David Nguyen, PhD, a new Project Manager within Honolulu District’s Programs and Projects Civil and Public Works section, recently co-published an International Standard with the International Organization for Standardization.
ISO 37179 Smart community infrastructures — Disaster risk reduction — Basic framework for implementation is an International Standard to help local and national governments plan for smart infrastructures for disaster risk reduction.
"Writing an ISO is no small task,” said Nguyen. “This is the culmination of five years of work and I am excited to come back home where I can work to reduce disaster risk and strengthen resiliency in our communities.”
Prior to coming to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Honolulu District, Nguyen lived in Japan where he worked as an Associate Professor of Tohoku University's International Research Institute for Disaster Science in Japan, as well as a researcher at Japan's National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention.
Due to his work in developing international standards for disaster risk reduction, the United Nations Development Programme invited Nguyen to speak to local and national governments from around the world.
This included high-level meetings in Skopje, North Macedonia in May 2023; Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in October 2023; and most recently, remotely for a meeting in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in December 2024.
Nguyen is originally from Hawaii and graduated with a PhD in Civil Engineering from Tohoku University in Japan. In his experiences working on disaster management projects in Japan and other countries, Nguyen feels that it is imperative to invest and strengthen in disaster mitigation and preparedness, as it saves lives, reduces damages, and is more cost effective than focusing on solely response and reconstruction phases.
“We are excited to have David on our team,” said Michael Salyer, chief of Civil and Public Works, Honolulu District. “His international experiences in disaster risk reduction will make him a great asset for the District.”
According to their website, the International Organization for Standardization is “an independent, non-governmental international organization. It brings global experts together to agree on the best ways of doing things. As one of the oldest non-governmental international organizations, ISO has enabled trade and cooperation between people and companies the world over since 1946. The International Standards published by ISO serve to make lives easier, safer and better.”
USACE currently uses several ISOs, such as ISO 14001 for Environmental Compliance and ISO 9001 for Quality Management.