Executive Corner: Five Takeaways on 2020 A/E M&A Activity
The 2020 global pandemic will forever be remembered as when the simplest of norms and patterns across everyday family and office life were turned upside down. A/E leaders, whose patience and determination were tested just as they were 10 years ago during the depths of the Great Recession, once again rose to the occasion. Through care and compassion, instinct and intellect, they led our resilient design and construction industries, the steady and steely backbones of the country, to even greater h...
Thoughts From Engineers: The Shadow Cast by Lead Pipes
On the eve of the New Year, amidst a pandemic and presidential transition, the final revisions to the Lead and Copper Rule (LCR) were published on Dec. 20, 2020. The new LCR modifies and updates parts of a law that was first passed in 1988. At that time, spurred by Safe Drinking Water Act mandates, hazards to public health from lead service lines (LSLs) were officially recognized. Widely used in everything from plumbing fixtures to welding solder, forces finally mobilized to end historically ent...
From the Editor: Engineers Need To Find Their Voice in 2021
What if you inspected a bridge and found severe rust deterioration of a fracture-critical steel member, and you reviewed previous inspection reports that documented the progression of this condition? And what if you took this information back to the office, and everyone agreed this was a serious problem? And what if you requested the governing body for funds to correct this problem, and they said they don’t believe the experts, refused to do anything about it and told the public to continue driv...
ReEngineering the Engineer: Patience Required: Getting Up To Speed Can Be a Slow Process
Our older daughter was an early professional casualty of the pandemic. Although she received her college degree in finance and marketing, she had a passion for event planning. She started working with a local woman shortly after college, part time. She went to full time in October 2019, signed a two-year lease for an apartment in Charlotte, and started her new life on her own. North Carolina instituted its shutdown on a Thursday. The following Monday, she got a call from her employer, putting h...
Accelerated Efficiency with Data-Driven Design
Viktor Várkonyi, Chief Division Officer of the Planning & Design Division and Member of the Executive Board of the Nemetschek Group, explains why data-driven design is more efficient than model-driven design and what this has to do with Building Lifecycle Intelligence. Building Information Modeling, as the name implies, should be all about information. But the reality looks quite different – most BIM processes are centered around model-based workflows. This approach implies that models are de...
Tech Tip: Is it Time to Update Your Civil 3D Template?
If you’re on an Autodesk subscription plan, new versions of software are available to you every year, and periodic updates, enhancements and hotfixes are issued on a pretty regular basis. Although your software may be keeping up to date, your template file might not be. Our professional services team has had numerous conversations with customers interested in reviewing the quality of their working template files for efficiency and effectiveness. During these conversations, it’s not unusual to f...
Code Update: An Advanced Approach to Seismic Code-Check of Steel Connections
About half the buildings designed and constructed in North America have some level of seismic design requirements. Seismic design has evolved—engineers now face terms such as capacity design, dissipative item, plastic hinge and deformation capacity—so this column hopes to shed some light on recent developments. Capacity Design The objective of capacity design is to confirm that a building is capable of a controlled ductile behavior to avoid collapse in a design-level earthquake. This involves...
From the Editor: What’s Past Is Prologue, But the Future Seems Uncertain
For the last three months, I’ve been teaching a senior design class at Valparaiso University, my alma mater. When I say “at Valparaiso University,” I mean “at home, for the university, through online software.” The pandemic has had a significant impact in the way classes are taught worldwide, and I can only speak to my experiences. We’ve been using Zoom software and, as you probably know, all you see are a number of windows with the students’ faces. Difficulties of Online Learning It’s a chall...
Executive Corner: Are These Beliefs Crippling Your Firm?
You’re probably familiar with the adage “beliefs drive behaviors, behaviors drive results.” From my 15 years of experience as an owner and CFO for architecture and engineering firms, I can tell you that faulty beliefs are the biggest culprit when firms are underperforming financially and struggling in other business areas. The challenge is that most of these firms don’t know that holding faulty beliefs is what’s driving poor performance. That’s why it’s of paramount importance that every firm h...
Thoughts From Engineers: A Moving Target: The Challenge of Predicting Flood Risk
The Aug. 20, 2018, storms that hit Dane County, Wis., near Madison, unloaded in some locations nearly 15.33 inches of rain in a 24-hour period. Flood stage on Black Earth Creek climbed from 2 feet to 9.7 feet within a few hours, and the two-day rain event firmly shattered all precipitation records for the region. For decades, the 100-year floodplain has guided the delineation of the country’s special flood hazard zones, restricting development in and around areas of high flood risk, and serving...
Stormwater Interview with Robert Page, P.E., Vice President, HNTB
Santa Barbara County North Branch Jail Expansion
February Issue 2026
