December 2020 President's Report

BSCES is going all-in on virtual events this year.  In speaking to members, it seems that many appreciate the convenience.  I have however heard back from some members that wonder why the events couldn’t be run with no fee. As you may recall, we did run 10 free lunchtime webinars this past spring and summer. However, after considerable deliberation, members of the BSCES Board of Government decided going forward to charge for virtual events.  I’d like to use this opportunity to share with you the rationale behind this decision.

Webinar fees support BSCES member services.  BSCES provides many services that generate little or no offsetting revenue, which members rate as highly-valued undertakings.  These include the social and community-service events hosted by our Younger Member Group; grants, activities, and programs that support student chapters;  networking events hosted by our institute chapters and technical groups; this member newsletter and a revived Civil Engineering Practice journal; an extensive awards program recognizing those who contribute to BSCES, the civil engineering profession and our Commonwealth; our legislative fellow; and the activities of our Public Awareness & Outreach and Government Affairs & Professional Practice Committees.  Charging for events offsets the expense of these essential services.

BSCES events are of value to its members.  Our technical groups and institute chapters seek to provide you with timely, high-quality, and reasonably priced events that impart practical skills and technical knowledge.  If these professional development events are collectively valued by members at no more than $0 per event, then there’s no point in BSCES running events and we’ll close up shop.  The argument has been presented internally that we are not part of the local hospitality industry determining fees based on a markup on the cost of doing business.  A more appropriate metaphor for BSCES is that of a university that charges far beyond the cost of maintaining a classroom and paying an instructor.

BSCES needs to cover direct event expenses.  BSCES runs something like 50 events a year.  The work to hosts these events is far beyond what we can be done using only volunteers.  We contract with our affiliate The Engineering Center Education Trust to provide staff to handle event registration, assist with scheduling and promotion, and provide technical support both before and during each event.  There is also the cost of utilizing Zoom Meetings and Zoom Webinar to run these events.

BSCES event fees are competitive to those offered by other professional groups.  There may be similar professional associations that are offering free virtual events; however, few offer the array of member services provided by BSCES. Also, by comparison our webinar registration fees are roughly half of those charged by ASCE for comparable events.  See for example, events at https://www.asce.org/continuing-education/live-webinars/.

I welcome your feedback.  Like all BSCES leaders, I welcome member feedback on our programs, activities, and practices. Please feel free to tell me what you think about this or other BSCES-related topics by emailing me at president@bsces.org.

In closing, as we are nearing the midpoint of our fiscal year I’d like to recognize and thank our Society and Program Sponsors for their financial support. I would especially like to thank Keller a Society Sponsor and the sponsor of this issue of BSCESNews. Please be sure to read the article entitled “Stacked Up… with Geotechnical Construction Solutions!” by David Mazzei, PE, project executive, and David Finocchio, PE, business development executive, with Keller North America, Inc..