I attended the most recent TEDXSacramento event at the Crest Theater a few weeks ago. TEDX is a local version of TED, a non-profit organization devoted to bringing together thinkers and doers and presenting “ideas worth spreading.” The event, called TEDXCITY2.0, focused on re-envisioning our city and included thought-provoking presentations on education, food, housing, public spaces, urban design, health, safety, technology and transportation.

The greater Sacramento area is re-envisioning itself with varied projects such as the Arena, the Railyards, West Sacramento’s Bridge District, new river crossings, Roseville Town Square and street cars. You can see it all around. Not only do these projects improve our living and work environment, they are opportunities for our Chapter’s member firms. Did you know there are now three shared work spaces in mid-town Sacramento devoted to promoting creative, entrepreneurial startups?

ACEC-CA is also re-envisioning; they have started a strategic planning process to formulate new organizational Purpose, Values and Goals. In its envisioned future, ACEC-CA will have:

• Strong relationships with elected officials, agencies, and media
• Strong public relations campaign to build awareness and contacts
• Positioned ACEC-CA as an expert resource in engineering and land surveying
• Developed a pool of experts to publish white papers to routinely distribute to media, elected officials, agencies, and the public

The Sierra Chapter is re-envisioning how we do things and what we should be delivering to our chapter’s member firms and representatives. I am promoting the idea of the Sierra Chapter developing a strategic plan. Marco Palilla, our new grassroots chair, will be collaborating with our new ACEC-CA Legislative Advocate, Kelly Garman, to develop stronger political action from member firms and increased contributions to the ACEC National PAC to better promote and protect private Engineering and Land Surveying companies in California. As part of our re-envisioning, we are planning to have lunch meetings approximately every other month to see if we can tap into a broader spectrum of member representatives and increase meeting turnout. Two of these lunch meetings will be in conjunction with the opportunity to golf.

Our October 18th meeting will be at Ancil Hoffman golf course, with a presentation by Jerry Way, Sacramento’s Public Works Director. I hope to see you there, as well as on the links after the meeting!