March is upon us already!  The Sierra Chapter is fresh off of a very well attended dinner meeting where we were entertained by Mr. Ken Grehm, the Director of Public Works for Placer County.  At the end of the meeting, I made a plea to all of those who attended to bring along a “less seasoned” colleague to the March meeting.  I may have put it less eloquently at the meeting, something like “bring young people” to the next meeting.  In doing so, I may have offended those of you (us) who are showing some grey, but the point of my message still rings true.  We need to start exposing the younger professionals in our organizations to ACEC so that when us old geezers start to retire, the younger generation of engineers and surveyors can carry the torch for us.

Traditionally, ACEC (and CELSOC before ACEC) has been attended by the senior staff of our member firms.  Frankly, I’m not sure if this was intentional or just the way things evolved, but I can’t find anywhere in our bylaws where participation by project or staff level professionals is discouraged. Many other organizations in which I participate are promoting participation of young members , so why not ACEC?  When I was “promoted” to the presidency of the Sierra Chapter, one of my (unwritten) goals was to figure out a way to coerce our member firms to encourage their younger professionals to get involved in ACEC.  Now, you company principals, presidents and CEOS, don’t take this the wrong way.  I enjoy rubbing elbows with the regular attendees of our meetings each and every month!  But, we owe it to this organization (and our firms) to expose the up-and-coming folks in our profession to the challenges that our industry faces.  They need to know that ACEC is fighting battles that will help our firms prosper in the future.  Don’t you agree?

Okay, enough said.  By the powers vested in me by being your Sierra Chapter president, I hereby proclaim March as “Bring an ACEC Newbie to an Event” month.  I challenge each of you to bring at least one of your promising young talents to the next dinner meeting and/or to our April luncheon golf event.  Heck, they don’t even need to be promising or young, but at least bring someone from your firm that has never attended an ACEC meeting before.  Deal?  Good!  We will see you and your Newbie at the next meeting.

Cheers,

Tom