To the ACEC Community,
Last week, we announced that President Trump’s 2024 campaign manager will be a speaker at our Annual Convention in May. That announcement sparked a couple of pointed emails from members about how ACEC should engage the new administration and whether this speaker was appropriate. There was also one congratulatory email. The same week we also received a pointed email about producing a letter of support for the new Secretary of Transportation. It’s clear that our members have strong feelings about the landscape in DC.
For almost ten years now, the partisan rancor in Washington, DC, and nationwide, has been at perhaps historic highs. It has been wearing on all of us as the pendulum swings back and forth. Some days it feels like whiplash.
But throughout those years, ACEC’s mandate and mission have remained the same: to serve the interests of the business of engineering. Our job is to ensure that the business environment in which our firms operate is as strong as possible, irrespective of which party controls Congress or who is in the White House. To do that, we need to understand the thought process of the key players making decisions that impact your businesses whether the underpinning is related to policy or politics. Both matter. Hence our choice to engage with both the political and policy minds attached to this new Administration and this new Congress.
Needless to say, this is a changed landscape and we’re all adapting. Tomorrow afternoon at 1ET, our Advocacy team will hold an online class on the Trump agenda and what it means to our industry. The briefing will focus largely on the President’s Executive Orders and Cabinet appointments but also touch on what might be in store on issues like taxes and immigration. On February 25, we’ll host a session focused on how the President’s EOs on DEI could affect our firms. Our Advocacy team also will hold a briefing on April 23 covering the President’s first 100 days and reviewing the progress we’ve made against our legislative priorities.
The Federal Agencies and Procurement Advocacy Committee (FAPA) kicked off their winter meeting this afternoon here in our DC office. On the speaker list are leaders from the Small Business Administration, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command, and the US Air Force. The meeting will focus on how we can further strengthen the collaboration between the public and private sectors to ensure a secure public infrastructure. I’ll include takeaways from this session in next week’s message.
We’re also looking ahead to two big events later this week and into next. On Friday, our Engineering and Public Works Roadshow will make its first stop of 2025 in Miami, spotlighting the Signature Bridge, a massive undertaking that will reconnect neighborhoods in the city. This project is a reminder that engineering can transform not just landscapes, but also the fabric of communities. The Roadshow event will be livestreamed. Be sure to tune in!
Finally, Sunday is the kickoff of Engineers Week. We’ve put together a webpage with suggested E-Week activities. Please consider participating. This year’s theme is Design Your Future – a call to think creatively, act deliberately, and to see challenges not as barriers but as opportunities. A great reminder to us all.
Have a great week,
Linda Bauer Darr
President & CEO
American Council of Engineering Companies | ACEC
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