Welcome to Our New Website!

• By: ACEC/MW
• On: 08/23/2019 11:44:43
• In: ACEC/MW Board Chair's Comments
• Comments: 0

I am excited to welcome you all to ACEC/MW's new, dynamic website! I hope that you like it and find it to
be user-friendly and a positive experience. This could not have been possible without Mac Cannon and
Anna Seekins, our new Association Administrator. Congratulations to both Mac and Anna on launching
this new website on schedule as well as increasing our social media presence!

This is my first blog as the President of ACEC/MW, and I am truly honored and humbled by this
opportunity and hope to serve our member firms to the best of my abilities. My one-point goal this year is
to improve ACEC/MW's level of service to its member firms and their employees. So, the million-dollar
question is: what are the expectations from our member firms and how can we improve our value to
them? This really revolves around planning and operating the organization so our member firms see
ACEC/MW as a true resource and value, consider it their voice in the industry to help advocate issues
and causes, and help and create networking opportunities with clients and agencies. While we are
already doing this, there are always opportunities to improve and “do more.”

Our committees are the backbone of ACEC/MW and provide our members direct access to our clients; if
you or any of your colleagues are not part of these committees, you are missing a big opportunity. I
recently formed a task force to study the creation of additional committees and I am glad to report that the
board has approved task force recommendations to form a Maryland Municipal Committee to cover
Montgomery and Prince George's Counties and a Virginia Municipal Committee to cover Northern Virginia
counties and cities in the Metropolitan Washington Jurisdiction. Additionally, a new committee of Past
Presidents' has been created and they will be tasked with advising on strategic issues facing the
organization and other critical industry matters.

We have challenged our committee chairs to deliver the best value to our members and saw results
during our first luncheon of the membership year for water and wastewater, hosted by the Water
Infrastructure Committee (WIC). The luncheon featured an excellent line of speakers from four agencies.
Planning, not the plan, yields great results: this luncheon was announced early and publicized well and,
as a result, sold out a few days before the event. Congratulations to Arthur Jones-Dove, the new WIC
chair!

ACEC/MW has been a very active, robust organization in this region and our proximity, in particular, to
ACEC National is resulting in even more collaboration for advocacy and legislative issues and we are
working very closely with the new ACEC National President and CEO, Linda Bauer Darr. We have also
increased collaboration with ACEC/MD and ACEC/VA to work together for our member firms as many
firms belong to both these organizations and we share so much in common.

Additionally, new industry trends and procurement models for design-build (DB) and public-private
partnerships (P3) have increased the need to develop partnerships and working relationships between
the owners, engineers, and the contractors. Standard design practices and specifications need
continuous upgrades and dialog with the owners and clients and ACEC/MW plays a vital role in building
those relationships.

As football season kicks off, we continue our own hustle to get the Infrastructure Spending bill approved
in DC. Finally, keep an eye on the new things we are doing this year, like combining our holiday party with
the Engineering Excellence Awards Gala on Wednesday, December 4, 2019. Don't forget to mark your
calendar! More details will follow.

On behalf of the ACEC/MW Board of Directors, I hope to see increased involvement from our member
firms in our committees and networking events. I would love to hear from you about how we are doing
and any suggestions on how we can improve. Please drop me a note at
rizwan.siddiqi@ebaengineering.com.

Thank you, be safe, and have fun!     
Rizwan A. Siddiqi, P.E.
President ACEC/MW