October 2016 President's Report

BSCES’ committees, technical groups and institute chapters have been busy over the last few months planning a variety events designed to offer networking opportunities and address the professional development needs of our members. The BSCES Younger Group hosted a Civil Engineering Trivia Night at The Pour House on Boylston Street in Boston back on August 23. This was one of many social events planned for the current fiscal year, which will see social gatherings hosted by the Coasts, Oceans, Ports and Rivers Institute, (COPRI) Boston Chapter, the Construction Institute (CI) Boston Chapter, the Transportation & Development Institute (T&DI) Boston Chapter and others. These events represent an opportunity for attendees to meet other BSCES members with similar professional interests and learn about the exciting undertakings of these volunteer groups.

The BSCES Program Committee recently offered the annual fall BSCES Professional Engineer Refresher Course at Tufts University. Taught by leading authorities in their fields, this course, which is also offered in the spring, features twelve sessions covering all aspects of the Civil Professional Engineer Exams. The program committee scheduled the National Highway Institute’s Fracture Critical Inspection Techniques for Steel Bridges course for November 29th through December 2 at the Hilton Garden Inn Worcester. Unlike some other NHI training, this course is only offered every few years so be sure to take advantage of the fact that this is the year.

BSCES groups continue to host the informative evening meetings. On September 27th, the COPRI and Environmental & Water Resources Institute (EWRI) Boston Chapters jointly hosted an event at CDM Smith featuring a presentation entitled, Climate Resilience in Boston and Beyond: Practice, Policy, and Corporate Partnership, and on October 20th the Engineering Management Group hosted the presentation entitled, The Flint Water Crisis: Keeping the Citizens of Flint Safe, at Northeastern University.

BSCES volunteer groups are also exploring other learning opportunities like the T&DI Boston Chapter’s October 19th webinar on Transportation Infrastructure Needed for Self Driving Cars and the Structural Engineering Institute (SEI) Boston Chapters sold-out site tour of 121 Seaport Presentation and Site Tour: Skanska’s Top-Down Construction Project. Be sure to review the event flyers that are included as inserts to this newsletter to learn about other upcoming BSCES events.

At the end of September, I attended the ASCE 2016 Convention in Portland, Oregon. During the conference, dozens of national ASCE awards were presented to their recipients, including the William H. Wisely American Civil Engineer Award for members of ASCE who have shown a consistent commitment to promoting the history, heritage, and development of technical and professional activities of the Society. This award was presented to former BSCES president Anni Autio, PE, Thompson & Lichtner Co., Inc. Congratulations Anni! 

The conference also served as the official “changing of guards” for ASCE leadership. Currently, Mark Woodson serves as past-president, Norma Jean Mattie serves as president, and Kristina Swallow as president-elect.

On October 24th, BSCES will be hosting the annual ASCE Student Chapter Officers’ Caucus Fall Kickoff Meeting at Louis Berger’s Office in Needham, MA. All of the officers from the Commonwealth’s ten student chapters are invited to discuss their programs, discover how ASCE and BSCES can serve them better, network, and learn more about entering the workforce. The ten student chapters are:  University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Merrimack College, Northeastern University, Tufts University, Wentworth Institute of Technology, Western New England University, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. We are all looking forward to this event.

I would like to invite you to attend the 168th BSCES Annual Awards Dinner on November 14th at the UMASS Club in Boston. The keynote speaker is former Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis. The evening will include recognition of the newest BSCES Honorary Members and award recipients. Please see our website events page (http://www.bsces.org/events) for more information about this and other events.

In closing, I would like to thank all of our Society and Program Sponsors, whose financial support helps enable BSCES and its committees, institute chapter and technical groups to host the numerous networking and professional development events that are planned for this year.

The theme of this month’s newsletter is Energy/Sustainability and I urge you learn more about this issue’s featured group, the BSCES Committee on Sustainability, which is chaired by Melissa Carter, PE, of MWH Global. This issue of BSCESNews contains a number of articles written by Melissa and members of her committee, including the page 1 article that she coauthored with former BSCES president, Peter Richardson, PE, Green International Affiliates, Inc. about Upcoming Changes to Create a More “Grassroots” Approach to ASCE’s Innovation in Sustainable Engineering Award.

Lastly, I want to wish all engineers who will be taking the Professional Engineering Exam on Friday, October 28th the best of luck!