Engineering Influence from ACEC

Revisiting ACEC‘s Project Management 101 Course

Registration is now open for the 7th session of Project Management 101 - the popular course focused on giving registrants the knowledge and tools necessary for successful project management at any level of their career.
To help announce the new session of the course, we're revisiting a conversation from August 2020 where we spoke with course instructor Howard Birnberg who discussed the new structure for the course and why it's important for engineering firm leaders at all levels.
Learn more and register for the course here: https://program.acec.org/pm101

Ryan Suydam Talks About Differentiating Your Firm by Improving Your Client Experience

Ryan Suydam,  the founder and Chief Experience Officer at Client Savvy, joined us on the program. Client Savvy works with professional services firms to understand how they are performing when it comes to their client expectations.
Click here to receive Client Savvy's One-Year Client Experience Plan.
Click here for information about the Client Experience online community and annual conference.
Click here for more information about Client Savvy.

Collins Engineers‘ Barritt Lovelace on How UAS, Digital Twins, and Holograms Can Streamline a Bridge Rehabilitation Project

Barritt Lovelace, Director of UAS/AI/Reality Modeling at Collins Engineers in St. Paul, MN, came on the program to talk about how his firm used drones, digital twins, and holograms to streamline its recent Stone Arch Bridge Rehabilitation project in Minneapolis.
Bentley Systems recognized the firm's achievements in its 2021 Going Digital in Infrastructure Awards, which honored projects from around the world that are pushing the envelope on digital solutions.

Private Markets Update: Digging into the new Private Industry Brief on Intermodal and Logistics

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/ 

Langan‘s Joe Romano on What‘s Driving the Labor Shortage in Surveying and What To Do About It

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).
 

A Preview of the Updated Economic Assessment of the Engineering and Design Services Industry

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. 
 

Government Affairs Update for 12-3-21

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.

M&A Update: Gary Bowman on Taking His Firm Public and Making Acquisitions

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.