A New Kind of Unity in All New Conference Experience

Fall 2020

NSPE Today
A New Kind of Unity in All New Conference Experience

Since NSPE’s founding in 1934, members have not missed the opportunity for an annual face-to-face gathering, and in most of those years more than one meeting was held. In 2020, despite the COVID-19 pandemic that forced the cancellation of the Professional Engineers Conference slated for Philadelphia, member volunteers quickly adapted and successfully organized the Society’s first virtual conference, held August 3–7.

The conference featured 24 online sessions, with numerous opportunities to collaborate and discuss professional issue, albeit in two dimensions. Each day, the conference had a different theme: communications, public works, innovation, sustainability, and building and leading your team. Through web conferencing, three education sessions were held each day. Morning coffee talks covered topics such as Tips and Tricks for Being Licensed in Multiple States, Legislative Issues Impacting Engineering Practice, Climate Change Mitigation, and even Quarantine Bingo; roundtable chats at the end of the day summed up the day’s sessions.

This year’s virtual format may have lacked the same kind of teamwork, unity, and fellowship that comes from traditional in-person meetings. NSPE’s Virtual PECon did, however, present a different kind of unity along with new opportunities for PEs, EIs, and students to attend without the expense and time commitment of travel. Despite a pandemic that forced the cancellation or postponement of an untold number of conferences, conventions, and tradeshows, NSPE members found new ways to connect and bring the profession together.

A Word from Our Speakers:

Ensuring Successful Stakeholder and Community Involvement

Nicholas Albergo, P.E., Founder, HSA Engineers & Scientists

“Community engagement, in general, works best where it’s a cumulative and ongoing process, enabling relationships and trust to build and strengthen over time. And, of course, the challenge is, oftentimes, we just don’t have that kind of time or access, and as a result there’s lots of ways community engagement can break down and it takes a real effort to move it forward.”

The Professional Engineer’s Role in Artificial Intelligence and Technology

Ben Amaba, P.E., Global Chief Technology Officer, IBM

“Why is licensure important [in AI and technology]? Because data has become an intricate part of our daily lives and how we do engineering, much less professional engineering. It makes sense for data and artificial intelligence—the inventory in the machines that create this—to have certain licensure [requirements] or engineers at least looking at the minimum standard of competency.”

Overcoming Volcanic Eruption Damage: How HDOT Kept Two State Highways Open

Curtis A Beck, P.E., F.NSPE, Consultant and Construction Manager, Bowers and Kubota Consulting of Waipahu

“It was the engineers who made the biggest positive impacts in this crisis. Watching my colleagues go about their professional work with cool determination while others around them seemed confused or uncertain or even frightened made me extremely proud to be an engineer and to have been associated with these engineers.”

Three Characteristics of Supercharged Teams

Kevin Johnson, P.E., Vice President/Principal, Freese and Nichols Inc.

“Let’s talk about creative problem solving. We are engineers and we like to solve problems. That’s what we have been trained to do and that’s what gets us excited. But they are not problems, they are opportunities. I think if you look at a problem as an opportunity, that really changes the way you encounter and solve that problem. As a teammate or a leader of a team, you have to work to encourage your team and make sure that everyone is involved in the problem-solving process.”

Present with Impact: A Professional Engineer’s Guide to Making Effective Presentations

Roger Grannis, Sales Communications Expert

“Confidence comes from good content. If you’ve got a good message that’s well crafted, the confidence will come and so will the results.”