Engineering the Future: Engineers Need To Be Among the Leaders and Decision Makers
“You have to be comfortable being uncomfortable.” That’s my one-line, takeaway quote to students and younger engineers when they ask for one piece of advice. In today’s fast-paced, ever-changing world, if you stand still, you’re falling behind. Gone are the days when you could have a specialty and the design was basically “wash, rinse and repeat.” Artificial Intelligence will do those tasks. When I’m speaking to a group, I illustrate this by asking everyone in the group who is a project engine...
Transportation Troubleshooting: Enhancing the Passenger Experience at American Airports
“I think this is one of the most exciting periods in the history of aviation to work in this field.” That’s how my WSP colleague, aviation expert Gaël Le Bris, CM, ENV SP, P.E., characterizes the progress unfolding at airports and in the overall aviation sector these days. He’s well positioned to stake this claim—not only as a vice president on the U.S. aviation planning team, but as a visionary who has authored a study on “The Future of Airports: A Vision of 2040 and 2070” and is involved with...
Executive Corner: Can the Conventional A/E Internal Transition Make a Comeback?
Sometimes, business structures and models endure through generations; occasionally, they fight to stay relevant. For as long as anyone can remember, the reliable internal ownership transition, in all its subtle nuances and variations, has served as both the primary mechanism for exit-strategy planning and a symbol of “making it” in the profession. Harking back to an apprenticeship approach of centuries ago, young designers would hone their craft under the tutelage of their senior practitioners....
Smarter Solutions: Embrace an Alternative Duct Bank Pathway for Future-Ready Developments
Working on larger-scale projects (e.g., commercial offices, education and healthcare buildings, campus data center environments, etc.) can present unique challenges, among them the crucial need to ensure that spaces are resilient and able to seamlessly accommodate future growth capacity and other changes. When designing agile, future-proofed spaces, it’s necessary to consider the fact that more complex, larger schemes also need more extensive duct bank systems to hold all the communication cabl...
Infrastructure Outlook: From ‘Good Enough’ to ‘Built to Last’: Rethinking How We Deliver Resilient Infrastructure
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) “2025 Infrastructure Report Card” presents a sobering assessment of the state of U.S. infrastructure, assigning an overall C grade. While this marks a modest improvement from previous evaluations, showing the positive impacts of federal investments, it underscores the persistent challenges facing infrastructure in the United States and beyond. For those of us working in transportation, this isn’t surprising. Aged roads, railways and runways across...
Water Works: Stormwater Undercurrents: Finding Steadiness in a Time of Turbulence
Managing stormwater has always been about managing change, but recently it seems like changes impacting our industry are accelerating. New pollutants, permits and practices as well as shifting legal, political and climate dynamics all are realities of working in this essential and evolving part of our nation’s water infrastructure. So, it seems like a good time to ask: What can stormwater professionals count on not changing in the next five to 10 years? What underlying dynamics will stay the sa...
Change Leader: Virtual Power Plants Can Transform Energy Grids
This interview was recorded by Todd Danielson, the editorial director of Informed Infrastructure. You can watch a video of the full interview above or by visiting bit.ly/3FIy1Tf . Jasper Shi is senior analyst, Energy and Natural Resource Ratings, for Morningstar DBRS. Do You Know VPP? The virtual power plant (VPP) is a revolutionary technology for the electric utility industry, but it’s difficult to define as it’s more of a platform or system composed of many different parts...
Future Forward (Powered by ACEC): Smart Engineering: Transforming Our Industry
Powered by: In today’s rapidly evolving engineering landscape, firms are grappling with significant challenges. Talent shortages, potential tariffs impacting supply chains and the push for sustainable designs are making it harder to deliver innovative solutions. However, there is a silver lining. With record backlog and technological advancements at our disposal, we have the opportunity to transform our industry. The key lies in embracing smart engineering. Smart engineering integrates...
Progressive Design-Build Delivers a High-Risk, High-Reward Bioenergy Facility
Stantec used Oculus 3D augmented-reality headsets to convey design and operation details to owners and facility managers. The $271 million Piscataway Bioenergy Facility in Prince George’s County, Md., (part of the Washington, D.C., metro area) is one of the most technically sophisticated sewage facilities ever completed in the United States. It’s only the seventh facility in the United States to implement thermal hydrolysis, a two-stage process that treats sludge with high-pressure boiling...
Aging Infrastructure and Climate Risks: The Urgent Need for More Modern Monitoring and Assessments
Satellite-based assessment of the Edenville Dam (conducted post-catastrophe) identified deformation clusters at the eventual breach area that were showing diverging movement up to 14 months before the failure. Deformation clusters exhibiting movement across the dam are typical signs of a dam’s weakening structural integrity. More frequent and severe weather events tied to changes in global climate patterns are testing the limits of aging infrastructure. Dam and tailings storage-fa...
Stormwater Interview with Robert Page, P.E., Vice President, HNTB
Santa Barbara County North Branch Jail Expansion
February Issue 2026
