Infrastructure Outlook: The Competitive Cost of Waiting to Invest in Infrastructure
As the U.S. population keeps growing, we can’t simply maintain the status quo. And to bring change, we need infrastructure investment: approximately $57 trillion during the next 12 years. In the past, the United States spent billions of dollars on improvements to outdated infrastructure; and although there’s a need to repair and upgrade, it can’t be our sole focus. We can no longer spend billions of dollars solely on improvements. It’s time to invest in “smart” and connected technology to meet...
From the Editor: Where Do You Go When You’ve Reached the Peak?
For the last 17 years, I’ve worked with surveyors, contractors, and engineers to help them lower their costs and increase profits. In doing so, I’ve seen many firms get to the point where they’ve reached “peak efficiency.” It’s exciting when an organization puts in the effort, makes upgrades, tweaks the process and gets positive results. But then what? Where do you go when you’ve gone as far as you can? In the early 2000s, I was consulting on earthwork operations. Earthwork is one of the larges...
Code Update: SMDI Updates Guide Specification for Highway Bridge Fabrication
High-Performance Steels (HPS) have been used in bridge projects for more than two decades, helping builders reduce weight, ease construction and improve design flexibility. HPS made a rapid entry into the bridge industry, with the first HPS 70W bridge completed in December 1997, only three years after starting the cooperative research effort to develop the material. Today, it’s estimated there are more than 500 HPS bridges in service in the United States. Although HPS use isn’t a new trend, ong...
Executive Corner: Why Is My Company’s Valuation Lower When Selling to Key Employees vs. Selling to Another Company?
I’ve spoken with countless exasperated A/E firm owners through the years who’ve asked why their firm’s internal valuation doesn’t reflect a number similar to what they believe they can reasonably expect from an external sale. Most, but not all, are first-generation owners who aren’t sure why they’re expected to sell shares internally at a discount to what they might receive on a pro-rata basis if their company were to sell to an outside acquirer. Understanding the various value levels can help...
Final Thoughts: Certainly Uncertain: Difficult for Engineers
Uncertainty. This is a word that engineers have a problem with, as we like to be able to predict what will happen. Nobody wants to design or construct a project for which we can’t predict the performance. Sadly, uncertainty now is part of the future of our national infrastructure. More than a year ago, when the current president took office, I prepared to write about the new infrastructure program he had promised. I collected some data and statistics to help show the need for increased emphasis...
ReEngineering the Engineer: To Fail or Not to Fail?
True confession: I didn’t always want to be a structural engineer. I grew up in the 1960s when the space race with Russia was at its peak. In those days, all I could think about was being an astronaut, probably like most other kids my age on the planet. How exciting would it be to fly to the moon and then walk on it? Ah, the engineering of it all! When my wife travels, the dog and I go to the basement and watch my favorite movies. Although I agree to watch the “chick-flicks” with my wife, she r...
From the Editor: Bridges to the Future
Every time my sister crosses a bridge, she gets anxious. This has happened her entire life, and, although not quite panic-attack-inducing, the anxiety is palpable. The fear of crossing bridges is common enough that it has a name: gephyrophobia. Trained as a structural engineer, I often marvel at the amount of weight a bridge carries and how many people cross them without ever giving it a thought. That is, until bridges make the headlines when tragedy strikes, and then bridges are on everyone’s m...
Bridge Code: Steel Bridge Design Specifications Revised in New AASHTO Edition
Sponsored by: Interim revisions to AASHTO LRFD Bridge Design Specifications (7th Edition) were published in 2016 with a few minor revisions to the steel bridge design sections of the specifications. The 8th edition of AASHTO LRFD Bridge Design Specifications is expected to be published later in 2017. As far as steel bridge design is concerned, a major revision to the design of bolted field splices and minor revisions to other sections are expected. Let’s take a deeper lo...
Executive Corner: Get Your Firm ‘Sale Ready,’ Even If It’s Not for Sale
You’ve decided to sell your house, so you fixed that broken screen door, pruned the hedges and cut the lawn. Why do those things now? Because you want to show your house in the best possible light to potential buyers to maximize its sales price. You’ve “gotten your house in order.” Like selling a house, to affect a successful sale of your firm, you need to get that house in order, too. You want to present your firm in the best possible light to all potential buyers—external or internal—to maxim...
Infrastructure Outlook: A Bridge Too Far (Gone)?
One of the most frustrating things about contemporary times is that people are unable to change their mindset as fast as technology progresses. According to American design expert Donald A. Norman, “Technology may change rapidly, but people change slowly.” And Steve McCurray, the American photographer best known for his world-famous photo of the “Afghan Girl,” says, “Technology changes, times change, but the essence of the culture and the people basically stays the same.” The truth of these o...
Stormwater Interview with Robert Page, P.E., Vice President, HNTB
Santa Barbara County North Branch Jail Expansion
February Issue 2026
