Siavash Beik has been a member of ASFPM since 1997. He joined ASFPM soon after becoming the founding chair of the Indiana Association for Floodplain and Stormwater Management (INAFSM), where he helped educate the members of the newly formed state association and facilitated the admittance of INAFSM as a formal chapter of ASFPM.

Siavash served as a chapter director on the ASFPM Board of Directors for three terms and helped organize representation for chapter directors on the board of directors through the establishment of five Chapter Districts.

Following his third term as a chapter director, in 2007 Siavash was recruited by George Riedel to serve as the newly created position of POD facilitator for ASFPM Technical Committees, coordinating the activities of the ASFPM Mapping and Engineering Standards, Coastal Issues, and Arid Regions Committees. The POD acts as liaison between the Committees and the ASFPM Board. Siavash continues to serve in this position into 2023, becoming the longest serving original POD facilitator, and earning the honorary nickname of “Grandpa POD”.

Siavash participated in several ASFPM leadership strategy retreats for what was termed in those times as Administrative Council (AdCo) and POD Council (PODCO), assisting in brainstorming ideas and initiatives for further ASFPM Board and Committees considerations.

Much of his work helped shape the way policy committees function within the association today. He co-authored, with Chad Berginnis, what is known at ASFPM as “the Circle of Life, a guide for ASFPM committee co-chairs on how to interact with members and the Board of Directors to set ASFPM’s annual goals and objectives and establish and implement the committees’ work plans. He was a contributor to Dale Lehman’s original idea of developing a yearly work plan by each ASFPM policy committee and helped refine and format a template work plan for their use. And he helped develop guidance for organizing and establishing committee/sub-committee structure within ASFPM, detailing specific roles, establishment, purpose, scope and terms for ASFPM standing committees, steering committees, sub-committees, ad-hoc committees, and task forces.

Siavash is a member of the ASFPM Riverine Erosion Hazards Working Group and was a co-author of the ASFPM Riverine Erosion Hazards White Paper in 2016. He also contributed to and helped write the flood hazard mapping section of the 2015 ASFPM “National Flood Programs & Policies in Review” report.

On behalf of ASFPM, Siavash has developed a number of innovative concepts and proposals to FEMA, such as a proposed graduated risk level rating for areas behind levees and downstream of dams, proposed establishment of a framework for a new floodplain model/mapping quality level categorization. These were well received by FEMA and influenced or contributed to a better understanding by FEMA and ASFPM members of these issues.

Siavash has long been a strong advocate for flood resilience and the complete avoidance of floodplain disturbance and development in high-risk areas. He worked diligently to steer public policies towards floodplain avoidance through influencing a change in the way this subject is discussed and presented in various ASFPM policy documents and various other reports. A great recent example is participation in the development and review of the 2023 Natural Floodplain Functions Alliance Wetland Mapping Consortium report, “Strategies and an Action Plan for Protecting and Restoring Wetland and Floodplain Functions”.