November 2022 President's Report

BSCES’s 2022-2023 season is in full swing with lots of committee activities, webinars, and the slow but steady start of in-person events. For example, during the months of October and November we hosted in-person events that included the National Highway Institute’s (NHI) 10-day Safety Inspection of In-Service Bridges course and the Transportation & Development Institute Boston Chapter’s morning meeting entitled Moving Boston: Creating Safer Streets for All Modes of Transportation. Featuring presenters from Boston’s Transportation Department, this program focused on designing and building safe, inclusive, and resilient streets. We also hosted two dinner meetings – the 18th Arthur Casagrande Lecture entitled Green Infrastructure for Urban Stormwater Adaptation, and 32nd Annual Francis Keville Scholarship Dinner featuring Massachusetts State Senator Brendan Crighton, the chair of the Joint Committee on Transportation. In December, the BSCES Continuing Education Committee is sponsoring another in-person NHI course entitled Inspection and Maintenance of Ancillary Highway Structures, and our Younger Member Group is hosting an in-person YMG Holiday Party.

BSCES will soon be kicking off its annual STEM Program Sponsorship Drive. The funds from our STEM sponsors are used to support BSCES’s long-standing efforts to help advance and promote 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. BSCES also runs two major STEM events - the New England Regional Future City Competition and Model Bridge Contest. These two events bring together hundreds of students from all over New England to learn and compete. To learn more about becoming a sponsor please contact myself at 508/561-1611 or president@bsces.org or Rich Keenan at 617/305-4110 or at rkeenan@engineers.org. 

This month’s issue focuses on Structural Design. Our featured BSCES group this month is the Structural Engineering Institute (SEI) Boston Chapter. SEI Boston Chapter Chair Irena Svetieva, from Collins Engineering, has written an article about the chapter and its activities. Also, please note, the chapter’s executive committee is looking for new members! In addition, I recommend you look at some great articles by authors from Alfred Benesch & Company, CHA, and VHB about the lesson learned from challenging local structural projects. Lastly, want to thank our corporate sponsors for their continued support, especially AECOM which is a 2022-2023 Society Sponsor and the sponsor of this issue of BSCESNews.