Engineering Influence from ACEC

An Interview with Polar Explorer Ben Saunders

Throughout the Fall Conference, the power of translating human potential and wisdom across industries emerged as an overarching theme. Ben Saunders is living proof of how this multidisciplinary collaboration is already moving the engineering world forward. For those unfamiliar, Saunders is the world-renowned polar explorer and was the first person to lead an expedition to the South Pole and survive.
He explained to a Fall Conference audience how his experiences make clear that while we often think about technology as microchips and digital devices, the word applies evenly across all contributions of human knowledge. Saunders’s expedition to the South Pole took years to plan and four months to complete. To make this dream a reality, he would have to overcome three main types of challenges.
Along with commercial challenges (i.e., fundraising, equipment, and leading a team), he faced physical challenges (such as fitness, nutrition, and clothing) and cognitive challenges relating to the physical and mental stress of the journey.
When looking back on the mental preparations, Saunders “realized pretty quickly that that was the most important piece because when you’re out there, you can never really recover fully from one day to the next,” he said. “You’re always getting more and more tired. Every day you wake up and you’re just more tired, more tired, more tired in a sort of downward spiral.”
The statement resonated perfectly with the realities so many professionals face in today’s fast-paced and stressful work environments. That’s why Saunders spent years developing a strategy for the extreme mental and physical stress of the journey, including getting support from a well-respected psychologist. For Saunders, “it was vital having that sort of guidance and wisdom—good coaches and mentors and advisors that I trusted.”
Now, after spending almost two decades traversing terrains that are arguably the most unforgiving on Earth, he’s made a “weird pivot” to sustainable innovation, which seems a perfect fit for his skills and expertise.
“I’m enjoying being a kind of catalyst. Like, I’m not a scientist. I don’t have mounds of money. But I can raise money [and] I can point it in the right direction,” Saunders said with enthusiasm. “And find extraordinary talent and intellect and IP that I can kind of back, not just with capital but with my experience and wisdom—almost as a coach in some ways.”
When asked about his motivations, he said: “when we boil it down, I think that most of human wealth and progress, [as in] most value in business, has been created through extraction…it’s clear that trajectory can’t carry on. We need to push the limits of sustainable technologies, so that’s where I’ll be.”

An interview with Rizwan Siddiqi on the Importance of Community Service

We spoke with 2023 ACEC Community Service Award winner Rizwan Siddiqi, President and CEO of EBA Engineering in Laurel, MD on the importance of giving back to your community.

The Growing Partisan Divide with the U.S. Chamber’s Neil Bradley

Neil Bradley, Executive Vice President, Chief Policy Officer, and Head of Strategic Advocacy with the U.S. Chamber, was our first speaker at the 2023 Fall Conference. His presentation focused on a generational shift happening in Washington where both the left and the right sides of the political aisle are beginning to adopt policies that harken back to the big government days of the New Deal era. On the podcast, Neil discusses what this means for free enterprise.

An Interview with the ACEC College of Fellows Scholar of the Year, Michael Drummond

We sat down with the ACEC Scholar of the Year Michael Drummond to talk about his journey in engineering.  Recorded at the 2023 ACEC Fall Conference.

Operationalizing AI in Your Firm - With POWER Engineers’ Nathan Bingham

There's a lot of talk about the promise of AI, but much less about how the technology can be implemented in your firm. We sat down with Nathan Bingham, Chief Digital Officer with POWER Engineers to talk about how they harnessed the power of AI.

Are We Headed to a Government Shutdown?

Government funding expires on September 30th.  Unless the House and Senate come to an agreement on key spending items, we will enter a period of a partial government shutdown.  Is this avoidable?  How long will it last?  What impact will it have on our industry?
We talked to Matt Reiffer, ACEC's Vice President for Infrastructure Programs to find out.
 
 

The ACEC Research Institute’s 2023 Q3 Sentiment Survey

The ACEC Research Institute recently published its 2023 Q3 Engineering Business Sentiment Survey.  We sat down with Joe Bates with the Institute, to review the survey's findings and check the pulse of the engineering industry.  Download the survey here. 

Filling the Practical Skills Gap with VDCI’s David Sellers

David Sellers, the President and CEO of VDCI - the Virtual Design and Construction Institute (www.vdci.edu) joined the podcast to discuss how ongoing virtual education can help close the practical skills gap that exists with new engineering graduates who lack the hands-on skills to immediately take on project work on software platforms upon being hired.