To the ACEC Community,
I hope you had a wonderful holiday season filled with family and friends, and that you rang in 2024 with joy and optimism. It’s always good to take some time away. It’s also always good to be back.
This Friday is the deadline for submissions for our Engineering Excellence Awards, ACEC’s celebration of the game-changing ingenuity, innovation, and imagination of American engineering firms. We are looking for project entries in Studies, Research and Consulting Services; Building/Technology Systems; Structural Systems; Surveying and Mapping Technology; Environmental; Waste and Storm Water; Water Resources; Transportation; Special Projects; Small Projects; Energy; and Industrial Manufacturing Processes and Facilities. Entries will be judged in March by a panel of experts, which will select top award winners: eight Grand Awards and 16 Honor Awards. One Grand Conceptor Award will be selected from the slate of Grand Award honorees and will be announced during our EEA Gala on May 15, 2024. The holidays may be over, but recognition is always a gift worth giving, so get those entries in by Friday!
I was reading a story over the weekend about New Year’s resolutions – how we choose them, why we do them, why we so often fall short of achieving them. The same story had a list of the most common resolutions, with the perennial “exercise more/get in shape” and “spend less money” topping the list. But solidly in third place was “learn something new,” which made me think of ACEC’s educational programming, and how invaluable these sessions are in helping attendees dive into subjects of importance and interest to themselves and their firms.
In 2023, we held dozens of webinars led by thought leaders covering topics that are top of mind among our membership. From the opportunities and challenges stemming from the proliferation of AI and machine learning to the ramifications of various new regulatory initiatives on wetlands, labor policy and others, our educational sessions are designed to be engaging, informative, and tailored to the unique concerns of our industry and our firms. It’s one thing to ask how an issue is going to affect the world. With our webinars, participants can learn how an issue will affect their world.
Later this month, we will hold our first event of the year on Reduced-Carbon Concrete Solutions and Opportunities in Paving and Construction. All of our webinars are available on-demand, and we are putting together a 2024 calendar that will be full of topical sessions and engaging speakers. As always, if you have any suggestions or requests, please feel free to direct them to Andrew Fort, our Director of Education Programs, at afort@acec.org. In the meantime, I would encourage you to avail yourselves of our 2023 offerings. If you have resolved that 2024 will be the year you learn something new, our webinars are a great way to keep that resolution. And our firms and our industry will be better for it.
Happy New Year!
Linda Bauer Darr
President & CEO
American Council of Engineering Companies | ACEC