RAIN BIRD ENGINEERING
CONCEPT OF THE YEAR AWARD

Purpose of the Award

To honor and recognize an engineer or engineering team for unique contribution to developing or advancing a new engineering concept. A "concept" is defined as "a thought or opinion that has been clearly defined and has resulted in either some form of hardware, standard of practice, trend in design, educational practice, or has otherwise manifested itself in some practical usable scheme or plan related to agricultural engineering or the industries it serves." It may represent an entirely new invention or concept or it may represent a major reevaluation or an important innovation of a known concept.

The Award

The name of the award shall be the Rain Bird Engineering Concept of the Year Award. The award was endowed by Rain Bird International, Agri-Products Division, PO Box 37, Glendora, California.

The M-113 Engineering Concept of the Year Award Committee will be responsible for the selection of the award recipient or recipients with final approval by M-102 Awards Coordinating Committee.

The award shall consist of an engraved plaque or plaques carrying an appropriate citation. It will be presented at the Annual International Meeting of the Society.

NOTE: Those nominating a candidate will be advised only if their candidate is selected. Award nominations may be considered for one additional year only if the selection committee so designates.

Eligibility for the Award

The recipient or recipients shall have made noteworthy contributions to the engineering profession as described above under "Purpose of the Award."

Criteria for the Award

Consideration for the award is granted to those whose concept has been presented in Resource, Transactions of the ASABE, Applied Engineering in Agriculture, the Journal of Agricultural Safety & Health, an ASABE technical paper, or another regular publication of the ASABE. The concept can be presented as a feature article, technical abstract, news item, advertisement, or any other readily identifiable manner in the Society's publications.

Only those concepts presented in the publications described and dated in the year from June 1 through May 31 prior to candidate selection will be eligible for presentation the following year. A concept is not eligible if it was described in an ASABE publication prior to the eligibility period. (Publication date clarification example - a concept published in an ASABE publication from June 29, 2008, through June 24, 2009, would be eligible for the 2010 award.)

Instructions for Preparing a Nomination

Nominations for the award may be made by the author or authors of the concept or by any member of the Society. There is no separate nomination form. Please provide information organized in the following format:

1. Name(s) of nominee(s) with business affiliation, business and home addresses and business telephone number.
2. Education (schools, degrees, special training, dates).
3. Name of the concept.
4. Date, issue and page of the ASABE publication in which the concept was presented and its form of presentation whether an article, advertisement, new item, etc.
5. Names, addresses and telephone numbers of three (3) references familiar with and capable of evaluating the concept. It is preferable that at least two of the references be from outside the organization submitting the nomination.
6. Name, address and title (if any) of the nominator.
7. Clear definition of the concept and any resulting hardware, practices, trends, etc.
8. The manner and extent of the concepts realized and potential impact on and acceptance by the agricultural engineering industries it serves.

The nomination shall be submitted as a PDF file emailed to the attention of ASABE Awards Administrator at flautt@asabe.org by October 31.

Include in the nomination the following: names of the nominees and nominator, references, related date, the name of the concept and method of appearance (items 1 through 6 above) to be included on the first page. Numbers 7 & 8 above which includes the description of the concept and evaluation of its impact must take no more than two additional double-spaced pages, for a total of 3-pages for the nomination.

The nomination should include the name of the nominator and be submitted as a PDF file attached to an email message and sent to the attention of ASABE Awards Administrator, Carol Flautt at flautt@asabe.org no later than October 31 following the eligibility year of publication in order to be considered for the Award to be presented the following year.

Past Recipients of the Award