EERI Honorary Member Ugo Morelli was given a Special Recognition Award for 2008 during the EERI Annual Meeting last month for his abiding commitment to earthquake loss reduction during his federal government service, especially related to the development of recommended standards and materials for the design and construction of new buildings and to the rehabilitation of existing buildings.

 In response to news of the award, Morelli wrote, “I am deeply moved and thrilled at the same time by…the Special Recognition Award that the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute has bestowed on me. I accept it with humbleness and with the strong conviction that it really belongs to scores and scores of EERI members. They were the ones who provided me with the wise counsel, technical expertise, and strong support that made possible the significant strides that in about a generation this Nation has made in the design and building of structures that can better resist earthquake forces. Please convey to them my sentiments.”

 Until his retirement at the end of January 2003, Morelli was a policy manager in the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), where he was a leading proponent of the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP). He continues to provide valued counsel to the NEHRP program. In 1981, he became the manager of an extensive program that has developed and disseminated a large number of nationally applicable engineering resource documents on seismic safety of new buildings. Companion publications dealing with societal problems were also produced for a broad audience, including building owners and other decision makers. The technology embodied in these documents has diffused widely into the design and construction practices of this country, and was extensively adopted by the former three major model building codes, and, more recently, by the International Code Council.

The last 19 years of his activities were concentrated almost exclusively on the management of the FEMA program dealing with the seismic safety of existing buildings in both the private and public sectors. EERI was pleased to have been part of the initial joint venture in 1985 that laid the groundwork for this program. With his retirement from FEMA in 2003, EERI awarded him Honorary Membership, for his tireless support in developing a mutually beneficial relationship between FEMA and EERI.