September 2024 President's Report
Christopher P. Hersey, Project Executive, Suffolk Construction
As the newest president of BSCES, I welcome all BSCES members to the 176th year since our founding in 1848. Lending perspective to our historied legacy, other ASCE Region 1 sections were founded over the next 126 years: Connecticut (1884), Metropolitan & RI (1920), Buffalo (1921), Rochester & Syracuse (1923), Ithaca (1932), Mohawk-Hudson (1938), Maine (1950), NH (1958), Vermont (1960) & NJ (1974). I thank BSCES members for electing me to lead our Society this year, during which I have some lofty goals and initiatives planned.
I would like to take a moment to thank BSCES past president Michael R. Cunningham, PE, senior principal engineer at Kleinfelder, for his hard work and leadership last year. Mike has been a strong volunteer leader of BSCES serving for numerous years as chair of the BSCES Newsletter Editorial Board and a member of the Executive Committee, which culminated in his presidency. On behalf of everyone who has worked with Mike in these roles, I applaud his efforts and achievements, which were performed with poise and humility. A few highlights from last year include hosting 33 events, revamping the Francis M. Keville Memorial Scholarship, instituting the Professor Peter S. Eagleson Memorial Scholarship, and planning for the development of the first ever Massachusetts Infrastructure Report Card.
It is not too late to participate in our ongoing yearly Sponsorship Drive, which constitutes a large portion of our yearly operating revenue. I would like to extend a special thanks to our 2024-2025 Society Sponsors, Skanska AECOM, Keller North America, Menard USA, and Massport, along with our Program Sponsors who are listed near the bottom of this newsletter. Their generous financial contributions enable BSCES to pursue our goals, which is a good segue into my areas of focus for the current year. They are:
- Program Committee Content
- Providing quality content
- Keeping up the cadence of content
- Breaking out of COVID event lull
- Spearheading the creativity of events and their content – more technical events
- Promoting events and cross-pollination of groups and committees
- Fostering in-person events and networking where possible
- Growing the Continuing Education Events Thoughtfully
- Keep offering National Highway Institute courses
- Revamping our Professional Engineer Refresher Course
- Investigation of new courses where feasible
- Focusing on Fundraising Efforts
- Society and Program Sponsorship
- STEM Outreach Program Sponsorship
- End-of-Year Fundraising Campaign
- Scholarships, Grants and Special Event Planning
- Special Fund events – engaging groups and committees to plan these events
- Special Fund awards
- Student scholarships
- ASCE Student Chapter grants
- Meaningful award/grants/scholarship amounts and utilization of Special Funds
This newsletter includes three articles. Samuel W. Gregorio, PE, senior traffic engineer, TEC, Inc. and Jonathan J. Shikes, PE, senior transportation engineer, TEC, Inc. have authored an article on “Connecting a Community with Complete Streets.” This paper focuses on the evaluation, development and implementation of Complete Streets in the town of Hubbardston along the Route 68 corridor.
Congratulations to all of the Award Winners at the 175th BSCES Annual Awards Dinner, which was held at the Royal Sonesta Boston on Thursday, June 27. And thank you to all that attended. This newsletter’s article highlights the 2024 award winners honored by BSCES Board of Government at the event. I look forward to seeing many BSCES members at the next Annual Awards Dinner in June of 2025.
Our featured technical group this month is Transportation and Development Institute (T&DI) Boston Chapter. The group’s chair, Wayne Keefner, PE, senior project engineer and senior associate at BSC Group, authored “Oh, The Places You’ll Go (and the things you’ll see).” In this article, Wayne reflects on the development of transportation elements over the years and the advancement of traffic technology in keeping up with changes in mobility.
Our Editorial Board is always looking for new newsletter articles. Please reach out to editorial board chair, Gus O’Leary, PE, from Kleinfelder (GOleary@kleinfelder.com), with any ideas, questions, or inquiries.