Only three months out to the Annual BSCES Awards Celebration. I have seen the phenomenal award nominations coming in. Thank you to everybody that took the time to nominate someone. I am also excited to hear our two fantastic keynote speakers, Lars Thaaning Pedersen, CEO of Vineyard Wind and Stephen Pike, CEO of Massachusetts Clean Energy Center. This is going to be an unforgettable event.
In January and February, we marked the passing of three prominent BSCES members. Peter Eagleson began his career at MIT in 1952, served as head of the Department of Civil Engineering, transformed the field of hydrology, and served as mentor and educator for hundreds of students at the MIT Parsons Lab. Don Goldberg was one of the co-founders of Goldberg Zoino Associates, served as an active member of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers, and made a profound impact on the field of geotechnical engineering. Morris Levy’s expertise led him over a career of 40 years at Parsons Brinckerhoff to serve in prominent roles in a number of the monumental projects that shaped the city of Boston in the 20th century; including among others the Boston Harbor Outfall Tunnel and the Central Artery/Tunnel. Each were truly public servants that lived exemplary lives guided by honesty, integrity, hard work, and devotion to family. Examples for us all.
On a recent Saturday, I had the privilege to speak to the contestants of the Future City Competition about the pleasures of civil engineering as a career. The middle-school age contestants are truly engineers in every sense of the word and through the contest get a good taste of the struggle and rewards of the design process. They all walk away as winners. I walked away with a strong feeling of optimism for the skills and enthusiasm that mark this future generation of young engineers. The Future City and Model Bridge Competitions are two of the landmark events that members of the BSCES Public Awareness & Outreach Committee manage to run each year. The Model Bridge competition reached a special milestone this year in marking its 30th anniversary. These days, many professional organizations feature STEM events, however few if any can claim to have run events for the past 30 years.
Even in the midst of the pandemic, the devoted volunteers that make these events happen pulled off virtual versions of these much-loved events. My personal gratitude and that of BSCES goes out to committee members and volunteers Reed Brockman, Alex Bonnar, Alicia DiCecca, Michael Littman, Emma Loughlin, Irene Barsky, Jim Velino, Gareth Rowe, Paul Tyrell, Alex Bardow, Erik Stoothoff, Terry McCarthy, and Bill Egan. Special thanks to WPI and Wentworth faculty and to the many other unnamed individuals that took time out of their busy schedules to lend their support for these important BSCES institutions.
Speaking of institutions, the trademark orange cover of the BSCES Civil Engineering Practice journal is back! We have released the first issue of the reborn digital-only journal at the newly designed bscesjournal.org. We are grateful to the efforts of the journal editor, Gautham Das and his editorial board. I would also like to recognize the extraordinary efforts of past editors, Jim Lambrechts and Ali Touran who maintained the high professional standards of the journal through their terms as editor and provided key advice in the journal-restart. As usual, with any BSCES venture, TECET staff served a prominent role in guiding the process of bringing the journal rebirth to fruition. Please visit our bscesjournal.org website where you can read articles from the most recent journal and peruse the many archived issues that we have scanned and put online. Also, consider joining the esteemed company of Karl Terzhagi, Peter Eagleson, Arthur Casagrande, Thomas Camp, Ernest Herzog, and Harl Aldrich, as authors of articles in the Civil Engineering Practice journal.
In closing, I’d like to recognize and thank Keller for their support as a BSCES Society Sponsor and the sponsor of this issue of BSCESNews.