Research professor to help ‘navigate’ new organization towards success
October 12, 2009
A Bagley College of Engineering (BCoE) research professor of civil and environmental engineering has been selected for the leadership board of a new professional academy.
Dr. William H. McAnally accepted a three-year appointment to the board of trustees for the Academy of Coastal, Ocean, Port, and Navigation Engineers (ACOPNE), an organization that grants specialized certification to practicing engineers. He will serve as the organization’s navigation engineering expert.
“Navigation engineering is an important discipline but nobody knows about it,” McAnally said. “No school offers a degree in it and the classes we offer at MSU are among the few offered anywhere. It is important to me to encourage more people to specialize in the field.”
In his position as an inaugural member of the ACOPNE board, McAnally will be responsible for helping establish the academy’s bylaws and the body of knowledge necessary to achieve diplomate engineer status within the COPNE fields. The organization feels this new tier of certification is necessary to designate mastery of a specialized field in civil engineering and a commitment to continued education.
“We are trying to raise the bar for engineers,” McAnally said. “Right now, engineers earn a professional engineering license and they’re done, but this will be a significant step beyond that certification.”
To achieve diplomate status, an engineer must maintain a professional engineering license, earn an additional eight years of professional experience and complete 30 additional, advanced academic credit hours.
McAnally says that although his schedule was already tight, he couldn’t resist the opportunity to serve this groundbreaking academy and help further the field of navigation engineering.
A fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and recent Einstein Award recipient, he already balances duties as an active researcher and a member of other committees. He holds a bachelor’s in civil engineering as well as master’s and doctoral degrees in coastal and oceanographic engineering.
Established in 2009, ACOPNE is an offshoot of ASCE and its subsidiary Civil Engineering Certification, Inc. Its mission is to improve the practice, elevate the standards and advance the civil engineering profession by certifying specialized knowledge, recognizing ethical practice, enhancing technical practice, and encouraging continued professional development. For more information visit the academy’s Web site at www.acopne.org
For more information about Dr. McAnally or BCoE’s department of civil engineering visit www.cee.msstate.edu.