthquake damage investigations and authored reconnaissance reports following the Nisqually (2001), Northridge (1994), Landers/Big Bear (1992), Upland (1990), Loma Prieta (1989), Whittier Narrows (1987), Superstition Hills (1987) and Satsop (1999) earthquakes. He performed damage assessments and root-cause analyses for school and university structures in Louisiana following hurricanes Katrina and Rita (2005) on behalf of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. His analyses of the causes and sequence of wind and storm surge damage provided support for public assistance funding and commercial support. He has authored and presented a number of technical papers on the seismic design of structures, and provided input into the development of building codes and standards.

Since joining SEAW in 1996 Mark has taken an active role in the organization. As a member of the Earthquake Engineering and Existing Building committees, he has served in the development of technical seminars on earthquake resistant design for new structures using newly adopted building codes and performance-based design guidelines, as well as the application of seismic evaluation and rehabilitation documents (FEMA, ASCE, and IEBC). For the “Seattle Fault Scenario” project, Mark led a team of SEAW members tasked with evaluating structural performance and losses in a M6.7 scenario earthquake.

Mark initiated SEAW’s “Younger Member Forum” to attract and serve younger SEAW members, welcome new structural engineers in the community, and encourage their active participation in SEAW. His contributions also include the initiation of pre-dinner mini-seminars for the sharing of timely technical topics among local structural engineers.

Posted March 2012

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