September 2020 President’s Report

When the impacts of COVID-19 hit in March, many considered locking the doors and waiting until next year.  The conventional wisdom was that people were too busy or too distracted to attend events and that companies were too concerned about the bottom line to pay for employees to attend them.  The 172-year old BSCES pivoted and cancelled all of its remaining live events, while simultaneously rolling out ten free lunchtime webinars – one almost every week from May through July.  It was a tremendous accomplishment of BSCES volunteer leaders that pointed to the great resilience and vitality of the institute chapters and technical groups that lie at the core of BSCES’s strength.  I was highly gratified to watch the response of those groups that found speakers and produced online events on such short notice and the exhibited demand of our members for quality online events.

This President’s Report is housed inside our reinvented newsletter.  I hope you like the changes to the newsletter.  BSCESNews will continue to inform you about BSCES, its members and our accomplishments as a profession, but now from within an emailed newsletter easily viewed from a computer or phone.  This could not have happened without the concerted efforts of the skilled staff of The Engineering Center Educational Trust.  I thank them for their dedication to our joint mission.

Another significant effort to serve our members in the coming year is a commitment to offer more technical events than ever before.  We have set ambitious targets for our institute chapters, committees, and technical groups that could result in the delivery of nearly one event per week through June 2021.  Events will be virtual for as long as necessary, but it is certainly the case that webinar events are here to stay.  We have seen high attendance at online events and understand that they present some substantial advantages over live events in terms of convenience to our members.

When the last paper issue of the BSCES Civil Engineering Practice journal was delivered several years ago, many anticipated that we would never see another issue of the journal.  Then-president Ali Touran, Journal Editorial Board Chair Jim Lambrechts and other Journal Taskforce members rose to the challenge and created a vision of an online journal that combined the best of paper and digital media.  This year, Professor Gautham Das of the Wentworth Institute of Technology, has stepped up and offered to serve as the Journal’s chief editor to assist in realizing this vision for our old friends. Long live the BSCES journal!  

The success of BSCES is made possible through the generous donations of our industry partners.  I want to thank our 2020-2021 sponsors for their generosity and support. You will find listings of our Society and Program Sponsors in this newsletter. 

In addition, the strength of BSCES lies in the members that volunteer their time and effort to carry on the legacy of BSCES’ founders.  They rise to the challenge day-in and day-out to serve their fellow members.  I am humbled to serve as their president and pray that in the coming year we will see both the end of the pandemic and the continued success of our Society.