The annual conference wasn’t all fun and games, but the best part was.  Each year, the conference is followed by a service and outreach event.  It is a great opportunity to shed the business attire, escape the meeting room and give back to the community.  This year ASCE members volunteered to make improvements to the Heartland Therapeutic Riding Ranch. The facility provides equine-assisted therapy to children and adults with disabilities through human interaction with horses.

While some volunteers were doing construction jobs around the ranch, others ran hands-on events to teach kids about engineering.  Over 50 local children and their parents attended.  We might hope that a few future civil engineers were inspired by the activities sponsored by ASCE.

Photos from this event (and other related outreach activities) can be viewed at The View: ASCE’s Pre-College Outreach Photo Gallery on Flickr.com

Please excuse me for jumping straight from day one on the Annual Conference all the way to the closing remarks.  I was deathly ill err…busy.  It’s along story, but here are the highlights: an 80 mile round trip joy ride to set up for the service activity in a Chevy Cobalt (alas the Cameron’s father’s Ferrari was in Chicago); a costume party in the Negro Baseball League Museum (contains almost as much history as Wrigley field); and diner with author Brian Brenner (not quite as prestigious as Abe Froman, sausage king of Chicago).

Why all the Ferris Beuller jokes?  Ben Stein was the final speaker at the conference.  Far from the monotone sleep inducing lectures attended by the Wonder Years’ kids, his talk was very entertaining.  He woke everyone up by starting, “I like you guys because your job’s not B.S.”  As opposed to the entertainers with which he frequently works, he expressed thanks that engineers work “real jobs with exactitude.”

An economist by training, Mr. Stein then gave a quick history of economic policy in this country.  There was something for people of all political orientations to cringe at.  His take on supply-side (a.k.a. trickle down or Reganomics): “it doesn’t work.”  He’s no lover of the Obama administration’s economic policy either.  But to explain why we find our selves in this current economic malaise, he offered this analogy to civil engineering: “credit default swaps are as if every time you built a bridge, you were required to attach a land mine that would explode at some random point in the future.”

Finally, he turned his cynical gaze toward education.  Having worked a quiz show and a reality program about the intelligence of Hollywood models, he is quite terrified about the state of education in America.  Several anecdotes backed up this impression.  Even among college graduates, he lamented, “you can be pretty drunk and hung-over and get a C in college.”

Lest we all despair about the future of the country, he did end the conversation with the inspirational stories of the men and women in the armed forces.

The connection between his various stories and civil engineering was subtle but important.  People from all walks of life are seeking answers to the complex questions of our day.  Engineers are viewed as an elite team of problem solvers with the education and creativity to solve these problems.  It is a lofty charge but one we can achieve if we accept this vision for the profession.

The closing of the conference represents the end of our “day off.”  Like Ferris Bueller’s friends, we’ve learned more about ourselves and the expectations for our profession.  Monday will come and we’ll be back at school or work, but perhaps the conference attendees will be better able to tackle the daily challenges and make the most of the rest of the year.

The demographics of the nation and ASCE are changing.  While a steady stream of grey-haired or no-haired men still appear prominently throughout the conference agenda, a subtle change is taking place among the attendees.  This became clear to me at the leadership luncheon on Thursday, where I was the only white male sitting at my table.

To my right were two gentlemen who had traveled from Nigeria and Uganda to participate in the society. They have actually been ASCE members for several years and hoped to bring ideas back to their countries for growing the professional organization.  A lively discussion about education advocacy also piqued their interest.  Though they come from the same continent, they expressed real differences between their nations.  I was surprised to learn that Nigeria is actually more densely populated than China.  Meanwhile the gentleman from Uganda told of his struggle to technically educate people from the more remote regions of his country.

On the other side of the table, there sat two students from the University of British Columbia.  We don’t usually think of Canadians as minorities, but these students actually called China home.  Rounding out the table were three younger members from San Diego, a local engineer and one ASCE staff member – all female.

We all enjoyed a lively conversation and sought out our similarities: the reasons we became engineers, our professional passions and hobbies.  I left with a standing invitation to go snowboarding in Vancouver, surfing in California and hiking in Africa.

The opening session of the ASCE Annual Conference began with a wake-up call to all in attendance.   Wayne Klotz declared, “modern society cannot exist without infrastructure,” in his final presentation to the society as President.  The mega-cities in which we live are fueled by a constant intake of water, food and energy.  These resources must travel fantastic distances and undergo many purifying processes.  Civil engineers are the stewards of this  high speed conduit. We should be self-aware and proud of the vital importance of our profession.  Wayne urged the incoming leadership and all in attendance to embrace the ABCs of ASCE: advocate for, believe in and commit to advancing the profession and protecting the nation’s infrastructure.

The importance of advocacy was driven home by Jim Suttle, professional engineer and mayor Omaha.  He reminded us that the qualities of successful engineers are necessary to face the problems of the day.  There is a need in policy development for analytical evaluation of facts.  Engineers also serve as a model for politicians when applying an ethical reverence for the public health and safety.  Finally, we were reminded that engineers who engage in the political process succeed by tailoring their practices to the political realities of government decision making.  In short, we all lose when engineers shy away from advocacy and the public debate.

Later, Eric Peterson, representing a Washinton, D.C. think tank for strategic international studies, gave a litany of reasons why engineers must recommit themselves to solving societal problems.  Or in Wayne’s words, “building our way out of the problem.”  Eric’s main points did not specifically call out engineers, but we can read between the lines to find areas requiring engineered solutions.  He isolated seven drivers of massive social change by 2025: 1) population trends, 2) resource allocation, 3) technology, 4) knowledge distribution, 5) global economic integration, 6) conflict and 7) governance.

The first three points speak directly to infrastructure upgrades and maintenance.  How do you support 6.8 billion people, and rising at a rate of 152 people per minute, disproportionately concentrated in large urban centers?  What infrastructure changes will be required when the aged population exceeds the youth?  Will it be possible to transport more resources farther and by sustainable means?  What opportunities are opened when micro computing provides a chip capable of running a thousand thousand trillion processes per second (that’s not a typo)?

Looking deeper down the list, we’re confronted with questions like the one posed by Thomas Friedman, “is it better to be a B student in Bethesda or a genius in Banglore?”  In the flat world, historic geographical, political and socio-economic barriers matter less.  How will America compete with the rapidly growing economies of Brasil, Russia, India and China (the BRIC nations)?  Are they more committed to growing and modernizing their infrastructure than the US?

Eric didn’t offer many solutions to these questions.  He admittedly took the easy way out and declared that the world of the future would be one of great potential and great peril.  Which ever side of the coin we fall on might well depend on how much we believe in the ABCs of the profession.

During the run up to the 2008 presidential election, people were surprised to learn that bloggers were routinely granted access to the candidates.  At the Democratic National Convention, about 120 bloggers received press passes.  In 2009, ASCE has followed suit.  I was the first blogger to be granted press credentials to the annual conference.

Really, this just allowed me to roam around the conference without getting hassled for registration documents.  I was also entitled to the free coffee, tea and eavesdropping in the press room.

I met writers for ASCE News and Engineering News Record. Additionally, I was among the first to know that Andrew Herrmann, who worked on the the Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, was going to appear on Good Morning America to discuss the damage cause by a failed reinforcing collar on the San Francisco Bay Bridge.  However judging by the immediate buzz in the room, the story of the day was the disappearance of several small bean bags used for a game at the Geico Insurance booth.

It may not have been the CNN Situation Room, nevertheless I’ve enjoyed an interesting behind the scenes look at the messages being formed at the Annual Conference, not too bad for my first assignment in the field.

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