Highlights from ACEC Fall Conference

To the ACEC Community,

Fall Conference 2025 is now in the books, with a wonderful crowd that brought great energy and enthusiasm to every session. So, I’ll begin by reiterating my thanks to everyone who joined us in San Diego. We hope you enjoyed attending as much as we enjoyed having you.

On Saturday, we partnered with the City of San Diego and ACEC California to host an Engineering and Public Works Roadshow event at Pure Water San Diego, the city’s landmark program to provide a safe, reliable, and sustainable local water supply by recycling and purifying water for drinking. The event served as an example of what smart engineering and smart infrastructure can accomplish: sustainability and service to the community.

This year’s Conference was very heavily—and very intentionally—focused on technology. In addition to nearly two dozen tech-centric education sessions, two of our four general session keynoters focused on AI. I also focused my own remarks on technology: what we stand to gain if we seize this moment, and what we stand to lose if we don’t.

We also addressed current challenges coming from Washington – the government shutdown, proposed restrictions on H-1B visas, and a new policy from USDOT removing race and gender criteria from the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) program. The DBE issue in particular was a major discussion topic at the Conference, where we created a special session to brief attendees on the court actions that led to the new policy and ACEC’s plan going forward to help engineering firms with DBE certifications to transition to a new program. We have created a dedicated page on the changes to the DBE program; you can access that site here. More resources from ACEC will follow soon – stay tuned!

Our first speaker was management consultant and innovation expert Kaihan Krippendorff, who delivered a presentation on how changing the rules changes the game. What most stuck with me was his rundown of the 36 strategic patterns that most successful organizations follow, with one in particular really standing out: “Be Good.” This, Krippendorff said, is when an organization’s growth is good for multiple stakeholders—when market opportunities are also social opportunities. It’s a strategy our firms follow simply by doing what they do.

Our next speaker was futurist Mike Walsh, who looked out at the roomful of engineering professionals and declared that what we do is critical and won’t be supplanted by AI. He went on to say that AI will change the very nature of our work but joked that he hates that question because he envisions “the changing nature of work” to mean more calls over Zoom. Speaking of Zoom, Walsh said that the COVID-driven shift to remote work, and the proliferation of tools and technology to facilitate that remote work, set in motion a new Industrial Revolution. “When you change the tools,” he said, “you change the work.”

Tuesday morning, we heard from adventurer Debra Searle, who shared her harrowing and inspirational experience rowing solo across the Atlantic after her partner (and then-husband) had to be rescued after discovering a crippling fear of open water. Searle continued without him, embarking on a journey that was supposed to take six weeks, but wound up taking 111 days. Searle discussed building along the way what she called “resilience muscles,” which helped her power through more than three months isolation, physical exhaustion, and fear. Those were lessons that served her well when she returned to dry land—successfully!—and resumed her life and businesses. “It was life at sea adapted to life on land,” she said. “We all have our own oceans to cross.”

We closed our Tuesday General Session with a bring-the-house-down speech by four-time Olympian and breast cancer THRIVER Chaunté Lowe. Lowe spoke of her childhood in Southern California and how watching track and field phenom Florence Griffith-Joyner dominate the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul inspired her to aim for the Olympics. With an early life marked by homelessness and violence, Lowe almost gave up on her dream, until an evening with her grandmother at a high school football game put her back on track. That night, a high school athlete was given a full scholarship during halftime, and her grandma wanted her to see firsthand that education was a way out. For Lowe, that way out came in the form of a scholarship to Georgia Tech. Woven within her incredible story were lessons about teamwork and Lowe’s own appreciation for our industry. “You are the unsung heroes of the life we are privileged to lead,” she said.

Last but not least was our awards program, during which we celebrated our members for their contributions to their communities and our industry and conferred nearly 100 scholarships to the next generation of talented engineers. Sarah McEwen of Neel-Schaffer, Inc. in Jackson, Mississippi was named our Young Professional of the Year. Our College of Fellows welcomed 23 new inductees. We also announced two winners of our Distinguished Service Award, as selected by our Past Chairs: VHB President and CEO and ACEC Research Institute Past Chair Mike Carragher, for his engagement around Firm of the Future; and HED President and ACEC Past Vice Chair Mike Cooper for his early leadership of—and continued contributions to— our Member Engagement and Belonging Committee. Congratulations to all our honorees.

Preparations already are underway for our Annual Convention and Legislative Summit in Washington, scheduled for May 3-6, 2026. Sign up to receive more information as that date approaches.

Linda Bauer Darr

President & CEO

American Council of Engineering Companies | ACEC

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