Three awards were presented during RPUG 2012
- A RPUG Technical Achievement Award was presented to Mike Sayers, formerly UMTRI, (right) by Steve Karamihas (left) on behalf of the RPUG Steering Committee.
- Two Best Presentation Awards were presented to Thomas Harman of FHWA and Steve Karamihas of UMTRI during RPUG 2012.
Mike Sayers, formerly UMTRI, (right) by Steve Karamihas (left) on behalf of the RPUG Steering Committee.
Mike Sayers’ “letter to RPUG”
To the Road Profiler Users’ Group.
Thank you very much for this award.
Although I’ve been working in other fields for the past 20 years, things come around. I was just in South America for a skiing trip and all these memories came back from the other time I was down there in 1982, working in Brazil trying to figure out how to define road roughness measures so they could be reproduced with the majority of instruments in use at the time, including dynamic profiling systems and good old fashioned rod and level. Some of the sponsors of the research (from Brazil and The World Bank) started talking about defining an “IRI”, but at the time my main concern was figuring out where to get computer access, and how to do calculations so they weren’t tied to a single system.
In a few weeks I go to Germany for work representing SAE in ISO for developing another international standard (related to vehicle simulations similar in concept to the quarter-car model in the IRI). It’s really the first work I’ve done in a standards organization since my road roughness work with ASTM almost 30 years ago. I’m glad I have the experience!
One of the things I enjoy most in life is seeing other make use of tools or methods that I helped develop; I find the existence of RPUG to be very rewarding. Although I haven’t been to a meeting in a long time, I always enjoy the reports from Steve every year about your activities.
Thanks again.
— Mike
RPUG president, Anita Bush, presented Steve Karamihas a “Best Presentation Award”.
