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The Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure and Envision

Engineering Influence welcomes Anthony Kane, the President & CEO of the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure to discuss the Envision program for engineers and the projects they design.  Learn more about ISI at www.sustainableinfrastructure.org
Transcript:
Host: Hello and welcome to another episode of Engineering Influence - a podcast by the American Council of Engineering Companies. This morning we are pleased to welcome Anthony Kane to the show. Anthony is the president and CEO of the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure. Based in Washington, ISI was established in 2009 by the American Public Works Association, the American Society of Civil Engineers and yours truly, the American Council of Engineering Companies who collaborated with the Zofnass program for Sustainable Infrastructure at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design to develop Envision - a frameworks for sustainable infrastructure development. Anthony, welcome to the show.
Anthony Kane: Thank you.
Host: So how did the Envision framework come to be and kind of tell us a little bit more about ISI, your background, and how you came into all this.
Anthony Kane: Absolutely. Well, Envision as you noted was really a collaboration, which is exciting from the beginning. It was about working together and coming to a consensus. So both on the ISI side where ASAE, ACEC and APWA got together and decided to collaborate in creating envision. At the same time, I was formerly with the softness program at Harvard working on a sustainability rating system for them as well. And the two organizations, the softness program at Harvard and ISI got together and decided that it would really be productive for us to combine our work. And it's very exciting because I think at that time we each had very good content, very good ideas, but it was through that collaboration and merging of the two tools that the sort of another level of value was realized in the system. And that was Envision version two that was launched in 2012. And so that was very successful and, and had a long run and we just now recently released Envision version three really following on that success. We released that in 2018.
Host: So in your experience from coming from the academic side and then industry, I mean is this something which has happened in, in your experience a lot where you have maybe the trade associations or the groups that are engaged on the industry side of things, reaching out and trying to work with academia to, you know, improve or to set kind of a standard practice or, or kind of a framework to help guide a lot of their best practices or formalization of tools and talents for professionals?
Anthony Kane: I wouldn't say that it's common, at least in my experience. I hadn't seen it happen very often but I think it is happening more than it used to and it is really exciting because I think there's a lot of opportunities there. And that was really one of the draws that incentivized me to come from the research end because it's very enjoyable doing university research. But this feeling of when you're partnered with the industry and practitioners, there's a realization that your research, the work that you're doing can have a direct impact on the world, which is often what's missing on the academic side. So I think that marriage is really important and brings a lot of value to these types of collaborations.
Host: So you're on version three right now for Envision. So what are, what are the core pieces of that? What's the framework of the Envision platform?
Anthony Kane: So Envision encompasses 64 sustainability indicators, which we call credits. And those are divided into five categories of quality of life, leadership, resource allocation, natural world and climate and resilience. And part of the genesis around envision version three was one that Envision version two was six years old at that time, kind of needed a little bit of an updating, but at the same time had been developed and written prior to Hurricane Sandy, some of the natural disasters that we had seen. And we realized that over that six years are as an industry, our understanding of resilience and different sustainability criteria had really changed and evolved. And it was time for envision to take all of that knowledge and new experience and incorporated into indicators that the rest of the industry can use.
Host: That was an interesting time because I think that, and at the time I was, I was involved but not on the Hill but, but I had watched everything happen with Sandy and that seemed to be a really shift. That was a moment of a shift in perception of even from the policy side, but also I guess industry side about, okay, how do we actually build so that we can anticipate these things because the storm was so remarkable in its destructive power. Also in the geography of where it hit. And it. was kind of a game changer in that, in that respect. How, how did that influence a lot of the work that went around that?
Anthony Kane: Sure. Well, I think what we realized was that something that we probably intrinsically knew, which is that these systems are the interconnections and the interdependencies of these systems are far more complex than we probably appreciate it. I'd say don't say we didn't know. I think we knew, but we maybe didn't appreciate how important the interconnectedness is. And so that's where we've really changed and evolved our understanding of resilience from an early concept of maybe just sort of withstanding these things on a individual basis, can my project withstand a hurricane?
Anthony Kane: Or can it withstand a flood? Can it survive or rebound and evolving this concept of resilience into something much more than that, which is how does my project, my system interact with the other systems? How are they dependent? How is the failure of one system in a certain way going to impact the ability of my system to provide services or to function in the long term? So I think we're, we're just developing this sort of more robust understanding of the issue.
Host: A network approach instead of just a single project approach. So as I kind of, with the Envision platform, if I call it a platform, but it's, it's that, that idea kinda has two core pieces that kinda hit the engineer itself. It's at that professional credential. But then also project validation and engineers that are engaged in this kind of makeup the ISI network. How big is the network currently and you know, where, where does that stand?
New Speaker: Sure. So in terms of the envision sustainability professionals, that credentialed individuals, we've credentialed around 9,000 individuals. That's primarily within the U S and Canada, although we also now have a large user group in Italy. And then sprinkling of credentialed people in sort of about 30 countries around the world. Small numbers, but again, primarily US, Canada and Italy. We have verified about 90 projects with another hundred that are registered, meaning that they're going to pursue the verification. And those total about 23 and a half billion dollars worth of infrastructure that have completed the process and another 20 to 22 billion that are the registered projects coming through. So we do see a pretty big intake. And then the membership, which is just one caliber for ISI, we don't necessarily require membership. But if people want to receive discounts or participate more with the Institute, we have a membership program. And right now that's about 300 companies, which primarily are the engineering firms, but also construction firms and different groups. We have a sprinkling of other associations and nonprofit organizations and then about a hundred government agencies. So sometimes it's a city government, county government, a department or bureau, airport authority, things like that, that are public sector members. And then about 25 universities that participate as members and support through teaching Envision in schools.
Host: Have you seen a is there a geographic, kind of a divide between the public agencies that have, that have signed on and, and have become part of the network? Are you seeing more coastal or is it, is a kind of across the board?
Anthony Kane: Yes and no. So I think we do see a very broad distribution. There's an Envision project in Alaska is an Envision project in Hawaii. Kansas city is a big user, Florida, so we see broad distribution at, at at least an initial level. But certainly we do see depth of use in, in key areas like Southern California, Los Angeles, New York City. I think areas where they may be already had very robust sustainability programs in place, they were able to just very quickly take, Envision, adapt it, apply it and run with it. So we see a lot of projects in Southern California and New York, Miami is also coming up as a big key area for us. And then as I mentioned, Kansas City, some Midwestern cities have also been big adopters. And then now the Pacific Northwest. So Sound Transit and Seattle area. And I should say I'm talking about the US but we also have big use in Canada. So Vancouver is, is a major area as well as Montreal for us.
Host: Okay. So if you're an engineer and you do want to get involved in this and you're looking at the credential, what's involved in earning that? And how is that kind of managed through ISI?
Anthony Kane: And I might start with saying, you know, maybe why would you want to do that? We really see two values with envision for, for both the public and the private sector. So when we created Envision, there was this realization that some of the public agencies they want to do sustainable infrastructure. They don't maybe know how they don't have the in house expertise and it's a big lift to say, okay, we're going to totally change how we do things and we're going to come up with a framework and we saw a lot of RFPs going out asking the companies to kind of come up with the frameworks and the ratings for these different public agencies. And so we created Envision as in a way to be an a kit of parts, a toolbox, just an off the shelf thing that any public agency with no costs can just grab it and say this is going to be our sustainability framework.
Anthony Kane: And it comes with an education program as we discussed the credential, it comes with a third party review if you want it, and that's a real value to the public sector users. I think where that benefits the companies as well is we saw the industry headed down this route again of every client having their own sustainability criteria, their own custom sustainability program. And that was just going to create a real burden on the consultants at the firms that every client you have, you're going to have to have a different way of doing stuff. So we think the real value, again with this collaboration and partnership between the private firms and the public sector agencies is that if we're all on the same page, it's a value to both agencies. It's a huge cost saving effort, saving and we can devote all that time and money and resources into just doing the sustainable project rather than figuring out how we're going to do this sustainable.
Host: ...or defining what it would be.
Anthony Kane: Exactly. So if ISI can help by just taking that first step off the table and saying here, why don't you guys just start with step two? That's where we really see our role and the value that we can provide and that's where going to get the credential. If that's something that you're interested in or if you think there's value in that, having the credential just means that you've invested the time you've studied envision and you probably know how then to go ahead and apply it on projects, whether you're on the public side or the private side, you have that extra knowledge. And so it's a fairly straightforward process.
Anthony Kane: We have an online course which is seven one hour modules self-paced. You can watch however you like. There are also certified trainers around the world who teach in-person classes if you prefer learning in an in person setting. Those are offered as well. And then there is an exam and I say that, you know, we try to, it's not a kind of memorize this thing, go to a testing facility really since it's an online course, open open note exam. It's really designed to test that you've read the material and that you can review, envision. So they're kind of problem questions that you work through. And it's really the second part of the education program is the exam. And then you pass that and you've received your credential.
Host: And then on the project side also you can have a project that's been that's been verified by the envision program. Give us kind of a snapshot about how that works and if you have a good real world kind of example.
Anthony Kane: Sure. And we stress that we don't require the third party verification. So Envision is free to download and to use. A lot of public sector agencies use it and they do self-assessments and we encourage that. And again, as a, as a 501c3 nonprofit, our mission is sustainable infrastructure. So if people want to do self assessments, that's great. But there is a value in oftentimes public sector agencies and companies find value in having that third party recognition. So whether it's through accountability or or demonstrating to the community ratepayers, taxpayers that you did a good job, you know, it's not just us saying this. And then sometimes it's, it's to receive the award and, and also a learning process going through the review is a learning process for the project teams themselves. Have they applied, Envision the same way that ISI would apply it?
Anthony Kane: Have we documented performance? So for those that do choose to go through the third party verification we see a range of projects from large projects like LaGuardia airport extension, a multibillion dollar projects all the way down to a couple of million dollar projects. Madison metropolitan sewage districts, pump station, small parks, and we see projects like that. So it applies to a full range of projects across different sectors as well. So we see a lot of projects in water and transportation right now, but energy is growing. It's probably our fastest growing sector of Envision uses energy. And then other sectors like environmental, parks, things like that. So we see a wide distribution. The process is fairly straight forward. It's all done through our online system. So credentialed individuals can go in, they can assign their levels of achievement they provide their documentation demonstrating why they met those achievements. And then it goes through a third party review process where ISI partners with our third party certified verifiers. So always there's a team of active professional in the industry with an ISI staff who review the submission.
Host: That's great. I mean, that's, that's important. And I think that, you know, having it helps you know, they say, you know, rising tide lifts all boats kind of ideas. I mean, if you go for more verified projects and you have, you know, greater number out there and in, in existence, and that credential helps raise that profile and, and spread the word so that hopefully over time, you know, you have more engineers of course that are, that are credentialed, you have more projects are being verified and you get more adoption of those standard procedures. So that there is a, there's a guidebook to, to raise sustainability which will improve infrastructure in general. So it's a great mission. And that's, you know, it all ties together with that general idea of, of kind of the buzzwords. You know, it's just not engineering, but it's all over the place. The ideas of sustainability, resiliency, adaptability, and of course for engineering it has particular meaning.
Host: You know, from your perspective, both in academia and then also working with industry, how have you seen over the past few years, even just the industry respond and evolve to really embrace these ideas of, you know, sustainability, resiliency, you know, it's become more of a, just, you know, something to put on promotional material.
Anthony Kane: Right. And I think what I've seen that's been the biggest shift in the mindset is because sustainability was sort of born out of the environmental movement. There was an initial perception that this was sort of an environmentalist thing, right? And you know, all the typical term, you know, you're tree huggers and this and that. I think there's been a shift more into the mainstream now where a recognition that when you look at sustainability as being, you know, better for the social, environmental, economic aspects, you know, so it improves, community, provides better services, protects the environment, uses resources efficiently, drives a stronger economy. When you really boil that down, it's just better. It, it's not this add on. I think that's the shift. We need to move away from that sustainability that we're going to design a conventional project and then we're going to decide whether sustainability gets added on or not.
Anthony Kane: The core of sustainability is that this is better infrastructure and so the question isn't do we add quality on at the end? We would never say that. We would never say, okay, we're going to design a sort of bare minimum project and then we're going to decide at the end whether we're going to make it good or not. Right. We don't think that way and I think that's the shift that is happening and needs to still kind of happen a little bit more is that sustainability is about quality, infrastructure, good infrastructure and I see it as an avenue, as an industry to break out of what has become unfortunately this process of kind of designing to minimum standards and I don't think anyone is happy with that and we want to do better, we want to do more and it's about also encouraging the public sector owners to demand more and better and higher quality. And I think sustainability and resilience is an avenue towards that. And to have them recognize that there's a value in this and that they should pay for it, obviously, and that the engineering community can provide that.
Host: Yeah. I think that kind of ties into a lot of the things that we're trying to do internally with the association. It's the idea of even if you're building a water project free municipality, it's that recognition that it's it's not just an end in itself. It's part of a larger system. And that impacts on, that could have downstream impacts that may not be foreseeable if you're looking at the project a box. But if you take a holistic approach and say, you know, this is how it would affect a system and this is why it would be better from a cost of just public safety and just quality perspective, you know, as, as from our perspective with, with the consulting engineers and their clients and the relationship, it's that trusted advisor relationship of being able to say, you want X, but let's talk about what that end result is.
Host: And then being able to provide that experience and that perspective of why you would want to improve it or look at it differently. And that's where the value comes in. And that's also the argument against the whole idea of not just designed to minimum standards but looking at engineering services as a, as a product instead of an actual service. And that's the, of course a commoditization argument that because you have these like the Envision framework is a good example is that you have this experience which was gained through either the credential or just of the bedrock principles of the platform. There's a lot of of value just there alone, which, which enables the engineer to become more of a, more of a participant, active participant and just someone who's going to be designing a product. So that, that altogether is critically important. If there's an engineer out there, there's an ACC member who's very interested in exploring this and learning more about it where should they go?
Anthony Kane: So they can go to the ISI website, which is just www.sustainableinfrastructure.org and from there you can read on our website or you can create a free account, no charge. And from our account you can download the complete envision manual. You can see the different options to become credentialed. So it's a pretty low barrier to entry for people who are interested in learning more about it. I'd say just go ahead, download the manual and look it over.
Host: Yeah. And then you were also in the office last week with the larger groups. So you do have, you know, you know, in person events, if you're in the area, in Washington you know, there's a, there's a chance that you could come in person and, and talk to some people.
Anthony Kane: Well, our door is always open for people who, if you happen to be in the DC area to come by and we'd be happy to talk with you. But you mentioned, yes, there are a, we hold a quarterly in person training events here in DC just because we're here and our staff is here. But there are, as I mentioned, certified trainers around the country. So if you're interested, you could also contact us and we might be able to put you in touch with a trainer in your area. If you are interested in hosting an event, we do find that if interested as an individual, the online courses, a very great way to go. But sometimes it's, there's a real value in getting a team together and you develop this sort of okay culture of we're doing this as a team. And an in person training event is really great for that. We see a lot of public sector agencies that prefer the, the in person training because again, they're thinking of this as a culture shift, a program that they want to roll out and they get a whole team of people together.
Host: Well, it's a fantastic initiative and a great objective. And Anthony, thank you very much for being on the show. We, hopefully you can come back on a kind of a, a maybe an update, you know, just a general update in the next year about where things stand and, and things that might be coming up. And if you ever have news or anything you want a break, just please just let us know and we'll, we'll have you on. Thank you. Thanks for having me on up. Thank you. Have a great holiday and new year and we'll see you in 2020.
Anthony Kane: Thanks.
 

Private Industry Brief - Q3 Economic Review

On today's episode of Engineering Influence, we welcome back Erin McLaughlin to provide a overview of her latest Private Industry Brief, which is available on www.acec.org.
Transcript:
Host: Welcome to another edition of engineering influence, a podcast by the American Council of Engineering Companies. And once again, we are very pleased to welcome Erin McLaughlin, our own Erin McLaughlin, who handles all of our private market research and produces the Private Industry Brief, which is a very popular document available online at www.acec.org that covers the gamut of private market activity. And it's a regular document that looks at different sectors of the economy and in this issue available now online, we're looking at the Q3 - quarter three - 2019 review and Erin has pointed out a couple of highlights from the report and welcome back. And what are those highlights?
Erin: Thank you. Well even though in Q2 and earlier this year, lots of folks were talking about when a recession would hit. Overall, we've seen that a recession does not seem to be immediately coming and we continue to have the longest economic expansion on record. So as of November, that was 125 months. We still have the record low unemployment rate, which averaged 3.6% in Q3. This obviously for our member firms has resulted in finding talent being a significant challenge and any fears of sort of the global economic market, which is slower than the U.S. Market influencing us has sort of been mitigated by the Fed Reserve, which has lowered interest rates three times in 2019 and all within the last four months.
Host: Yeah. And talking to some people, they understand that Europe's kind of bottomed out with their kind of economic decline and it seems like they're in the process of stabilizing so that that's had an impact as well. But the labor crunch as always, I mean it's great to have close to full employment but doesn't really make it easy to get talent and it's a very competitive market.
Speaker 3: It is. But on the upside we're continuing to see member firm revenues grow. So the U.S. Census Bureau actually tracks A/E firm revenues and puts out a quarterly report. They released their first estimate for Q3 on November 19th and it showed at $91.73 billion in firm revenues for the third quarter. So that's the last two quarters. It's gone up a little bit after sort of declining in the fourth quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019. So sort of similar to the construction spending the ups and the downs are very minute. So I would say it's pretty flat, flat but strong. So, and then sort of some of the other A/E macro industry indicators have also been pretty flat. So the ABC backlog indicator is still, when you average it out, hovering about 8.8 months of construction backlog and sort of the new housing units starting and some of the other economic indicators remain solid.
Host: So one of the things that we talked about before going on was kind of the I guess the dismal science of economics, the upside risk. Now everything's going bad, but this one great thing is happening. So what's the upside risk for our industry?
Erin: The upside risk? So we belong to the national association for business economics and they do a great, they do great surveys of sort of macro economic forecasters that cover all different industries folks that work for trade associations, wall street, federal reserve banks, et cetera, and sort of the A/E/C industry. So they are not specific, they're not specifically looking at that design or the construction market. However, in their most recent survey when these macro economic economic forecasters were asked, what is the greatest upside risk to the economy, infrastructure spending came in third and that came in after strong wage growth and reduced a trade protectionism. So the fact that, you know, as our economy sort of flattens out and may or may not decline in the next, you know, 12 to 24 months, the fact that there could be greater infrastructure spending on the horizon, you know, might help it for our industry, any sort of slow down.
Erin: And I think just my insight is that might be especially true given how low interest rates are. So within the economist community, there's a conversation about how, you know, during a recession or to mitigate a recession, you would lower interest rates, but they're so low already. There's only so much you can do within that policy toolbox. So sort of counter to lowering interest rates is stimulus. So we're hoping here at ACC to keep, you know, working in, hammering that issue for our people that are in the advocacy groups so that when we're presented the opportunity, we can help policymakers understand that in that tool box, it's not just lowering interest rates, but also spending on infrastructure. So
Host: Yeah, it's the best time to start investing in infrastructure. Federal, of course, this is, you know, FAST Act, you know, we've got to look at moving on that and the Congress and then the States are doing their own thing with investing and that's good. But national leadership is something that we are continuing to advocate strongly for. So the point is well taken. You can't lower interest rates that much further and it's the prime time to start building things.
Erin:  Exactly. One of the, one of the sectors that I was most surprised at is both when you look back at 12 months from Q3 of this year through Q3 of 2019, and what money is being spent on what construction sectors, the two leading sectors are water supply, which is more than 20....has grown more than 20% and sewage and waste disposal, which is an 18% growth. So those are the top two. And what the, you know, for most of our member firms, water supply and sewage and waste disposal are the water wastewater folks. You know, the people that serve that market. And I think that really that spending is going to continue. We've seen in certain parts of the country and Michigan and New Jersey and elsewhere that the decline of the water systems has given policymakers and those that fund those kinds of projects real, a real sense of urgency that I think we're now starting to see the result of.
Host: Yeah, they have that incentive now with Camden and Flint, they're really take a close look at the last time that they really made improvements to the road infrastructure and, and and that's good - it's a societal good because it means that they're paying attention to it, which reflects that growth in that market. So let's kind of round out this brief update with the index of consumer sentiment. Where does that stand?
Erin: Well, and then that is not an index that I usually highlight. But it is one of the driving the driving growth of our continued economy is that people are still spending money and feeling good about spending money as consumers. That is certainly driving the Amazon spending the last mile, the intermodal and logistics, that sort of freight transportation related market that a lot of our members play in. But it's, even though the index of consumer sentiment is really strong University of Michigan is the one I highlighted in the brief as a 2018. It was up at 98.4. This is after a low in 2008, 11 years ago of 63.7. So it's very, very strong. But that strength has not translated into sort of the real estate market being larger when it comes to the retail square square footage. So it's just a fun fact that even though a consumer sentiment in spending is strong in the retail market, on the private side spaces are still shrinking and becoming other things, which is really interesting.
Host: Yeah. People were buying more things, but they're buying it online. So yeah, you don't need as much retail square footage, brick and mortar construction as you used to. So that's a really interesting point. So what's next for the brief? What do we have coming up next issue?
Erin: The next issue is the intermodal and logistics issue, which we'll talk about sort of freight, transportation and land use and ports and congestion, and all of that good stuff and the sort of market for our member firms in that. And then our next quarterly report will be a Q4 review for 2019 and an outlook for 2020. And so that will be out in sort of mid winter and we can reflect back on 2019 but also look ahead to 2020
Host:  2020 and the the new year and all that it will bring. Erin, thank you again for coming back on the show again. The the private market briefs are a great source of information, very, very easy to read and digest to pick apart. A lot of graphics, a lot of visuals. If you're an executive who just wants a quick snapshot of the economy or a business sector and you don't feel like going through a lot of reports, this is a great resource for you. Again, just go on to acec.org and you'll find them both this edition and past additions and you can just sign up to subscribe so you don't have to do anything. They'll just get delivered right to you. So thank you again for coming back on and we'll see you next time.
Erin:  Thank you.
 

Engineering Influence Welcomes the Hosts of the Close of Business Podcast from Black & Veatch

Engineering Influence welcomes Kevin Flaker, Becca Schmidt, & Ryan Karlin, the hosts of the “Close of Business” podcast. Kevin, Becca and Ryan are all young professional engineers at Black & Veatch who started the podcast as a place for young professionals in STEM to discuss all issues related to tech, innovation, work/life balance and any and all issues related to the science and engineering industries.  Subscribe to their podcast on Spotify, the Apple podcast here and wherever podcasts are heard.  Check them out!
Transcript:
Host: Welcome to another episode of the engineering influence podcast. ACC is regular series of podcasts. We're here today with the three presenters of the close of business podcast, which they build is the one and only podcast for young STEM professionals. All three are engineers at black and Veatch. So why don't we start off by the, each of you introducing yourself and telling us a little about yourself.
Kevin: All right. I don't know. I'll go ahead and my name is Kevin flaker and first thank you for having us on and letting us join your podcast. We've all three are engineers at Black & Veatch. I am an electrical engineer. I work in the solar design business. I design solar fields for a living and podcasting is, I guess as you would say, a side hustle for me.
Becca: My name's Becca Schmidt. I'm also, I'm an engineer mechanical engineer who's been focused on designing a natural gas fired power plants and just transitioned over to to doing business development and sales, more client facing work.
Ryan: And then I'm the third cohost. A name is Ryan Carlin. Instead of those two, I am a civil engineer, so he got all of covered. I have been focused in the power delivery group transmission line and substation work. So kind of diverse engineers within the power business. But all have love for podcasts. Yeah.
Host: Yeah. I've really enjoyed it. I've listened to a few of them and they're really well done. It sounds like you guys have a lot of fun doing it. It, you, when you first started, you were saying that, you know, this is, this is from people who have never looked up on Google how to do a podcast. How did, how did you guys decide to do a podcast?
Kevin: Yeah, so a couple of years ago, a few of us were pulled into somewhat of a roundtable here at Black & Veatch. And the purpose of the discussion was to look for ways for Black & Veatch to engage more in the community. We're a severely industrial or in the past we're heavy in the industrial power water, telecom businesses and not necessarily more on the commercial side. So we were just kind of throwing around ideas for ways for us to connect into the community. And I happened to just start getting into podcasts and listen to podcasts and love how much you can learn. So I threw this idea out there that, you know, we could create this podcast. It would be a way for us to engage with community on the different projects we're doing. The work we're doing at Black & Veatch. But then also selfishly it was going to be, if it went through a cool way for me to being a recent graduate, look up all these different cool industry technologies that were emerging as well as all the different things Black & Veatch was doing.
Kevin: And being able to like research that for myself as well as share that on the podcast format with the community. And what that's transformed into today is not so much of a, here's what we do at Black & Veatch, but more of a, here's a generic STEM podcast where we talk about technology across, we try to reach all industries, not just power or water, telecom. Oh, you know, we talk about autonomous vehicles and the Hyperloop, just any really cool thing going on in the STEM industry and just bring that to the community. And I guess utilize Black & Veatch's knowledge when when applicable.
Becca: And in addition to that, we talked a lot about engaging with the millennial workforce, the millennial group. We felt like there's this external perception of what engineers and people working in the STEM industry are really like. And the three of us kind of like to categorize ourselves as something that's kind of against the grain, not the typical stereotypical, nerdy, nerdy engineer, you know, and we wanted to present, you know, what it can be like to be an engineer, that it's this really cool and exciting thing and it doesn't have to be over complicated or super nerdy.
Becca: It can be talking about just cool things going on in the STEM industry, literally over beers and communicating it in a really digestible, relatable way too.
Ryan:  And that's kind of just to give a hindsight how we got the name close of business. So it was all meant around, you know, having to close the business, you know, when everyone goes home or goes to a happy hour, kind of just talking recent news or STEM-related stuff in a fun and kind of informal manner. So we try to kind of play on that and have an informative yet fun kind of atmosphere.
Becca: Kind of a long winded response. But we put it all on the table.
Host: It really comes across and I especially in your early ones when when you were sort of finding your feet what do, I mean all three of you are, are really quite young. I mean, I, if I'm right, I mean you're all graduated since like 2015 or 2014 is is what does that bring, do you think to your, your program? I mean, you know, the, the picture of the old stodgy engineer with the time and you guys are not that obviously, but it, what impact does your age do you think have on this?
Ryan: I think I mean one is just a different perspective, you know, we don't know what we don't know type of thing, so we're not afraid to ask questions. Kind of along the same lines of our audience. We're learning just as much when we're preparing for these episodes as our listeners. So I mean, I think, I think that's one big thing that I see.
Kevin: Yeah. I guess one of the focuses or one of the, one of the purposes for this podcast would be to kind of grow and influence STEM in younger generations, whether that be college students who are studying in the field and are, or maybe flirting with the idea of getting into STEM industry, but don't really know, like, you know, that's a huge entry point when you start talking science and tech. It's kind of scary, daunting at first or even high schoolers who are interested. So I think like we're able to bridge the gap to where we can communicate with the experts in the industry. We have the connections, but at the same time, we're still learning ourselves. So we're able to, as Ryan mentioned, ask the questions that the everyday listener would be asking. You know, we're not experts. We hardly know what we're talking about. And I think that's kind of our trick.
Becca: Yeah, for sure. And I think a lot of the perception that of that I've had with the people that I work with here is that, you know, they're experts now, but what were they like when they were developing as young adults, young people in their career. And I think we're all kind of like finding ourselves when we're learning throughout our, our careers and also learning what it's like to be a young adult in early on in your career, in developing through all of that. It's something that people don't really talk about as much. And in reality, when we all started working full time, we didn't know we were doing, Oh, that's totally fine to community, still trying to communicate that, you know. And that's something that we are really passionate about engaging with our listeners on as well.
Host: Yeah, no, you can hear the passion obviously, and the enthusiasm. I mean, what have you, have you learned about your listeners at all? Do you know who they are? You know, are they, are they the young people who are thinking about getting into STEM or are they other engineers?
Ryan: I'd say it's kind of a wide range. So we've gone to college career fairs and some people have listened to the podcasts, you know, they love it and they say they get good stuff out of it. But then also, you know, we do episodes kind of internally and they're released and we have executives come up to us whether within black and Veatch or external companies, and they kind of share their interests and kind of excitement about the podcast. So, I mean, I think just, we're geared towards young professionals, but I don't think that really leaves us out of, you know, Quinn Robinson, who's on your guys's board. He's a big fan as well. And I want to call him a young professional. So it kind of all ages, I guess, in that sense. Yeah.
Host: Yeah. How do you guys how do you come up with your, to your topics, the, I mean you've done 33 so far, that's a lot of things to think of and, and, and bring and research and bring to the air.
Becca: Yeah. It's a combination of tapping into all of the different things that are all the different innovative things that are happening within Black & Veatch. A lot of the people that we've interviewed so far professionals that are doing really awesome, big innovative things within the company and we're excited about it and we want to communicate that with the, within the world, what we want to commute that out into the community. And then also just things we're interested in too. A lot of times it's us just we're on the internet work, curious reading about what's going on in that STEM industry and we'll talk about it amongst ourselves and we're like, this is a really cool thing to do, a podcast episode about.
Kevin: And one cool thing that's happening is as we grow within Black & Veatch, we have more and more people reaching out to us with topic ideas or inviting us to go to conferences where, you know, we just came back from San Francisco at a Singularity University summit where there are topics talking about, you know, Bitcoin and digital currency, AI, space, like all these really cool topics and you know, we're getting invited to go there. So we find our topics via presenters at these conferences or you know, clients of Black & Veatch, you know, black and beaches worked with Tesla or Volkswagen with the electrify America. So, you know, our clients are also the ones who are out there innovating in this industry. So we're, we're being put in contact with a bunch of different people as well.
Host: I mean, I tell that you guys were at Power Gen I mean, you guys do get around it. I mean, is it is it the podcast taking you there or are you going there and then using that for the podcast?
Kevin: Well, I think it's 100% the podcast taking us there.
Ryan: Yeah, we've definitely got a lot of support from within Black & Veatch. I mean they really liked the idea of the podcast and kind of what we bring to the table. And so Black & Veatch has really been supportive about, you know, giving us a budget. And that budget allows us to do things like, you know, buy new fancy equipment or go to these conferences or I may have you, so I really say it's a podcast that's really funded a lot of this. Yeah.
Host: Yeah. I would say the you know, it doesn't feel like a Black & Veatch podcast if at all. It feel, I mean, I guess when you mention it, yeah, you do talk to a lot of Black & Veatch people, but it doesn't feel like you're doing this to promote the company, you know, which is great.
Kevin: That's a very important point. We don't, we don't want to be a podcast that shoves Black & Veatch down the listeners throat because that will just be a turnoff in all honesty. It's an obvious marketing scheme and that's not what we are here. We're, we're basically utilizing our contacts because we work with these people. They know us, they reach out to us the most. But as we see I'm willing to bet if we were to look back, like the first half are mainly Black & Veatch centric, but as we started to expand and grow our network, we are focusing on I don't want to do you want to call it external initiatives and stuff like that. So we definitely want to utilize Black & Veatch when we can, but we also don't want to, you know, make it all about Black & Veatch.
Host: Yeah. What looking back over all the, the episodes, what are some of your favorite episodes that people might want to, to listen to?
Becca: Yeah. I think one of my personal favorites was when we had the opportunity to interview Eric Anderson who is the executive chairman for top golf and CEO for West River Group. That was a great opportunity because that's PR one because it was one of the most high profile people that we've been able to sit down and talk to, but also a lot of the business and leadership and entrepreneurship insights that he gave us were completely invaluable. And then also the additional content that we have on that episode. We focus on technology and sports and the three of us are really big sports fans. And so it was kind of like a wonderful merging of worlds and just us being able to really truly show our personality and show our interest on that episode. That's definitely one of my favorite ones. And Kevin's having a hard time deciding,
Kevin: I've got a couple, I'll give you two, I guess. One of my favorites I guess I would say would be the Hyperloop, one of the Hyperloop discussions we had, and this was kind of more early on at around episode 10 or so. Yeah, but it was, I mean, Hyperloops kind of continued to get a lot of the limelight and just selfishly, you know, I learned a lot from doing that episode about what Hyperloop is. So I mean, I think that's on the kind of still applies today even though that was maybe one a year ago. And then the other one probably I would say is he's a little bit of a wild card. But Tom Friend we interviewed him at PowerGen. He just give a quick background. He's like, was what? He was in the air force and then now he w he was a consultant for Duke Energy. He's a scrum or like agility consultant. He's kind of all over the place. But super fascinating and intriguing guy. And that was probably one of my favorites
Becca: Talk about somebody who's passionate about learning. Tom Friend was the most passionate about learning.
Ryan:  Yeah, he was, it was a fun interview. I think, you know, I just, I just want to say all of the guests you've had and all the topics we've covered are great. Let me just put that out there. My, my favorite is probably the Prekapa Sankar interview that we just completed at singularity university, mainly because this is a woman dominating the STEM industry at such a young age. She's on her second company right now and data and AI for good. Yeah. And that's like the future and that's where, you know, the probably going to be the dominating technology coming in the next 10, 15 years and she's already at the helm of it. And I'm more excited to have interviewed her then maybe about the topic just cause like I'm excited to see what she can do in the future.
Becca: She's going to make a big impact on the planet. She, she already is, but she's gonna make really big impacts. So, yeah.
Host: And I guess from your, from your visit out to Singularity or do you have other, other podcasts planned, maybe something on blockchain or something?
Ryan: Yeah, we are. Blockchain episode fell through. We did get a little bit into it with Tom Friend, we'll say, but he, he was so passionate and so like educated on it that, you know, we try to slow him down and yeah, that's definitely something we need to do is like a block chain 101 episode because it is kind of like a really vague idea that's kind of hard to explain and process and we have a hard time understanding it sometimes. So definitely that would be something we want to help our viewers unders or listeners understand as well. So trust me, that's, that's on the list of ideas.
Kevin: We do have an episode, one more episode from singularity to coming up with the CEO of Upwork. who was a Silicon Valley guy back in the PayPal and all that those days. So really cool guy. I got to sit down and talk with him about the future of work play more than anything else. So Upwork is a, what do you, freelance platform online like one of the largest and one of the largest in the world. And he has really great insights about what the future of the workforce is going to be like and how we need to adapt and how Upwork is helping the workforce adapt as well. Yeah. So
Host: Well you guys really get into a lot. I that you actually had, didn't you have one on space recently?
Becca: We just released one on a little bit of a space topic. One of the more random, we interviewed the chief scientist, Bruce Betts from the planetary society. For those who aren't familiar with the planetary society, it's a non nonprofit crowdfunded space exploration and research company headed by the boy, bill Nye, bill Nye the science guy.
Becca: Yeah, so it's his, his company. And Bruce bets was one of the people who led on the LightSail 2 mission. I can go into all sorts of details about that, but you can listen to our episode and you might learn a little bit more about what that technology is.
Kevin: If you want to hear an interview that had absolutely no outline or plan, listen to that. Cause we literally grabbed him from off stage and interviewed him with no questions or anything, just kind of let the conversation go. And I think it was pretty funny and random because of that.
Becca: And it's still super educational as well.
Host: Well for, for if any of our members were listening and were thinking maybe they wanted to start a podcast, what, what would your, what your advice be for them to, to as a member of a member firm to get a successful podcast going?
Ryan: Yeah. And I think this answer may apply to more than just a podcast. It's really anything that you think is kind of entrepreneurial within your company or just in general is I think just taking the bull by the horns and kind of holding yourself accountable. You know, Kevin was a ringleader of this, but just him making the statement that he thought it would be a good idea kind of puts the wheels in motion. And without that kind of first step you're never gonna actually achieve anything. So, you know, we, Kevin, myself, Becca, we didn't know how a podcast recording and the whole post-production, all that stuff, that was all new to us when we started out. But it's just something you kind of learn as you go. You know, it took us a while to release our first couple of episodes and kind of master what we we're doing. We've been doing it what for two years now and we're still not mastered. So yeah, just like any new skill or hobby, you know, it takes, takes time and takes initiative and action and kind of holding yourself accountable.
Kevin: I guess from, from with inside a company, if we want to look at that mind frame, if you have an idea, I think in any successful company you're going to have leaders that support most ideas. And I think, yeah, like Ryan said, the biggest thing is speaking out, expressing your idea and then following through with it as Ryan said. But I think like the biggest thing was I spoke out in a meeting and there are leaders in that meeting that were willing to be like, you know what, let's run with this. We'll give you five hours a week, let's see what you can do. And since then, iteration after iteration, we've grown to have, you know, a larger budget but also make sure that whatever it is you're doing is something that you love. And I know that sounds kind of cliche, but one thing that we found is we're full time engineers.
Kevin: So we work 40 plus hours a week doing engineering work or Becca with business development. And this is something we have to do on the side. And it's really hard to put in the extra hours when it's not something you enjoy. So you have to make sure you enjoy it first if you're really gonna be successful in it.
Becca: I think just jumping off of things that they both said, we're really fortunate that there is leadership within Black & Veatch that supports innovation. They see the value in what we're doing here. And we feel really fortunate that there are leaders here that were willing to take a chance on us and help us progress through this whole project and see where it could go. So we're really thankful for that. And then in addition, yeah, the passion is super important. And then also just finding a voice that's different than what is out there now.
Becca: We think that we had a, and we still do believe that we have a different perspective than anybody else out there on the podcast platform. And we have a voice and we have things to say and we're hoping that we're teaching people and they're learning and also just give, giving people a better perspective on what our industry is about and the kind of impacts we're wanting to make as well. Yeah.
Ryan: And one last thing I would just add to that is, one thing I've noticed talking to a lot of these interviewees is most companies are passionate about kind of motivating and giving ownership to young employees. Most companies have a STEM related kind of program. And so I think you know, don't be afraid to kind of speak out and speak your idea. Like we've kind of been saying so far. Yeah.
Host: Yeah. And from, you know, being in the industry, writing about the industry for the last 12 years, I mean, one of the big issues is how do you motivate your younger employees, you know, the, the baby boomers don't understand the millennials sort of thing. And this seems to be a an example of a way of doing it.
Becca: 100%. Yeah. I think in general, us in the millennial generation are really motivated by kind of like a greater calling. I don't come to work everyday because I know I'm going to be sitting in responding to emails or doing calculations. It's because I know that I'm coming to work and I'm contributing to a better society, a better community, a better infrastructure, so that we as a community can live a healthier, more comfortable life. And I think that this is just another outlet for us to discuss that and try and get that out into the world a little bit more.
Host: Well, great. Well that, that, that I think you've guys have covered the gamut here. So I'm, I really appreciate your coming on and I urge our our listeners to tune into the Close of Business podcast. You guys are on a Spotify, right?
Ryan: Yeah. Spotify, Apple podcasts, any, any really podcast forum.
Ryan: Yeah. The best way just to look up whatever you listen to on podcast closed the business and you'll find us. And hopefully you enjoy the episodes. And if you got questions or comments reply to us. But otherwise you can email us to that. cobpodcast@gmail.com. Awesome.
Host: Well, thank you.
 

Government Affairs Update for November 2019

Engineering Influence welcomed ACEC's Matt Reiffer to the program for a government affairs update.  Matt provided an update on two critical issues important to the engineering industry - the repeal of a $7.6 billion rescission in FAST Act highway contract authority and new movement on NEPA regulations.  
ACEC recently joined with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, AASHTO and other groups to advocate for the repeal of the FAST Act rescission. Here is the map mentioned in the interview which shows, state-by-state, how much contract authority will be restored in the CR:

The 2020 Economic Forecast for the Engineering Industry

Engineering Influence sat down with Richard Branch, the Chief Economist for Dodge Data and Analytics to discuss the 2020 economic forecast for the A/E/C industry.
Transcript:
Host: Welcome to another episode of engineering influence ACEC's regular podcast series. Today we're talking with Richard Branch, who is the chief economist for Dodge Data and Analytics. And we're going to talk about his 2020 forecast for the construction and engineering industries. Good morning Richard.
Richard Branch: Good morning. How are you?
Host: Doing well, thanks. So this is your first forecast for Dodge. Can you give us a little bit about your background?
Richard Branch: Sure. So yeah, our previous chief economist Bob Murray, a well deserved retirement. He ended his term at the end of August. I started right after him in September. I've been with Dodge about 10 years now. My previous position here as a senior economist covering mostly the commercial markets as well as our Canadian forecast.
Host: Great. I saw that you're a graduate of university of Ottawa. Are you? Are you Canadian?
Richard Branch: I am. I'm actually a dual citizen, so I went, did my undergraduate at the university of Ottawa, moved down to Boston to do my graduate work in economics at Boston College and fell in love with the city. And fell in love with my wife who's a Boston girl and stayed here.
Host: And you live and you work out of Goffstown I saw. Is that, is that right?
Richard Branch:  Well my our office is in Bedford, Massachusetts, just a little bit North of, of Boston's one of the Northern suburbs. But I live in Southern New Hampshire.
Host: Well a couple of weeks ago Dodge put out its forecast for for 2020. What's your view on the the AEC industry for for next year?
Richard Branch: Sure. So what we're looking at for total construction activity in 2020 and the total construction being the sum of residential construction, non-residential buildings as well as what we would call non building. That's kind of the infrastructure side of the market. We're looking at a decline of 4% for 2020 $776 billion in terms of construction starts for next year. Just to put that into perspective, that would bring the construction industry back to about where we were in 2017. So certainly not a cataclysmic drop in activity next year, but certainly a settling back after several long years of us with several years of strong growth.
Host: And why do you see that settling back taking place?
Richard Branch: Well, we're certainly starting to see the seeds of slower economic growth in the U S. GDP was 2.9% in 2018. We're expecting it to slip this year down to around 2.3% for 2019 and we expect the economy to slow even further in 2020 down to around 1.5% growth. So not recessionary, but we're starting to see the effects of the trade uncertainty the tariffs that have already been put in place as well as the potential for future tariffs causing uncertainty amongst business leaders in the economy. And we expect that to result in, in a continuation of a slower of job growth, which we've seen this year. In addition to the fact that just how tight the labor market is right now. Certainly in the construction industry, the lack of available labor is certainly a key issue and we think that works to constrain growth in, in construction next year.
Host: I mean, with, with your point about the labor market as well as the slowing economy are those pushing the combination of those two things, are they pushing the the industry down a little farther than it might've needed to be if one or the other weren't a part of the equation?
Richard Branch: I think so. I, you know, we, if for not that the trade uncertainty, if, if the labor market had if there were, if there were more available workers, we certainly wouldn't see economic growth slow. To the extent that we're expecting it to do in 2020 you know, it would be back above potential growth - the potential rate of growth in the U S economy is around 2% give or take. So barring those two events, we would probably see another year of slightly above potential growth next year.
Host: So in, in, in your forecast, are there certain sectors that you expect to perform better than average or better than the average of all of them in 2020?
Richard Branch: Yeah, absolutely. It to put a fine point on it. I would say that projects that have some semblance of public funding will do okay in 2020. So we're talking education, construction, particularly K through 12, healthcare construction, some transportation construction in terms of airline terminals and whatnot. As well as some of the infrastructure categories. We're talking streets and highways. Environmental public works like water system sewers. Those should do a well, those should do okay. Next year, you know, moderate growth where we expect to see the slippage in 2020 is more on the commercial side. So these are projects that are highly tied to the overall growth rate in the economy. So we're talking offices, retail and warehouses. We expect that market to slip back next year along with the residential market. FAST Act expires in September, 2020. So there would be need to be a new surface transportation bill to take effect after that. The growth that we're expecting on that streets and highways is really that, that last year of the FAST Act.
Host: And and you were mentioning the ones that you don't expect to do as well and you, you met you, you mentioned housing. Is that a, is that basically is that a job growth thing or what would you attribute to slow down and housing to?
Richard Branch: Yeah, great question. So I think you've got to have two separate discussions here. First of all, single family, single family has really underperformed in this cycle. Due to for the most part, affordability housing prices essentially been growing faster than wages and incomes and, and pushing people out of that suburban single family market. More often than not, that has been, has been the Millennial age group.
Richard Branch: And as the millennials start to age, we're seeing that group continuing to have difficulty entering the market mostly because of the lack of available supply of that entry level or starter home. People just aren't able to build those homes because the margins are pretty tight. So on the single family side we see it more as a supply issue as opposed to a demand issue. Whereas on the multifamily side, very aggressive growth over the life cycle. So we had all those folks that were were forced out of the suburban single family market going into either townhouses or condos or the rentals, all of that track in, in multifamily. So that has seen very aggressive growth throughout this cycle. And what we're starting to see already this year is a bit of a pullback and especially in larger metropolitan areas. So places like Chicago, excuse me, not Chicago, places like Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, even New York City starting to ebb a little bit. And so it's, those are pulled back in those larger markets that are pulling back that the multifamily side. But as you mentioned, the multifamily side is very much tied to overall economic growth, very much especially tied to labor market growth. So that's also having a bit of a negative effect on the multifamily market in 2019.
Host: And one market that a lot of our members are involved in is, is the power market, the you know, building pipelines building transmission lines....where do you see that market going?
Richard Branch: Sure. So the electric power category as we classify it is, includes your traditional fossil fuel plants. It includes LNG export facilities all those big things that are being built down in the Gulf Coast. It also includes the transmission lines as well as renewable. So wind and solar utility scale, wind and solar. That market's actually doing very well this year FERC has streamlined their approval process for LNG facilities. And as such, we've seen several large projects break ground this year. Particularly the Cameron LNG facility in Louisiana was a $4.2 billion project that broke ground earlier this year. So that side of the market seems to be doing well as well as the wind power side, renewables the, the traditional fossil fuel plants not doing so well. There was a good period of growth in the 2014 to 17 range as more natural gas fired plants were being started. But that has started to ebb back slightly. And on the transmission side, we're certainly starting to see growth there, whether it's a grid hardening. So these are our utilities looking to protect their, their infrastructure from storms and whatnot, or circling back to that renewable side, all those wind plants in the Midwest in terms of building transmission lines to bigger power centers.
Host: Great. Thank you. That's great. So one question that I've had for a couple of years about, about the Dodge forecast as it is you, as you use the dollar value of starts, what, why, what, what do you see the value the forecast value of that?
Richard Branch: So why, why do we, why do we talk in terms of dollars?
Host: Yes. Yeah. I the value of,
Richard Branch: Yeah, that's, that's a great question. So our data, we actually forecast both the square footage figure as well as the dollar value. I tend to like to talk about the dollar value figure for for two reasons. Number one, it does include that non building sector, that infrastructure side where there is no square footage applied in those, in, in those building categories, but also it's more inclusive. So our dollar value figures include new construction, it includes additions, but the key part is it also includes renovation activities. So it's a much more inclusive. And, and when you look at say a category like retail where a significant chunk of the retail sector in terms of construction is actually renovation work. I, I think it's important to talk about that opportunity, whereas the square footage side of our data doesn't include renovation.
Host: Great. That makes sense. Yeah. And and one of the things I think I saw in the, in the forecast was a bit about server farms or whatever the proper term for that is...
Richard Branch: Data centers
Host: Data centers. Yeah, that seems to be a big continuing to be a big growth area.
Richard Branch: It is. So we classify data centers as office construction. And back in 2017, data construction was about five point $4 billion, accounted for about 13% of all office activity in terms of our data, 2018 up to $10.4 billion in construction for data centers. 22% of all office activity was data centers and that demand for cloud space and for telecommuting and the like has certainly kept this market very strong. And we expect that to continue certainly in the years to come in and will actually be a bit of a cushion to the office sector. Whereas the traditional office sector, will pull back a little bit. As the economy slows, it should be cushioned slightly by those data centers and they're very, very expensive projects in terms of the infrastructure, in terms of the wiring and in terms of the HVACs, they are very complex buildings. Very expensive.
Host: That's remarkable growth.
Richard Branch: Yes, absolutely.
Host: So looking at, turning towards towards our members, the engineering from the firms around the country, from from a Dodge forecast, you know, you typically look into the coming year. What, what lessons can engineering from leaders take from, from those, those numbers and descriptions?
Richard Branch: Sure. Well, I think that the big thing I've been saying to folks as we unveil our forecast is, and I believe I mentioned this at the outset, is we need to remember that even though this was the decline of 4%, this isn't what we saw in 2007, 2008, there will still be loss of opportunity for growth across the construction industry. And we need to remain aggressive. We need to remain creative in terms of finding those opportunities. And those different opportunities may exist in different geographies than you're currently used to. They may be different building verticals than you're used to say education versus say a more commercial sector. And that this will be because there's no systemic underlying economic issues like we saw in 2007, 2008. This will be a fairly short downturn. And then by the time we're back into 2021, we should start to see those seeds of growth in the building markets again. And it's important to prepare for that 2021 return to growth in 2020. Again, in terms of being creative and being aggressive.
Host: So you, so looking a little farther into the future, you see 2021 is a stronger year than 2020.
Richard Branch: Certainly on the residential side of the market. Absolutely. that will be kind of the, the engine of the recovery in 2020 in terms of construction markets. And then we should start from the commercial construction kick in, in terms of growth towards the end of 21 into 22 and then institutional. So things like schools and hospitals lagging a little bit after that.
Host: Well, that's very optimistic.
Richard Branch: Again, I think so. I certainly compared to what we just went through, you know, 10 or 12 years ago this will be a fairly mild downturn. I again, I there, there's nothing systemic in the economy that's pointing to a longterm catastrophic pullback and activity like we had in the last cycle. This will be fairly short, be fairly mild, and as long as folks, again, are being creative and aggressive and finding opportunities they will fund.
Host: Oh, great. Well, I appreciate your taking the time to talk with us. This has been a very enlightening,
Richard Branch: Thank you. Happy to do it. Thanks for having me.
 
 
 

Private Industry Brief: Commercial & Residential Real Estate

Engineering Influence sat down with Erin McLaughlin to review ACEC's new Private Industry Brief on Commercial & Residential Real Estate.

An Interview with Rep. Bruce Westerman, P.E.

Engineering Influence welcomed Rep. Bruce Westerman (Arkansas-4) to the program to discuss his career in engineering and in Congress.
Transcript:
Host: Welcome to another edition of Engineering Influence, a podcast from the American Council of Engineering Companies. It's a pleasure to welcome Congressman Bruce Westerman to the show. Congressman Westerman hails from Hot Springs, Arkansas and represents the state's fourth congressional district in the House of Representatives. He currently serves on the Natural Resources Committee and as Ranking Member on the Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in the House. Congressman Westerman graduated from the University of Arkansas with a bachelor of science degree in biological and agricultural engineering. He is also a graduate of Yale University earning a master of forestry service degree or I guess master of forestry degree forestry. Yeah. which makes him doubly unique in Congress. He's not only an engineer, but he's also a Forester of which there are not many serving in the house right now. Pretty much just yourself, I believe. Just one. Thank you very much for coming onto the program.
Rep. Westerman:  Jeff, it's great to be with you and a real honor to get to be on an ACEC podcast and talk about engineering and how that's benefited me with my service in Congress. You know, I had a nearly a two and a half decade career in engineering before I came to Congress and really enjoyed that. I always tell people I like my job in Congress, but I could go back in and be an engineer tomorrow and be perfectly content.
Host:  Actually, I was here when you spoke to members of our senior executive Institute class last month here in DC about your background in engineering and how you've applied that to your work in Congress. And I think you made the comment of pretty much saying that, you know, members come up to you because you're an engineer and expect you to have answers on just about anything related to engineering. How has your professional work in the field of engineering helped you in your roles, both in your committee work and then also in the general work that you do as a member? And I believe you're also on the science committee previously how has that impacted your ability to be an effective Member?
Rep. Westerman: Being an engineer in Congress is you know, it's a, it's a small group of us that are up here. There's not many engineers and like we already said, there's only one Forester in the, in the House. So if you've got a particular area of expertise, people really want to seek that out, especially your, your colleagues because you know, they, they generally feel like they can trust you if you want to give them, give them information. But also being an engineer probably has some drawbacks because of things like our code of professional conduct where we're not expected or we're expected not to comment on things we don't have expertise in, whereas a member of Congress, you're expected to comment on everything. So I after my freshman term, I got voted the quietest member of our freshman class, and I always told them this because you've got two ears to listen and one mouth to speak with.
Rep. Westerman: So I'll try to try to be measured in what I say and try to be accurate in what I say. And of course Congress touches, touches everything from foreign policy to healthcare tax policy. And you really have to study and read a lot just to stay on top of the issues. But when those things come along, that engineering directly impacts it's great to have some history and background and the, the education and experience to be able to make pertinent comments on those those issues and add to the conversation. But I'll get asked to speak to a lot of engineering students around the country and I'll always tell them that the thing they probably don't realize now, but they'll will realize someday is that engineering is, is really glorified problem solving. You're learning a lot of science, a lot of math.
Rep. Westerman: You're getting all the tools in the toolbox to go out and solve problems. But what you really learn going through an engineering curriculum and what you learned doing engineering on the job is how to analyze issues, define the problem, come up with a plan implement that plan and solve a problem. That's beneficial. Whether you're in Congress, whether you're working in a corporation, working in your own business or whatever you do. Those problem solving abilities are very valuable to have. And I think that's the best thing that engineering gave me and prepared me for to come here and serve in Congress.
Host: That's really interesting point because one of the things that we talk about at ACEC and we're going to be doing a lot more with a new strategic plan that we just adopted on the role of engineering in society and engineer's not just as math side, the science side, but also the problem solving, the trusted advisor to clients of looking at a challenge and finding ways to innovative ways to solve those challenges and, and to apply their background and experience to, to those challenges. So that's a really interesting point. I do want to bring up the forestry side of things cause I'm a Penn State grad. We had a forestry program at Penn State. Not exactly Yale as far as, in terms of school, but I wanted to ask the question of how you got into and interested in forestry and where that kinda stems from.
Rep. Westerman: Yeah, it's kind of a unique combination, I guess having an undergraduate in engineering and a graduate degree in forestry. But I grew up in, in Arkansas, in Hot Springs, Arkansas, where I still live today, beautiful area, lots of national forest, a lot of private forest. And the career that I had for two decades was working for an ACEC member engineering firm. And we specialize in the forest products area. So when people asked me about my engineering career, I basically say that if there's some process that takes a tree and make something out of it, then I got the opportunity to design one of those facilities during my career. So getting a forestry degree was very natural and beneficial in the the business that I was in because you always started with what's the resource, what, what resources available and, and what's the most valuable product we can make out of that resource and what kind of equipment and machinery best fits the resource to convert that resource into a product that can be sold in the marketplace. And plus, I've always loved the outdoors.
Rep. Westerman: My Sunday School teacher was a world war II veteran. He, he flew in the bloody 100th bomb bombing squadron and he was just a fantastic guy, but he was, he was in the first forestry graduating class at the university of Arkansas at Monticello where our forestry school is. And I think Mr. Colepepper inspired a love for the forest and the outdoors and always wanted to go to graduate school. So it just, it worked out very well from a career and a personal goal standpoint to go study about trees. And another example of how being here in Congress and being the only, only person in the house where a forestry education and background, I work a lot on forest policy. And you know, the federal government owns a 193 million acres of timberland that's just in the Forest Service, but you throw in the BLM and the park service and you're between 250 and 300 million acres of public forest land.
Rep. Westerman: You know, today we're seeing the extreme forest fires in California and there's a lot of work that could be just be done just on the forestry side. And I'm really excited about it because forests are the link between clean air and clean water, which gets into a lot of the things that we as engineers work on. And you know, forests are the natural carbon sequesters. They're the most - good forest trees, the most pragmatic approach we can have to clean environment. And it's the best offensive tool that we've got. So I'm doing a lot of work in the forestry side of things here in Congress. And you know, one thing that we're really looking at is this new concept of mass timber and it's a new building system that's been done in Europe for quite some time, but we can now build buildings up to 18 stories tall.
Rep. Westerman: At my alma mater, the University of Arkansas, they just completed two five story mass timber dormitories. They had already built a mass timber library storage building. So it, it does a lot of, lot of things for you. Number one, it uses you can use locally sourced materials. These materials. Wood is on a dry basis, is 45 to 50% carbon, so it creates a huge carbon sink. It's a great insulating product, so you can build these buildings where they're sustainable and they don't use as much energy to operate and maintain. So a lot of positives with things like, wood, but then there's a lot of more research that can be done. We could use wood as feed stocks for chemicals. That's good feedstock for nanoparticles. I just saw something the other day where they've come up with a nano material made from wood cellulous that can be put into concrete that reduces the amount of Portland Cement and actually increases the strength and durability of the, of concrete. So the, I think the sky's the limit on what we can do with wood, which is a good renewable resource. And again, it, it's the lungs of the earth and the kidneys of the earth that cleans the air and cleans the water.
Host:  And that's really an interesting point. And actually we covered the mass timber issue in our most recent private industry brief that Erin McLaughlin in our office puts together. And again, that was the change in December of 2019. The ICC loosened the restrictions to allow buildings up to 18 stories in height effective in 2021 compared to the limit of six stories and commercial structures currently. So that's, that's an interesting, that's an interesting nexus between the forestry side and the engineering side.
Rep. Westerman: As a result of those projects they're in, in Northwest Arkansas on the University of Arkansas campus, a company just up the road, Walmart, announced they're building a new corporate headquarters. Now you think about you know, the largest company in the world building a corporate headquarters, 15,000 people, there'll be housing. So it'll be like a small college campus. I think they told me three and a half million square feet, but they're going to build the whole facility out of Southern Pine mass timber grown and manufactured in Arkansas. So that's a great story to tell, not only from the environmental stewardship side, but these local economies for timber has grown or in rural areas. And it's a, it's a good story about how we can help the autonomy in rural areas and do something good for the environment at the same time. And there's a lot of other, I've been told that Microsoft, Adidas I think Google, there's a lot of major corporations that are looking to use more of this mass timber in there Buildings.
Host: You know, buildings like that would fit in perfectly in Seattle and, and a lot of the Pacific Northwest especially. I do want to stay with the whole idea of economic development, but shifting over to infrastructure. You serve as the Ranking Member on the Water Subcommittee and of course WRDA is probably the most, the big bill that subcommittee is going to be working on for the Congress. That's a critical bill for our ports, harbors, inland waterways, locks, dams, just all of that, not just the, the seaside ports like Charleston or Savannah, but also the interior - moving goods around the country. Now with a lot of the members who listen to the podcast, they're getting a lot of their news from CNN. They're getting it from Fox and they're not hearing everything that's going on. You know, at the granular level. Where does the WRDA bill stand right now and where do you see when you see as the prospects of getting that through?
Rep. Westerman: So we've got a good track record going on WRDA and we certainly don't want to disrupt that. I believe we've the past six years or maybe eight years, we've got a WRDA bill through Congress. I know the whole time that I've been here, we've got WRDA bills passed on a two year cycle and there seems to be bipartisan support to get a WRDA bill out next year. And I will say serving on T&I, and actually being the ranking member on water and environment subcommittee. I was very fortunate in this Congress, which seems to be highly partisan with, you know, the impeachment issues and everything else going on. We've got a pretty good track record so far on the water and environment subcommittee. We just got a bill passed off the floor to use the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund to actually develop and improve harbors as it was set in place to do you know, nearly, you know, nine to $10 billion in that fund.
Rep. Westerman: But it wasn't getting used to maintain harbors and it was put strictly put in place for that purpose. So I'm glad to see we pass it off the House Floor in a bipartisan manner. I hope the Senate will take it up and get that signed into law. We also just out of Committee this week we passed the the, the loan fund for wastewater systems. And I think that's a great opportunity to go in and you know, have the funding mechanisms so that cities can, can borrow the money to repair these wastewater systems, which the, I believe it was American Society of Civil Engineers gave our wastewater infrastructure a D plus grade. And I know as I travel around in my district there's a lot of work that needs to be done on both wastewater.
Rep. Westerman: And potable water system. So we're, we're getting bills passed out of committee off the floor. Those, you know, it doesn't usually make Fox or CNN when you pass a water bill out of the House, but it makes a lot of difference across the country. And I feel very fortunate to be working on that. I'm really looking forward to working with the, the Subcommittee Chairman Grace Napalitano from California, Peter DeFazio, now the Democratic Chairman, and then Sam Graves who is the Ranking Member. We've got a commitment to, to get this word of bill done. And as you mentioned, it's very important to many parts of the country. You know, our navigable waterways took a beating in the flooding this past past spring and summer in my district and in many other places in the country. We've got a lot of work to do on that.
Rep. Westerman: There's a lot of work that needs to be done on again ports and harbors deepening channels and that sort of thing. So there's, there's no end of, of opportunities and good things that we can spend money on that are, that are good for the country. And I think part of the reason we have a federal government, you know, provide for the common defense and, and take care of interstate transportation systems and that's what T&I does. So those are the things we should be prioritizing and putting our funds towards because it helps grow the economy and and helps, you know, the country grow, which helps us be able to provide nice things and, and people to have jobs and find, make their own way through life. So excited about what we're doing on the, on the water subcommittee.
Host: And then I guess just to kind of wrap it up, I mean it, with everything going on in Washington, you know, it's so dominated the headlines by intrigue and pretty much inside the beltway, kind of partisan squabbles because it, you know, gets ratings. But you know, for your constituents and for members in the engineering profession out there who are listening and saying, okay, what's Congress doing? I mean, what, what message would you leave them with? As far as what Washington is doing and, and how things are, are looking at the end of the year and may shape up for for 2020?
Rep. Westerman: Well, right now I would, I wouldn't give Congress a very good grade on what we're doing. I mean, we're operating under a Continuing Resolution, which is been a huge pet peeve of mine since I've got here. If there's, if there's one thing I would, if I could change it and I've worked hard to try to change it that's to get us back to what I call regular order, where we do appropriation bills. We debate those bills in the open, we offer amendments on the floor, pass all 12 of them out of the House. And if the Senate would take those up and go through the same process, we know our fiscal year ends on September 30th every year. And we need a new budget by then. We know the timeline, we know what needs to be done. We're just not getting it done.
Rep. Westerman:  And that causes all kinds of problems. When you look at, we don't even have a Defense Authorization bill done this year. And, and that's one of the primary reasons to have a federal government is provide for the common defense. If, if we can't get that done, if we can't get a budget done we really should be ashamed of the job that we're doing here. Now we can talk about some positive things on T&I. There's some small things that we agree on and they're getting done. And in the big picture, the politics are getting way too much in the way. And with the 2020 presidential election coming up with all the talk about impeachment it's really taken the focus off for the job of Congress. We've still got a huge, huge issue with healthcare in this country.
Rep. Westerman: We've got huge issues with immigration we need to be addressing. But there are a lot of us that are working on those policies and we've got bills drafted and we're ready to go. But you just can't get it in committee. You can't get time on the floor. The USMCA, a trade agreement that would be great for our country has got bipartisan support. You know, Mexico is now our largest trading partner. So you'd have your first and second largest trading partners with a new agreement that would benefit farmers, benefit the whole country. And we can't get it on the floor for a vote. It could've passed two months ago with bipartisan support. So that's frustrating. But again, engineers are problem solvers and I keep looking at it, you know, how can I make a difference? How can we change this?
Rep. Westerman: And it, a lot of times it's a slow change. And a lot of times it takes changes in leadership. It takes changes in which party is in control. But I see light at the end of the tunnel and you know, in on the positive side of things is the economy's doing quite well. We could do, we could be doing better and we see pathways to make that happen and I want to continue working on that and using hopefully what I learned studying engineering and doing engineering for a couple of decades and applying that here in the United States House of Representatives.
Host: Well, Congressman, thank you very much. There's still a lot of work to do, but like you said, engineers are problem solvers and you're going to be here to help solve those problems. So really appreciate your time this morning and coming on the show and, and, and hope to have you on the future. And I guess today you have some votes and then you're out, right? The this is, this is the end of the week legislatively.
Rep. Westerman: Yeah. This is a fly out day. It's a you know, I love my job, but the happiest day of the week are when I'm heading back to Arkansas, back to the real world. And the people I grew up with, the people I love and the people I get to represent here in this this great job in the U S so we do have a vote today actually a vote on the impeachment inquiry. So I wish we were voting on a WRDA bill or something like that, but it is what it is. And you know, I look forward to continuing to work is a lot of the things that people don't see that are here in DC is that when most members of Congress are back in our districts, we're working as much there as we are up here in DC. It's a different kind of work. And with, I've got a large rural district, so I spend a lot of time on the road, but always enjoy getting back.
Host: Well, Congressman Bruce Westerman, thank you very much for being on the show. Again, this has been another episode of Engineering Influence from the American Council of Engineering Companies.
 

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