Engineering Influence from ACEC

Hot off the heels of ACEC's first Private Market Symposium on Intermodal and Logistics, Erin McLaughlin joined the program to delve into the newly released Private Industry Brief on that market.  Download your copy here: https://www.acec.org/publications/private-market-resources/ 

Labor shortage issues are big news, both on the national stage and within the design services industry. For design firms, these shortages are largely due to long-term declines in the number of STEM students as well as the need to attract a more diverse workforce. In this episode, we dove a little deeper into the situation for firms in a key segment in the design services industry—surveying. Surveyors perform the initial fieldwork on civil engineering projects and they face some particular workforce constraints related to state licensing and other issues. To talk about these issues, Joe Romano joined us on the program. Joe is a principal and Director of Surveying and Mapping at Langan, which is a 1,500-person consulting firm with offices worldwide. He is also the Chair of ACEC’s Coalition of Professional Surveyors (COPS).  

Ken McGill with Rockport Analytics joined the program to preview the newly updated Economic Assessment of the Engineering and Design Services Industry. This is the second annual release of the report, which measures the economic impact of the engineering and design industry and forecasts its growth over time. On Wednesday, December 8th, the ACEC Research Institute will host a roundtable discussion which delves into the specifics of the report.  The event, which is free to attend, will review the new five-year forecast, explore the impact of the Federal Stimulus programs and infrastructure bill, and also discuss insights from the Institute's new Engineering Business Sentiment study. Register here for "Understanding Engineering's Future Impact on the U.S. Economy (a live roundtable)" on December 8th at 12:30pm.   

Steve Hall joins the program to discuss the new ACEC action alert on the PPP FAR credits clause focused on Senate action on the National Defense Authorization Act.

The Mergers & Acquisitions market continues to be a dominant trend within the A/E/C industry and is a popular topic for our podcasts. In this episode, we talked with one of the more active participants in the market.  Gary Bowman is the Chair and CEO of Bowman, which is headquartered in Reston, Virginia. The firm has more than 900 employees in more than 30 offices around the country. In May of this year, Bowman completed a $53 million initial public offering and in the ensuing months has completed four acquisitions. Gary came on the program to tell us about going public, his firm's recent acquisitions, and his thoughts on the market going forward.

Indications are that firms will be working in a remote or hybrid model for the foreseeable future. While firms have learned a lot about how to manage in this environment, it remains problematic. Randy Anderson of E3 Professional Trainers came on the program to talk about how managers can make the most of remote work. In his previous career as a sales manager for various regional TV stations around the country, Randy gained a lot of experience in managing salespeople remotely. He has since applied that knowledge to the design-services industry. Click here for more information about Randy Anderson.

Diana Alexander and Erin McLaughlin joined the program to preview their first ever Private Market Brief on the K-12 and Higher Education market.  If you think there's nothing to explore in education, you don't know what you're missing!  Read the brief and get the inside information in this episode.  

In the coming weeks, the ACEC Research Institute will release the findings of a new study, "Future of Technology and Its Role in Engineering" which will detail the adoption of technology by engineering firms.  In this episode, Bentley Systems' Lori Hufford, Vice President, Design and Engineering, Enterprise Systems and Dustin Parkman, Vice President, Mobility, Industry Solutions discuss the study and share their perspectives on how technology is changing the A/E space.