One Member's Opinion

YOU BRING THE BAGELS, I BRING THE CREAM CHEESE.

Many times, we as individuals or part of various organizations are making arrangements with other individuals or organizations, and combined efforts will benefit all participants. Recently, this is exactly what happens with UCLA Extension and ASPE.

Short History.
It is known, that ASPE Los Angeles Chapter provided for the last 40 years, technical knowledge and Instructors, who thought Plumbing Systems Design at UCLA Extension. This program of 3 x 12 weeks of inclass education, was very successful and provided good education for many plumbing designers during this period. We had good Instructors, and I want to mention a few: Ted Musialowsky, Fady Mattar, Keith Franklin and for the last 7 years I was honored and hired as the Instructor of the plumbing course. Ted was Instructor for almost 30 years, and I was one of his students during 1970-71. During his tenure as Instructor, Ted trained and graduated over 600 plumbing designers, which is an accomplishment quite difficult to match.

As I mentioned before this educational program at UCLA Extension, with weekly sessions at UCLA Campuses located in Los Angeles, California, did an outstanding service for the Plumbing design establishments located in vicinity of the Los Angeles, by providing a continuous supply of fresh graduates with Plumbing education, needed for project design.

After I start teaching in 2005, I received calls from many designers from different States, who heard about this program and wanted to participate at classes. But of course, the way this classes were organized, participation to the class every week at a Los Angeles Campus, was mandatory. And for a student from Arizona, or New York or Nevada participation to classes held in Los Angeles was not feasible. This was the reason we started to think to develop an online program in Plumbing Design, which can be attended by anyone in the Country, New Horizon.

In 2006, as member of ASPE Education Committee, I started to investigate the status of Plumbing education in other ASPE Chapters. As far as I found, there is no other similar course available in USA, except limited programs at UC Davis, similar with one offered in Los Angeles, a 16 weeks course in Chicago and one at San Francisco City College. Many ASPE chapters or manufacturers reps organize local seminars of 1 or 2 days to teach a limited subject, which can be covered in the limited time allocated.

I contacted UCLA Extension upper management and ASPE Board of Directors, trying to connect these two fine organizations, to collaborate and combine their efforts to offer a comprehensive and uniform program of education for Plumbing Systems Design. My efforts were going nowhere until: In 2010 two important events took place, ASPE Convention and elections of new Board, and retirement of UCLA

Extension Director of Engineering and hiring of a new Director. These two events changed everything, regarding Plumbing Systems Design program.

Negotiations between UCLA Extension and ASPE started in July/August 2011 and to date we accomplished a lot, for this important educational program.

An Advisory Board was formed from top Plumbing Engineers and ASPE and UCLA Extension executives. UCLA Extension and ASPE united their efforts to provide Comprehensive Plumbing Education. Members of this Advisory Board are: Jim Kendzel, Cliff Reis, Varaz Shahmirian, Mitch Clemente, Ed Saltzberg, April Trafton, Joseph Messina, Tim Allison, Matt Volgyi, and Haig Demergian. A program of classes was approved which includes 6 mandatory courses and 2 elective courses. The first 3 courses PSD-1, PSD-2 and PSD-3 are in the process to be revised to become online courses. The first course PSD-1 is already revised and PSD-1 is offered online starting January 2012. A brochure/ flier with the logo of UCLA Extension and ASPE was completed, to assist in advertising. Search is under way, to find instructors for other courses in the program.

All these accomplishments wouldn’t be possible without support and leadership from Varaz Shahmirian PhD of UCLA Extension and Jim Kendzel Executive Director and Cliff Reis Education Director of ASPE. Also, here we should mention the work of the Advisory Board who finalized and revised the syllabus of all the courses of this program.

The final goal of both UCLA Extension and ASPE is to complete the syllabus and training of Instructors for all the courses approved by the Advisory Board, and finally award to the graduates, a “CERTIFICATE IN ADVANCED PLUMBING DESIGN” issued by UCLA Extension.