December 2024 President's Report
Christopher P. Hersey, Project Executive, Suffolk Construction
The featured group for this month’s newsletter is the Engineering Management Group (EMG) and its theme is Business Practices. Please be sure to read the Engineering Management Group Update written by Craig Steigerwalt, PE, a construction consultant with Exponent and chair of the Engineering Management Group.
I’d like to recognize and thank AECOM for being a BSCES Society Sponsor and the sponsor of this newsletter. Their employees submitted two articles for inclusion in this newsletter. The first, titled “Transforming a Roadway, Reconnecting a Bronx Community,” was written by Elizabeth Thompson, PE, a civil director of transportation for AECOM. The second, titled “Connecting Communities Equitably With Scalable Vertiports,” was submitted by AECOM’s editors. This issue of BSCESNews also features an article titled “Developing the Next Generation of Leaders,” which was submitted by Edward Baumann, PE, vice president and Massachusetts division manager, and Julie Melidis, director of learning & development, at Benesch.
As a business practice, BSCES leaders engage in student outreach, which is a particular BSCES focus for the current fiscal year. Specifically, fostering relationships with civil engineering students will help to mentor individuals on the cusp of entering the engineering fields. In addition, helping students transition from student to associate members is key to bolstering ASCE and BSCES membership. While ours is an industry driven by design, construction, and management, in the end civil engineering is about people and relationships.
This fall, we solicited grant applications from leaders of Massachusetts’ ten ASCE Student Chapters and received eight competitive applications for these grants. I want to personally thank the chapter leaders from MIT, Merrimack, Northeastern, Tufts, UMass Dartmouth, Wentworth, Western New England, and WPI for their applications. Good luck with your student chapters throughout the year.
In November 2024, the Executive Committee held its monthly meeting at Tufts University, culminating in a dinner meeting with members of the Tufts ASCE Student Chapter. A winter Executive Committee and student chapter dinner meeting is tentatively scheduled at Northeastern University for February 2025. The passion, energy, and drive of these engineers-to-be is palpable as they dive into ASCE contests, such as the steel bridge and the concrete canoe, social events, conferences, and projects.
Our business practice of outreach to K-12 students is how BSCES member volunteers seek to ensure there is a future generation of civil engineers. To finance our outreach activities we are currently seeking STEM Outreach Program Sponsors. Become a sponsor at https://bscesdonations.square.site/sponsorship-opportunities! The BSCES K-12 STEM Outreach Program is dedicated to helping to support and promote the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math through STEM education. Led by our Public Awareness & Outreach Committee, BSCES has a group of over 100 regular volunteers that mentor students, run student activities, talk at schools, conduct tours, take in job shadows, and perform many other activities. We are most recognized for running two major events New England Regional Future City Competition and Model Bridge Contest. You can find more information about this groundbreaking program at www.engineeryourfuture.org.
ASCE and MacGillivray Freeman Films – the team that brought Dream Big: Engineering Our World to giant screens around the world – have united to produce a new film inspired by ASCE’s Future World Vision initiative: Cities of the Future (https://www.asce.org/initiatives/cities-of-the-future). This movie has helped to grow interest in the Future City Competition to such a degree that we are holding two semifinals this year: western New England on January 18, 2025, and eastern New England on January 25, 2025. All future cities must be designed as floating cities this year.
