March 2024 President's Report
Michael R. Cunningham, PE, Senior Principal Engineer, Kleinfelder
Happy spring everyone! It is hard to believe that 2023/2024 winter is already over, though it seemed like spring was here at various times throughout the early months of 2024. With the real springtime underway, activities have been heating up at BSCES! You may have noticed that our semiweekly events update emails contain information about a lot of great events and training starting this week through the end of May. These include:
- Structural Engineering Lecture Series
- BSCES Student Night
- Boston Sand & Gravel Plant Tour
- 2024 John R. Freeman Lecture on Managing Risk in Extreme Weather
- Selection of Rehabilitation Methods for Large Diameter Pipe
- Younger Member Group Red Sox Outing
- NHI Bridge Inspection Refresher Training
- Fifth Charles C. Ladd Memorial Lecture on Liquefaction Failure of Tailings Dams
Also, up until the extended deadline of Monday, April 8, the BSCES Awards Committee is accepting nominations for the 2024 BSCES Section and Employer Recognition Awards! These awards will be presented to this year’s recipients during the 175th BSCES Annual Awards Celebration, which will be held at the Royal Sonesta Hotel in Cambridge on Thursday, June 27, 2024. Submit your nominations to our Awards Committee chair, BSCES Vice President Anuja Kamat, associate professor, civil engineering at Wentworth Institute of Technology. Click here to learn more about Section and Employer Recognition Awards.
We are also extending the deadline for submitting nominations for the 2024 BSCES Sustainability in Civil Engineering Awards until April 8. Click here to learn more about these awards.
Finally, please note that the 2024 ASCE Northeast Student Symposium will be hosted by the University of New Hampshire and held from April 19 to April 21, 2024. This great student event includes steel bridge and concrete canoe and competitions.
The special theme of this month’s newsletter is Innovative Practices and our featured group is the Construction Institute (CI) Boston Chapter. We have an article from the CI Boston Chapter Chair Ed Breed from Skanska USA Civil. As Ed mentions in his article, there continues to be a high volume of construction in the Greater Boston area and beyond. My niece is a senior at MIT and I paid her a visit on a beautiful Saturday in mid-March to drop off her mini-fridge and to have her show my son around campus. I was amazed at the number of buildings under construction on MIT’s campus and around east Cambridge. I haven’t really explored that area since the time that my office was in Central Square, but the number of buildings that have been constructed over the past 20 years is astounding, and it keeps going! The BSCES CI Boston Chapter has been very busy planning and holding events in 2024. Take a look at the latest event updates email and consider attending with your colleagues!
AECOM, which is a 2023-2024 BSCES Society Sponsor and the sponsor of this issue of BSCESNews, provided two featured articles for this newsletter that I encourage you to read. One article authored by Aaron Flautt, PE, is about alternative delivery methods. The other, authored by Suzanne Klein and John C. Phillips, is about campus planning that advances a thriving community at Middlesex College in Edison, New Jersey. Thank you AECOM for the continued sponsorship of BSCES and for supporting our Society in numerous ways year after year!
Lastly, BSCES Treasurer and Legislative Fellow Committee Chair Gregory Mirliss from AECOM, has authored an article to announce that up until Friday, May 3, 2024, committee members are accepting applications for the 2025-2026 BSCES Legislative Fellowship. Click here to learn more about this opportunity to demonstrate the value of civil engineering expertise while working at the Massachusetts State House to solve real world problems that impact the Commonwealth.
Take advantage of the nicer weather and extended daylight to see and enjoy all the amazing infrastructure in and around Boston that our industry has helped to construct!
