December 2016 President's Report

Last month, BSCES successfully held its 168th Annual Awards Dinner with over 150 members and guests in attendance. At the event, BSCES presented the Section's highest award, BSCES Honorary Membership, to Former Massachusetts Governor Michael S. Dukakis and Nitsch Engineering Founding Principal Judith Nitsch, PE. Governor Dukakis provided a keynote address that focused on the infrastructure challenges within the Commonwealth and discussed the possibilities and challenges of a North South Rail Link connecting Boston’s North and South Stations.

Each year at the Awards Dinner, the BSCES past-president at his or her discretion can present a President’s Award to Section members for their contributions to the engineering profession and especially to the Boston Society of Civil Engineers Section/ASCE. The award recipients do not learn of this honor until the night of the Awards Dinner. This year, BSCES Past-President Ellen White, PE, of Patrick Engineering, presented four recipients with a President’s Award. 

The first recipient was Professor David Westerling, PE, PLS, of Merrimack College. Dave is a former president of BSCES and has served two terms as the BSCES Legislative Fellow at the Massachusetts State House and as an ASCE Congressional Fellow. Most notably in the last year, Dave led the efforts for the 2016 Infrastructure Day in Holyoke which focused on the Great Stone Dam on Connecticut River and the extensive canal system that was built to power Holyoke. 

Second, Olivia Richards, Gill Engineering, chair of the Public Awareness & Outreach Committee, was presented with a President’s Award for her leadership in managing outreach student contests, such as the Model Bridge Competition and Future City Competition. Olivia spends countless hours volunteering to educate children across the Commonwealth by introducing them to the engineering profession. 

The third President’s Award recipient was Robert Ledger, PE, of Massport. Bob, who is serving his third two-year term on the BSCES Board of Government as treasurer, was presented with a President’s Award for his years of service and dedication to BSCES in this capacity. Over the years, Bob also served as BSCES assistant treasurer. Bob continues his involvement with the financial aspects of BSCES’ operations and provides the institutional knowledge that is needed to run our Society.

The final recipient was Mathew Bosh Willett, PE, WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff. Matt serves on the Government Affairs & Professional Practice Committee where he led the effort to publish BSCES’ Infrastructure: Worth the Investment brochure that highlights the advantages of investing in our infrastructure rather than deferring funding. This brochure has been used to discuss the need for infrastructure investment with government officials and it was recently used during the Engineers and Land Surveyors Day at the Massachusetts State House. 

The Construction Institute Chapter hosted a full-day Summit on December 2, 2016 that attracted over 90 members, guests and exhibitors. Its featured presentations covered an expansive array of construction-related topics including case studies, law, design, campus planning, and technical innovations. Thomas Tinlin, highway administrator, MassDOT, provided an hour-long keynote address at the opening breakfast that focused on the Commonwealth’s recent historic upgrades to all-electronic tolling. Other highlights of the event included a second keynote address by Anthony Consigli, CEO, Consigli Construction Company, which focused on The Pending Labor Crunch and How Building Contractors Can Deal with Talent Shortage. As part of the program, 11 exhibitors were setup in the seminar room for attendees to interact with throughout the day and during set networking times. The program was very well received by the attendees as demonstrated by Q&A sessions that offered robust dialogue on the seminar topics.         

I am thankful to Chad Cox, PE, Derek Schipper, PE, Christine Stonier, PE, and Matthew Taylor, PE, of GZA GeoEnvironmental, Inc. for writing three articles for this month’s newsletter. I would like to encourage all members to prepare and submit an article for publication.  This newsletter provides a great opportunity to share project knowledge to the greater BSCES community.  

I would like to point out that this newsletter’s featured group is the Geo-Institute Boston Chapter and encourage you to read the page 6 article about the history and activities of this group, which was written by its chair, Jennifer Jordan, PE of JCK Underground, Inc.

In closing, I would like to thank all of our Society and Program Sponsors, whose financial support helps enable BSCES and its committees, institute chapters and technical groups to host the numerous networking and professional development events that are planned for this year. Be sure to review the upcoming events described on pages 12 and 13 to help kick off your involvement in the New Year. I would like to wish you and your family a happy holiday and a healthy new year!