American Wood Council (AWC) Senior Director, Education, Michelle Kam-Biron has been recognized with the Structural Engineers Association of Southern California’s (SEAOSC) “Engineer of the Year” award. She is the first woman to receive this award and, in 2015, was also the first female president of SEAOSC.

“Michelle is a passionate voice in supporting women in the engineering field, as evidenced by her work with SEAOSC. She’s also been a champion on the need to increase education of wood design and construction in higher education,” said AWC President & CEO Robert Glowinski.

As the Chair and founder of SEAOSC’s Women in Structural Engineering (WISE) Committee, Michelle established its signature Leadership Summit that is held yearly. When she joined the SEAOSC Board of Directors in 2011, she developed and implemented the group’s first educational webinar series and was part of an Ad-Hoc Committee that was instrumental in re-organizing SEAOSC to be a more a member-centric association. She was also part of a team that received the S.B. Barnes Research Award in 2017 for her part in the SEAOSC Safer Cities Survey Task Group.

“Having worked together early in our careers, it was an incredible honor to be the one to recognize Michelle as SEAOSC’s Engineer of the Year for 2020. As President this past year, I found my efforts were made much easier by her groundbreaking achievements as a previous President of the Association. Her example of dedication to the profession was easy to aspire to but nearly impossible to compare to,” said SEAOSC President Kenneth O’Dell, S.E.

The “Engineer of the Year” award was first given in 2003 and is recognition of outstanding contribution to SEAOSC, the engineering profession, and the community. SEAOSC was established in 1929.

About

The American Wood Council (AWC) is the voice of North American wood products manufacturing, an industry that provides almost 450,000 men and women in the United States with family-wage jobs. AWC represents 86 percent of the structural wood products industry, and members make products that are essential to everyday life from a renewable resource that absorbs and sequesters carbon. Staff experts develop state-of-the-art engineering data, technology, and standards for wood products to assure their safe and efficient design, as well as provide information on wood design, green building, and environmental regulations. AWC also advocates for balanced government policies that affect wood products.

www.awc.org