June 2024 President’s Report

Michael R. Cunningham, PE, Senior Principal Engineer, Kleinfelder

Hello members! The BSCES fiscal year ends on June 30th and so does my term as BSCES president. The year went by fast, which is probably the sentiment of most BSCES presidents as they reflect on their experience in this role. I really enjoyed working with all the volunteer leaders that comprise our Board of Government on the outstanding events that we hold. While there are a few more things I wanted to accomplish during my term, I am proud of what we achieved over the past year and I know that next year will bring great things! Christopher Hersey from Suffolk Construction is the 2024-2025 BSCES president. Chris and I have worked together for many years and I am impressed with his leadership and commitment to this organization. I wish you the best of luck Chris for the coming year. I know you will do a great job as president!

Thank you to our members, annual sponsors, and volunteers that enable us to hold events, award scholarships, and give out grants. I also want to thank the staff at The Engineering Center Education Trust (TECET) for their dedicated support and guidance to our members and volunteers of BSCES.
 
During the past fiscal year, the BSCES Board of Government was able to accomplish the following:

• Hosted 33 events that included webinars, technical presentations, social/networking activities, site visits, special fund events, student competitions, multi-day training courses, a student night, younger member group sponsored community service activities, an awards dinner, and spring and fall professional engineer refresher courses.
• Awarded five grants to local ASCE student chapters to support their activities.
• Renewed our Legislative Fellowship program, which restarted in 2023.
• Hosted the New England Regional Future City and BSCES Model Bridge Competitions and supported the 2024 ASCE Northeast Student Symposium.
• Finalized and adopted several important BSCES policies related to awarding scholarships, event registration, and administration of our Special Funds.
• Held executive committee meetings at a local college and university so that their student chapter members could present their activities to BSCES leadership.
• Accepted applications for the Professor Peter S. Eagleson Memorial Scholarship. This important new scholarship will be BSCES’s largest and the first to focus on providing aid to students that come from backgrounds that are under-represented in the civil engineering profession.
• Updated the Francis M. Keville Memorial Scholarship to be consistent with our policy for awarding scholarships and are advertising it in this newsletter.
• Started planning for the development of the first ever Massachusetts Infrastructure Report Card.
• Published 10 issues of BSCESNews and released the Summer/Fall 2023 edition of our Civil Engineering Practice journal.
• Held annual fundraising programs, which included our 2023-2024 Society and Program Sponsorships and STEM Outreach Program Sponsorship drives and an end of year appeal for donations from our past and current leaders.

The special theme of this newsletter is Sustainable Development. Please read the informative article by Carolyn Zern on the upcoming release of a new version of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), the widely used green building rating system. We also have an article on the transformation of Boston City Hall Plaza by Zachary Chrisco, PE, Sasaki Associates, Tulin Fuselier, PE, Weston & Sampson, and Nathan Boutin, PE, Simpson Gumpertz & Heger. This project will receive the 2024 BSCES Sustainability in Civil Engineering Award at our upcoming 175th annual awards dinner on June 27, 2024!

Our featured group is the Coasts, Oceans, Ports and Rivers Institute (COPRI) Boston Chapter. This group’s chair, Daniel Robbins, PE, GEI Consultants, Inc. has written an article about the chapter and its activities, including two events for the coming year. Please note that the chapter’s executive committee is looking for new members. If you would like to get involved, please email Dan at copri@bsces.org.