Project Management Insights: Delivering on Brand Is Integral to AEC Marketing and Management
How you deliver projects either supports or hurts your branding. At a rudimentary level, the role of marketing is to create awareness and generate demand for a company’s product or service. The brand is the link to the buying marketplace, and it’s the identifier in name, logo, symbol or other intangible form. In the building and designing industry, the marketing function didn’t always get the respect or resources it deserved. It was seldom present at strategic planning sessions and often rele...
Executive Corner: What’s a Good Outside Board Director Worth?
So you’ve finally decided to add an outside, independent director to the board of your privately held A/E firm. You’ve even identified several candidates. Now the question is what (if any) compensation to offer them. For an independent party to take on the time and responsibility of serving on your board, you expect some level of compensation to be appropriate, but how much? Looking for Guidance Before addressing that question, here are a few background statistics on board compositions in...
Thoughts From Engineers: A River Runs Through It: When Green Infrastructure Is More Than a Bit Player
Urban water management is on course to complete an evolutionary circle. When cities began to modernize more than 100 years ago, the goal was to dispose of wastewater as quickly as possible. Engineers studied the physics of natural systems with an eye toward building the structures needed to subdue them. Sewer mains, large tunnels and massive pumps have faithfully rerouted and diverted unwanted water through our pipes and treatment facilities for most of the 20th century and into the 21st. Foc...
From the Editor: Witnessing Engineering’s Evolution from the 1970s to the 2020s
It’s the beginning of a new decade, which is a good time to look back and ahead. I had the opportunity to visit with some friends recently; colleagues I worked with at the Indiana Department of Highways back in the 1970s. All of us are retired now and are moving on to other meaningful responsibilities such as raising chickens and working with wood on a lathe. We all agreed, however, that the work we did was important and made a difference to the greater community, while, at the same time, we...
ReEngineering the Engineer: Do You Have a ‘Plan B’ for the Totally Unexpected?
I try to take some time over the holidays to reflect on the previous year. What good things happened? Were there any things we could have done better? Do our employees have the proper skill sets for their current positions? Is there any software we’re missing to help our people be more productive? Is there a decent backlog of work coming in for 2020 to keep my staff busy? Yeah … there’s a lot to think about as a business owner, but I try to catch my breath and then prepare for the next year....
Infrastructure Outlook: Analytics Must Drive Next-Generation Infrastructure
There’s no question that America’s infrastructure is antiquated and in vital need of modernization. If we want our infrastructure to be more efficient, cost-effective and secure, however, we must prioritize mathematical and analytical insights that enable a smarter and more-innovative infrastructure system to meet myriad complex and evolving demands as well as help secure the nation’s global competitiveness for generations to come. Infrastructure policy too often is structured around a series...
Thoughts From Engineers: Spinning Gold: Desalination Steps in to Alleviate World’s Water Crisis
A scenario reminiscent of Garret Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons” plays out quietly around the globe. Proof that swelling populations in bone-dry regions of the world can no longer survive on existing reserves of freshwater, technology (and money) step in to mute hard reality. According to the International Desalination Association (IDA), there are 20,000 desalination plants in operation today worldwide. Not surprisingly, more than 70 percent of them are located in the Middle East, a region wit...
Executive Corner: What Is Your Ownership Strategy?
Does your firm have an ownership strategy that clearly defines how you will be able to exit your firm? Are you relying on selling your firm to a third party or the next generation of leaders? According to the Census Bureau (and assuming age 67 for retirement), more than 9,000 people each day are hitting retirement age, and this is expected to increase to more than 12,000 per day by 2028. During this same period, the gap between the number of buyers and sellers will likely narrow and, in some...
From the Editor: Is the ‘Scary Season’ Over or Just Beginning?
I started thinking about my column for this issue when I received an email from Todd Danielson, the editorial director, with the subject line reading: “Next scary column deadline.” Obviously, it was due near Halloween. A year ago, I wrote about the various “costumes” we wear or characters we play as engineers and how that might change during our careers. This year, when I received that “scary” email about the deadline, I remembered some of the times during my work life where I was scared or a...
ReEngineering the Engineer: Not ‘My’ Job? Engineers Don’t Have that Luxury
One of our architectural clients approached us with an interesting renovation of an existing building. It was a relatively older building with an existing tenant in one half of the building and several vacant suites in the other half. The owner had purchased the unoccupied half of the building and wished to turn it into a nightclub. Of course, no existing drawings were available. It sounds simple enough, until they tell you a true firewall was required to separate the two occupancies. That me...
Video: Crashes Drop Measurably After Rural Road Safety Improvement Project on US 521 in Lancaster County
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June Issue 2026
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