For the month of February, I was able to be at home with my family for a bit of a break between international locations. Luckily, while I was in the area, Elizabeth Hausler (Build Change’s Founder & CEO) was the keynote speaker at the California Polytechnic’s Architectural Engineering Department’s Structural Forum. It was great to see her speak about all of the projects I’ve seen in my travels, and reminded me of the incredible team I’ve been so lucky to meet and work alongside over the past year!

James in Manila with the Build Change team

While at home, I was able to help the Build Change team remotely. I developed a “Retrofit Card” for Unreinforced Masonry/Confined Masonry one-story buildings in Colombia, and also met with the Indonesian engineers about out-of-plane designs of walls for the school retrofit they are working on. I also helped review the final construction documents for the school retrofit, which I am so excited will be completed soon! I saw the completion of the retrofits on the first 2 buildings in Indonesia while I was staying with the team there, and am looking forward to seeing the rest of the project come to fruition.

Before I took off for the Philippines in mid-March, I was able to get to know the team in Manila a bit. We had a great Skype call to get me prepared, and get me excited about going back to the field! My first few weeks in the Philippines have been full of a lot of getting up to speed and getting to know the team besides my former student at Cal Poly, Carl Fosholt, and I look forward to working on the exciting projects they have going on!