The last few months have certainly been different. Many people are working from home, and there’s much less travel leading to jokes about commute times to the office and how many weeks per gallon cars are reporting as their efficiency standard. This different…

The breach of the Edenville Dam in Michigan, which sent floodwater over the downstream Midland Dam and forced thousands to evacuate on May 19, 2020, tragically captures the catastrophic risk posed by aging dams with absentee or financially strapped dam owners…

Well, here we are in August. It’s hard to believe the year is more than half over, and many of us spent about two thirds of that time working out of our living rooms and kitchens. It’s almost become normal, although I know working that way isn’t going…

Alarm bells are ringing desperately as disasters are waiting to happen on America’s bridges. According to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, more than 47,000 of the country’s 616,087 bridges are “structurally deficient” and…

In 2008, I had just taken a position with a large, international engineering firm as chief financial officer. The firm was coming off a good run of profitable years, solid cash flow and expansion into new markets, but it was starting to feel the strain as…

The stay-at-home orders due to the pandemic are beginning to be relaxed in some places. For me, at least for some time yet, I’m choosing to act as if everything is not yet back to normal. Whatever I’m called—baby boomer, dinosaur or grandpa—I’m at…

A day rarely goes by in the United States without some news about drinking water and the physical, social and administrative systems needed to deliver it. We hear about lead contamination in Newark, N.J., Flint, Mich., and other cities. We hear about water…