May 2024 President's Report
Michael R. Cunningham, PE, Senior Principal Engineer, Kleinfelder
Greetings members, I hope you're all having a nice spring! We are entering the last month of the BSCES fiscal year and my final month as president. But we have many great events and trainings still planned for our members before the summer is fully underway. Please check out these upcoming events in our weekly member emails and on the BSCES website.
The most significant upcoming event is our 175th Annual BSCES Awards Dinner, which is scheduled for Thursday, June 27, 2024, at The Royal Sonesta Boston in Cambridge, MA. This is a great event that celebrates the achievements of our members and others in our community who have contributed to the civil engineering profession. The evening’s highlights include the introduction of our newest BSCES Honorary Members, Dr. Luciana Burdi, Intl. Assoc. AIA, CCM, MCPPO, NAC, the Director of Capital Programs and Environmental Affairs for the Massachusetts Port Authority and William H. Hover, PE, who is retired from GZA GeoEnvironmental, Inc. where he served as Senior Principal, Dams Practice Leader, and Corporate Director of Risk Management. The dinner will also feature a keynote presentation by Frederick P. Salvucci, Senior Lecturer & Research Associate, MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics and former Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation, which is titled “Infrastructure Investment: Social and Political Leadership and the Critical Role of Engineers.” Last but not least, we will be celebrating 175 years of BSCES advancing engineering knowledge and the professional growth of our members! Click here for more information including how to register for the dinner. I hope to see you there!
The special theme of this month’s newsletter is Utilities and Infrastructure and our featured group is the Utility Engineering & Surveying Institute (UESI) Boston Chapter. The UESI Boston Chapter offers professionals working within the utility, pipeline engineering, and surveying/geomatics industries to advance technical knowledge and network with other professionals. From my experience in the water resources discipline, I have noticed the increased focus on utility engineering in the past couple of decades as many pipelines are reaching the end of their useful life. Trenchless technologies for pipeline renewal have advanced significantly as utility owners are seeking ways to save money and reduce disruption while extending the service life of their pipeline assets. In addition, Subsurface Utility Engineering (SUE) is becoming more common, especially in urban areas, to reduce the risk of damaging underground utilities, and the associated impacts such as injuries, fatalities, service disruptions, delays, legal liabilities, and more. SUE consists of several methods to accurately determine the horizontal and vertical location of subsurface utilities. The locations are then recorded on logs and drawings. Designers and contractors use this information to avoid conflicts with proposed pipeline and structure installations. The UESI Boston Chapter is a great group to get involved with if you are seeking to learn more about these rapidly evolving fields of engineering!
This month we have an interesting article by Christine McLaughlin, PE, from HNTB about her experience judging the steel bridge competition at the ASCE 2024 Northeast Student Symposium hosted by the University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH from April 19 - 21, 2024. This was Christine’s second time serving as a judge for this competition. Thanks for volunteering Christine!
This newsletter also features an article by Mike Sullivan, PE, from CHA on how two Massachusetts ASCE student chapters are putting grants they received from BSCES to good use. This issue includes an announcement of the 2024-2025 BSCES Board of Government election results. My thanks to those BSCES Subscribing Members who are eligible to vote who took the time to help elect the members of our incoming board! You’ll also find a list of our newest BSCES members for the past year.
Lastly, if you are looking for a fun, engineering-related event in the Boston area, check out the Cites of the Future movie produced in association with the American Society of Civil Engineers and narrated by critically acclaimed actor John Krasinski. It will be playing in the Mugar Omni Theater at the Boston Museum of Science beginning on June 14! Click here for more information.