Brad Kubiak, ASCE’s Region 1 director, was speaking specifically about Society governance reframing options at the March board of direction meeting in Washington, D.C. But in the process, he may as well have been summarizing the key motivator for the ASCE Board of Direction’s actions in the last two-plus years.
Beware, Kubiak said, the seven most expensive words in the industry: That’s the way we’ve always done it.
The message was clear.
The ever-changing civil engineering landscape of 2025 demands new ideas and new processes. Kubiak and the rest of the ASCE Board of Direction continued to examine those potential new directions at their quarterly spring meeting following the release of the new ASCE Report Card for America’s Infrastructure and the annual Legislative Fly-In.
Here are some highlights:
Aligned solutions for complex workforce problems
Nowhere are the profession’s changing needs felt more squarely than the ongoing workforce crisis.
The Task Committee on Transforming Our Workforce updated the board on its approach, attacking the problem on four key fronts:
- Working with ABET to improve accreditation to better support industry needs
- Improving licensure to allow for multiple entry points
- Growing outreach to attract and retain more civil engineers
- Improving student pathways to better align with new educational and employment models
It’s a large job, and the task committee is exploring various ways different ASCE groups and programs, including Future World Vision and the Body of Knowledge, can help achieve those goals.
“We have seen it in projects – from design to construction: the lack of available expertise and talent,” said ASCE President Feniosky A. Peña-Mora. “As an organization, we want to make sure that our workforce is robust and ready.
“So we want to support the task committee as it looks to support and enhance our workforce. We will have more conversations at different levels throughout the organization to ensure that everybody is aligned in solving this complex problem.”
ASCE HQ
ASCE signed a letter of intent for the sale of its headquarters property in Reston, Virginia, having received an unsolicited offer in early 2025 and then conducting a careful evaluation of options.
The organization is committed to a hybrid work environment and intends to maintain a physical headquarters with meeting space in the future – just one that reflects the significant reduction in office space needed post-pandemic.
The building sale is contingent on land use approvals from Fairfax County, Virginia, which could take several years. The sale will go final only if all the steps are completed, most likely in 2028.
ASCE purchased the six-floor, 113,000-square-foot building in 1994 as part of its headquarters relocation from New York City to the Washington, D.C., metro area.
Determining a new location for headquarters will require work with ASCE staff and volunteers to identify the best fit.
Governance reframing
The Task Committee on Governance Restructuring led a 90-minute discussion with the board that outlined its initial round of stakeholder outreach. The dialogue included questions such as, “What is the optimal governance framework for making decisions and guiding ASCE and the profession into the future?”
The task committee’s charge is to develop changes to ASCE governance that result in a more strategic board and more alignment among Society entities to better meet future industry needs and grow membership.
If it sounds like a big job, well, it is.
“Instead of the ‘Roaring ’20s,’ we have the ‘Tumultuous ’20s,’” Peña-Mora said. “We started the decade with COVID, and that definitely made everybody rethink just how interconnected worldwide we are. And then we’ve had wars, we’ve had changes continuing all over the world.
“So we have this responsibility to ensure that ASCE can navigate these rough waters and can come out ahead and continue to provide value to our members. And I think this is what we are doing as a board.”
The task committee is scheduled to present initial recommendations to the board at the July meeting.
Revised at-large director criteria
The board voted to approve 2025 supplemental criteria for selecting its next at-large director. In addition to its standing guidelines, the process will also prioritize individuals with knowledge or experience in one or more of the following areas:
- Strategic relations and practicing advocacy
- Compensation and benefits
- Strategic industry shifts and change management
- Technologies and innovations
- Justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion
Ethics translation
The board voted to approve on first reading a proposed official Spanish translation of the ASCE Code of Ethics. The Committee on Anti-Corruption and Ethical Practice prepared the translation. Though it is not an amendment to the ASCE Code of Ethics, the board is following the same process for considering this translation as it did for the original document, meaning it must pass the board on first reading, be presented to the membership for review, and then pass by a two-thirds approval on second reading. In this case, that second-reading vote will be at the July board meeting.
The vote was made especially poignant given that it was presided over by Peña-Mora, the first native Spanish speaker to serve as ASCE president.
Future-focused
The change-making theme continued as the board also received updates on artificial intelligence as well as open-access publishing.
Eva Lerner-Lam, chair of the AI Readiness Task Committee, presented on the fundamentals of AI and how it intersects with the civil engineering industry as the Society looks to develop an AI strategy and consider ways to protect intellectual property while using ASCE’s knowledgebase to advance civil engineering practice.
In publishing, meanwhile, ASCE launched its first open-access journal, ASCE OPEN: Multidisciplinary Journal of Civil Engineering, in 2022. It also convened the Open Access Task Force in 2023 to develop a proactive strategy to stay ahead of potential open-access trends in order to protect the ASCE publications portfolio.
The report to the board in March was complicated by recent changes in the research and publication field that may pause or even reverse some of the open-access changes taking shape in previous years. The task force will continue to monitor developments for potential responses.
Finally, nothing says future-focused at ASCE more than the Society’s Younger Members – literally the future of the organization. The Committee on Younger Members updated the board on its recent highlights – which include a huge number of YM events, strong turnout for the 2025 multi-region leadership conferences, younger member-led career webinars, and several prominent ASCE younger members serving in key leadership roles in Society programs.
“You see all the wonderful work that the younger members are doing, and you feel like the future is very bright,” Peña-Mora said. “As a board, we must continue to support our early-career members so that they have everything they need to keep making these contributions.
“The energy they bring and the excitement they create is really shining through our organization.”
