The good news? The ASCE Board of Direction held its meeting, Oct. 5-6, in Tampa without a hitch.
The bad? It was just about the only part of the Society’s big week in Tampa that went as planned before Hurricane Milton shut down the city and canceled the ASCE 2024 Convention.
“I closed out my presidential year unconventionally while getting a sober reminder of what many of our members and communities around the world are experiencing with the increased impacts of extreme weather events,” said ASCE’s 2024 President Marsia Geldert-Murphey, who led her final board meeting as president in Tampa. “We saw a tropical storm undergo rapid intensification and within two days was classified as a dangerous category 5 hurricane. It reminds us that we must still be committed to supporting resilient solutions for the future.”
ASCE was able to hold a ceremony bidding farewell to its outgoing directors and transitioning power to new leaders, including 2025 President Feniosky Peña-Mora. And it was a busy board meeting as members worked through a full agenda ahead of the storm. Some highlights:
Member grades
The board voted to pass on first reading the Board Strategic Advisory Council’s recommended consolidation of member grades.
The measure would combine current Affiliate, Associate, and Member grades into a single Member grade and update the qualifications for ASCE president to include the P.E. or Fellow grade. Because these changes require changes to the ASCE Constitution, they require passing the board on second reading in January and then a two-thirds support by Society membership in next spring’s election to take effect.
“Creating a more inclusive membership while sustaining the integrity of our Society is much like the resilience we aim to achieve in the built environment,” Geldert-Murphey said. “Just as our infrastructure must be adaptable to changing conditions, ASCE must also evolve to remain strong and effective for the future. By broadening our membership and embracing diverse perspectives, we ensure our organization stays dynamic and innovative, capable of addressing the complex issues we face as a civil engineering profession while supporting our core values and mission.
“This dual focus on inclusivity and integrity will help build a more resilient future not just for our profession but also for the communities we serve. I believe the board’s decision reflects a bold and visionary approach showing foresight in advancing ASCE’s mission and vision.”
BSAC will continue its outreach campaign to collect member feedback.
Setting priorities
The board approved 2025 Priority Issues as recommended by the Public Policy and Practice Committee. The priority list, based on a survey of members with input from the committee, helps ASCE staff and volunteer leaders focus on lobbying and advocacy resources. The 2025 list (alphabetically):
- Climate and hazards mitigation (codes and standards, adaptation, pre-disaster mitigation, and related)
- Cybersecurity (keeping critical infrastructure systems secure)
- Energy grid (generation, distribution, transmission, and the like)
- Environmental stewardship (solid waste, hazardous waste)
- Transportation (aviation, bridges, ports, rail, roads, and transit)
- Water infrastructure (drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater)
- Water resources (dams, inland waterways, levees)
- Workforce and education (STEM, expanding the leadership pipeline, and related)
Growth opportunities
The board received updates on several key projects that provide tremendous growth opportunities for the Society.
Work continues to develop the annual convention as a new ASCE unified technical event. The vision is that the event would bring together ASCE members from all corners of the organization for a cross-disciplinary opportunity for collaboration and advancement.
Much work remains – including a name for the recurring event – but the inaugural conference is planned for the first week of March 2027 in Philadelphia.
“I am extremely excited about unifying our technical and geographic communities in 2027 to provide a convention that brings together diverse expertise, skills, and perspectives,” Geldert-Murphey said. “As a profession, we are being called upon to tackle complex infrastructure issues that no single discipline can solve alone. This collaborative approach not only strengthens our ability to integrate cutting-edge research with practical experience, but it also fosters innovation and more comprehensive solutions.
“We have to break down our silos and foster seamless collaboration to amplify our collective impact!”
Meanwhile, the Leadership Conference Task Committee, formed this past March, has been working to consider the possibility of a flagship ASCE leadership training summit. The event – which could incorporate some established Society leadership programs, such as the Presidents and Governors Forum and the Younger Member Leadership Symposium – would showcase leadership pathways within ASCE while helping members advance personally and professionally.
Finally, the Standards Office presented its FY25 business plan and provided updates on its first year, including filling out the new staff team and conducting an extensive market research survey. That outreach found that respondents want a variety of materials supporting new standards, such as webinars and continuing education courses and credits. The top areas for new standards, according to the survey, are resilient infrastructure, sustainable infrastructure, and new materials.
Reimagine ASCE
The BSAC Task Committee on Reassessing and Reimagining ASCE’s Organizational Structure and Budget Process provided a progress report ahead of its official recommendations scheduled for the January 2025 board meeting.
The task committee has narrowed its key themes down to three:
1. The profession of civil engineering is transforming to serve humanity’s evolving needs, and ASCE must change to align with the evolving needs and values of the civil engineering profession.
2. ASCE must become inclusive of the entire infrastructure project team.
3. The future governance and structure of ASCE must align with the Society’s strategic aspirations, in support of our efforts to serve humanity.
Heavy hearts
The final board meeting of each year always brings with it some extra emotion as each cycle’s outgoing directors say goodbye – often with touching, inspiring remarks.
There were additional heavy hearts this year as the board was still reckoning with the recent death of Patricia Galloway at 67.
In 2004, Galloway became the first woman to serve as Society president, and she remained a force in global infrastructure and within ASCE in the ensuing decades. Geldert-Murphey and outgoing Past-President Maria Lehman made pins with Galloway’s photo for board members to wear during the meeting in remembrance, and Tom Smith recognized her contributions during his executive director’s report.
“She didn’t break through the glass ceiling; she exploded it,” Lehman said.
