This will be my last president’s message for the ACEC Sierra Chapter. Before I get to the main part of my message, I wanted to thank a few people for their help during my past year as president of the chapter. My biggest thanks goes to Kathy Wickam, who has been a stellar vice president this past year! She deserves huge credit for everything that went smoothly during my term as president. Kathy really made my job so much easier. I hope I can repay some of that help during her next term as chapter president. Of course, Debbie LoCicero (our chapter administrator) has been working very hard behind the scenes to make sure all the mechanics of our chapter continue to function without breakdown, as she always does. I also appreciate the help from Dana Remington, our past president, and Marco Palilla, who answered many questions about how I was supposed to do my job as president. My fellow chapter officer Debanik Chaudhuri has also done a great job as our chapter secretary-treasurer, with a keen eye on the books.

In the rest of my president’s message for this newsletter, I’d like to reflect on what I believe our state and local chapters do well, and areas where I would like to see us improve.

What ACEC Does Well

My involvement in ACEC has been provided tremendous value to me as a land surveyor and manager. I’ve been impressed with what the organization is able to accomplish for land surveyors and civil engineers in private practice. In my mind, there is no other organization working to represent our needs like ACEC does.

What are things our state organization does particularly well?

The state organization does a great job of watching proposed legislation to make sure that our interests are protected. This includes the work of our legislative committee and of our lobbyist, Kelly Garman.

The state organization has also taken great strides over the last year to improve our outreach on qualifications-based-selection. Jennifer Teasdale has given this issue the attention it has needed for a long time. She regularly reaches out to public agencies on my behalf and often is successful in obtaining modifications to RFPs to make them more compliant with QBS.

What things is the local chapter doing particularly well?

Our annual Chapter Engineering Excellence Awards have been a great success. The award dinner is well attended, the application process is simple, and we are able to give a bit of attention to member firms and local agencies that are designing and constructing exemplary public works projects.

Our chapter also continues to do a great job booking monthly speakers that inform us of plans for public works projects in our area, as well as strengthening ties with groups like APWA and CalMentor.

Where ACEC Can Improve

How can we improve how ACEC operates at the state level?

I’d like to see the state-level committees more active, and more regularly reporting their activities to the broader membership. This includes the committee that I chair, the land use committee. I’d also like to make sure that each of our committees is getting participation and involvement from each member, instead of being dominated by just one or two active committee members.

Kelly Garman seems to do a great job of reaching out to other design professional organizations on legislative issues. I’d like to see this type of outreach expanded to cover other areas where our organizations can work together.

How can we improve the way our local chapter operates?

I’ll touch on 2 ways I believe we can improve.

I’d like to see more diversity in our speaker pool. We’d draw a larger audience to our meetings if we occasionally covered topics related to business management or technology. If our speakers only appeal to employees of member firms that are involved in business development or ownership, we lose an opportunity to reach out to future leaders of members firms. These future leaders are the people that will decide to keep their firms involved in ACEC in the years to come.

I’d like to see us continue our efforts to involve younger professionals in our meetings. As I mentioned, a more diverse speaker pool is one way to do that. There are other things we can do. A direct invitation to attend a meeting is a first step. Our Career Advice Panel for Young Professionals is another first step. I think it would be great to see our chapter host workshops to teach the next generation of leaders at our firms about the business issues ACEC is working on.

Conclusion

I’ve deeply appreciated the opportunity to serve as your chapter president. I’m looking forward to seeing what Kathy, Debanik, and Kevin accomplish next year. I’ll finish with a reminder to treat next year’s chapter officers with kindness and respect. They volunteer their time, and most are already very busy with family’s and careers. They need words of encouragement and support, not sarcastic comments and unhelpful criticism.