Let's go ahead and get started. Good afternoon. Hello. My name is I'm the chair of the Department of Environmental Engineering. I'm pleased today to welcome you to the 2020 one per lecture and engineering mechanics and design. The lecture isn't an honor. I'm Emeritus Professor Arnold curve from our department. I would like to acknowledge bird occur, Regina, Carol Lorenzo, and orange curve for their continued support of this lecture series. This year we're honored and lucky to have my character, my carrier, alum from our department and President and CEO of BHB present today on building a sustainable, resilient, and equitable future. Some quick logistics. We certainly will entertain questions, but please do so in the chat feature and we'll get to those after my presentation. Thank you, and I'll turn it over to Mike. Hello. Good afternoon, everybody. Really is wonderful and honor to be here today with people who are passionate and focused on making sure that the arc of our communities, our cities, our nation, our worlds built environment, bends toward a sustainable, resilient, and equitable future. A future that evolves and it's prepared for us to enjoy, appreciate it, probably pass on to future generations. Isn't that why each of you came here to this conversation today or when do your field of study? For me? My career and passion is focused on community building, city building. Now, each of us likely tends to describe ourselves as planner, engineer, and scientist, architect, financier, organisms, whatever. But really, when it comes down to it, we really community builders, city builders. And we've gathered here today to do a deep dive with similarly intention, students, professionals who share a passion for making sure our communities, our cities, our nation, our world, remains inviting, hospitable place for our children's children. Children relate the true sense of stewardship, right? We believe that right. Or you wouldn't be here today? I know I became a civil engineer because offer me the opportunity to make an impact and really helped shape communities. My dad was a surveyor, full-fledged streets. He loved this job, often, talked about it, drove me by different projects and the city was working on, I always thought, wow, if you can have an impact on how your city looks or how bridge gets designed or built, how people get around, interact with each other. I want to do that. I want to work on something that I can see and touch, experience and help make even better. Which led me to come to the University of Delaware and enter into the college of civil engineering. I'll tell you, I loved my time at UD. Studies were hardened, intense, but the experience was tremendous. My first year as the sole program were packed with courses, kind of built with the foundations, right? And then, you know, after that It took just some sheer determination to work through those courses. Just really move on then as I can have my junior year and started having some flexibility, course selections, was trying to challenge myself. And I'd heard about this Dr. Cara and his beams on continuous foundations course. Now that may not sound exciting to you, but that course. Now Really, doctor Kern, man, we honor, with today's program, LET my passion for civil engineering and I could do with it in the knowledge I was obtaining. Up until that time, I didn't kinda strong insightful professors, but I get to really come across one who put passion, zeal, and excitement, incredible knowledge to the classroom. Dr. cared intimidate the **** out of me at first. But over time I realized that was my problem, not his passion and zeal for using principles to solve real-world problems was inspiring. He challenged me to push partner and think more creatively and search for different creative ways to use my engineering foundation to explore ways to solve real-world problems. That class, it can exciting in a way that had me look forward to every class with Dr. Pepper. From there on, I got to know Dr. Carr bit better through conversations as my kinda late junior and senior year. And beneath that intense exterior was a kind, passionate man who wanted his students to really become the best that they can. Not to settle for easy solutions, but to strive for creative ways to explore and improve the built environment. As I left Delaware, went out into the real world. So I thought, I thought my time in New York would be just a happy memory, but you know what it was. And it is still a happy memory. But the University of Delaware and dock, the car would show up later, multiple times down the road and my career. Now the early part of my career, I'd be focused on trust, your bridges and highways, all good and really interesting. But then I stumbled into a transit project. Boom that passionate Dr. Carrie displayed in the first part, the meat was read lips. Working on transit projects. Move b from designing interstate major arterial roads and bridges, mostly based on that design manuals at the time was look more formulaic to exploring how to create transit systems and projects that would encourage people to utilize transit in their everyday lives required more rigorous thought about the role of transit and transportation of people's lives. How it provided improved access to underserved communities, conserve natural resources and eight, and improving air quality just helped improve mobility options and helped people improve the quality of life. This was something I could really get passionate about. A way to use my engineering knowledge and skills in concert. And they can really help the world become a better place. Project by project. Okay, now flash forward about eight years. And another UD influence was about to happen. As my career and the trends of consulting and street was advancing, I was fortunate to come in contact with a gentleman named Rich hanging, incredible, thoughtful, Driven Leader, along with a few colleagues have found that an engineering company in Boston that was working trade accompanied that would weave together elements of mobility. Community building, environmental stewardship, really fascinating, good unusual approach back in the mid-nineties, which offered me the opportunity to join the firm, started Transit practice, one that would help build out their vision of bringing benefits to communities with each and every product. We talked about the transformational impact of transplant communities from all three elements, mobility, community, environmental stewardship. Both got excited about the possibility. One thing led to another. I accepted a position, the opportunity to build a transit program. And that's hanging restaurant BHP in the Boston area. And as we finished and kind of shook hands on the deal, Rich said, Oh, by the way, are you going to college, university a dollar. He said. And he just hello, overlapping impelled me to thank my wife Claire and I are double dels, dice could alignments. So are my wife, Joan and I. So a few key asides here about the University of Delaware. And again, this is up in Boston. There were a lot of people up here. 90s. So remember how I mentioned Dr. K. It sparked my passion for engineering back in my junior year. Well, so to University of Delaware, its chunk finch sparked my passion during my junior year. John and I've continued on and we're approaching our 36 anniversary this fall. Needless to say, a lot of great things happened to me at my time at Delaware. Oh, by the way, the Richard II hanging ITS library. So engineering college on campus is named in honor of rich hanging. Well, as an understatement, which I am not hit it off. And he went on to become a mentor and a friend to me. More importantly, he has colleague showed me a world. We truly could impact your community Little by little, project by project. And you could do in a way that respected the perspectives and the humanity of everyone in the community and on your team. And as you utilize your technical expertise, the community and the collaborative manner with diverse colleagues and shape and playing the engineering projects. You could partially progress with pride because you knew that they were balancing short-term decision-making project which had to happen to get something built. But it was also Wang and perspective of a sustainable solution for the long-term. It's people would experience it, live out their lives and enjoy the benefits of your efforts. And now for the past 23 years, I've made it my mission in life to lead first a transit morale team, department, region, and ultimately all PHP to fully embrace an approach that rethinking, reshaping, and rebuilding of projects and programs and embrace sustainability, resiliency, and equity as core principles. But before I dive in a little more deeply to building a sustainable, resilient, equitable future. There's one more Dr. touchpoint that helped me and VH PQ is always working to build VSB is transient or L2. We needed to expand the track design expertise or if someone shares. I'm doing some research. I came upon the Institute for engineering founded and led by Dr. Kerr. Some of our young team members to the institute over the years for track design course. The lessons they learned there along with Dr. Chris book Fundamentals of railroad track engineering or early contributor to the advancement of DHPs transitive routing. So let's get back to the main focus of today's discussion. I'm here today because I want to challenge you. You future leaders, community builders city built a shapers of the built environment to enter the workforce. Not just starting straight ahead to go build cool stuff that it has a lot of fun. But to really embrace the concept and the responsibility of becoming community builders, city builders always focused on the big picture. Please. No. The contributions we can make a technical problem solvers. We have an incredible opportunity to make our mark as leaders helping to improve society. And I proposed to you that you can best do this with a holistic approach. I want to dive deeper into that with you today. Now how we live, work, and play is rapidly transforming. The needs of our communities are evolving. Sustainability really isn't resiliency and social equity all gaining importance. They so richly deserve. These changes are affecting our daily lives and with lasting impact, there's a tremendous opportunity. Presses, engineers, scientists, planners, all walks of life to re-imagine are built environment for the better. I believe we're at an interesting point in our history, therefore, our careers, yours and mine. And I believe that blast for 14 months of COVID isolation has generated a situation where we've had more time to see, listen, and witness what's been rapidly advancing over the past decade plus 2 impacts of climate change and extreme weather. Harsh reality of racial and social inequity. Pastures brought these things existed long before COVID to the surface, more into our everyday conversation around. So what are we gonna do about it? I say we have the opportunity, dare I say the responsibility to apply our education and technical expertise with robust public engagement, diverse perspectives, data and technology to help make our communities more sustainable, resilient, more equitable. Accepting this challenge comes with responsibility to not only get the technical elements exactly right all the time, well, that's technical body. But it also requires taking deep consideration how the fine and explore the alternative solutions are utilizing the multiple lenses of sustainability, resiliency, and equity. With that in mind, I'd like to share a few stories. They'll engineers and planners are aiding communities and cities and using sustainability, resiliency to equity as lenses help secure a better future for their citizens. Let's start with sustainable. Does it really mean to planning and design practice? The word sustainability, it's tossed around quite a bit and often with various meanings. So for the sake of our conversation today, I offer the ongoing practice of sustainability relative to our communities is a philosophy. Problem-solving requires analysis, work across industries, infrastructure, and stakeholders. Nutritional environmentalism. Anytime you use the word sustainability, is often relied on asking individuals to simply do more with less, using less plastic or driving to work. But really, it has to be not asking industry and institutions how to improve things. Sustainability is really not much more than just protecting the environment. The community focused on sustainability takes a holistic view, gets their social, environmental, and economic issues while leveraging innovation to make long-term enhancements. Across the country. Globally, cities and states are moving towards shaping their futures with sustainability plan, a roadmap? Well, many are making commitments to decarbonization and clean energy. Let me share with you a real-life example of how a major US city, it's proactively going about things. But first, my colleague Ben squint scale provide a context for the seven effective sustainability implementation is really about partnerships. In case of cities, It's partnerships between the city residents and the business community. Many businesses large and small, have their own sustainability goals and values that they abide by. And by leveraging those efforts, the city can maximize its sustainability, planning, and implementation. So let's talk about Saint Petersburg. St. Petersburg is the first city in Florida in the 20th and us to commit to being completely reliant on sustainable energy sources. It's also wanted to 60 US cities to scientists Chicago charter to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Saint Peter's pledged to become more resilient to the effects of climate change. That's a sea level, sea level rise and extreme weather events. There's a blueprint for advancing sustainability resiliency goals. The city develop an integrated sustainability action plan that they weren't interested in creating, just environmental stewardship plan. They wanted their sustainability plan to focus on enhancing equity, reliability, and resiliency of our community as a whole. The plan establishes Smart City goals and strategies for broad social, economic, and environmental sustainability. The three things specifically taking myths plan beyond the traditional first, Sydney developed a detailed greenhouse gas emissions inventory. Not only for municipal operations, but also for the entire community. That analysis allow for the development of reduction strategies. The detailed 100 percent clean energy roadmap. They'll say develop a detailed vulnerability assessment so they can understand what infrastructure and actions are most vulnerable. Be able to prioritize initiatives to meet those vulnerable. The identification of these goals and strategies, data driven, informed by community input, emphasize the relationship between transportation, urban design, and home. Extensive public outreach. Stakeholder engagement were critical to the success of this project. As a result, community conversations lead survey responses help pointed to issues which were raised as major areas of concern. One, sustainability action, a sustainable action plan across city must be tied to racial and socioeconomic equity. In particular, via access to education and employment opportunities, to citizens needed avenues for equal access to multi-modal transportation, affordable housing, really critical elements to people's day-to-day life. Now the strength of St. Peter plan, it's also affecting the city being selected by the American cities. Climate change is one of the 25 cities to meaningfully deepen and accelerate their efforts to tackle climate change and promote a sustainable, resilient future for their residents. The prestigious two-year programs funded by Bloomberg philanthropies and comes with significant support and funding experience for local focused programs that helped me carbon reduction goals address climate change. Throughout all of this, again, there's the technical elements. There's also the partnership and engaging the community that help drive these things forward. So if sustainability aims to make communities better places to live. President, resiliency is about preparing for tomorrow. For instance, COVID-19, crisis that followed showed how vulnerable many places are to sudden economic shocks. With the right support. Communities can become truly future-focused, bouncing back more quickly, the worst happens and keeping citizens safe along the way. Creating future focus communities is vital for the well-being of its citizens. We have a role to play in the years to come. Resiliency means thinking about everything from improving infrastructure to disaster management, adequate food supplies. How these challenges I met can build a strong foundation ultimately, in communities where future focused and ready for tomorrow. Now before I share project example about how North Norfolk, Virginia Community is implying a holistic resiliency approach to protecting their community against sea-level rise due to climate change. Another of my colleagues will provide some insight into resilience. Sure, like design with major sea level rise becomes an increase in fret to the coastal communities resiliency. I know this is important at University of Delaware understanding this is a huge part in environmental science. It's filled. The need for resilience shorelines has really driven by wave erosion, by storm surge and buy a more recent recognition of sea level rise. A key consideration is the level of protection that is desired. And that, that results in achieving a balance between cost encroachment into the upland and encroachment into the offshore area. Shore protection can take a number of different forms. Could be hardening a shoreline with a stone revetment or a seawall. These are vertical structures that generally are obstructions between the land and water are very effective in controlling shore erosion. A more desirable approach is what is now becoming termed a living shoreline, which creates a natural transition from the water to the land and tries to recreate that natural land water interface with the marsh, back shore area and then an upland. The primary benefit of a resilient shoreline is that it protects the upward. So you've protected up when improvements he lit, you've limited land loss over time. And if you're if you're able to apply a living shoreline approach, you have added benefits of improving or maintaining the ecological integrity of that land water interface. We continue to work with our clients to develop a Brazilian shoreline designs that preserve their investment and their properties, and to develop plans that are compatible with their vision for both the upland and their usage of the water in a way that protects their investment over the long-term. Now, it's interesting. Nor felt Virginia is one of the largest populations at risk for sea level rise. Us, it just feel Heights Historic District and granted privilege. Neighborhoods frequently faced coastal flooding due to sea level rise and major rainfall. In 2017, the city began the Ohio Creek Watershed project after receiving a $112 million resiliency grant, provides natural disaster resilience competition. The first step nor folks Ohio create project, include and extensive community involvement process to make certain that residence for both neighborhoods are heard and involved in projects progress. The process not only reveal the urgency to address the major flooding concerns and the needs to connect communities. The concentrate poverty strengthened maybe communities, local businesses and workforce faced many setbacks and lack of neighborhood amenities and public spaces and prevent community connection highlighted the inequities in the community. In addition, an eight lane interstate highway that separates these neighborhoods from the remainder of the city, including the light rail station. And it challenging for resonance to access safe from. The city, addressed feedback from the community support, the resiliency strategy aimed at transforming these neighborhoods. These efforts, including raising roadways to make them operational during heavy rainfall events, replacing old infrastructure to hold more rainfall, and designing multi-use trails, not like fields, create a sense of community. Elements such as lighting, educational science, and sidewalk improvements. We're awesome. Cooperated throughout the project to improve connectivity to address threats to nor folks resiliency. The city also developed coast and defensive strategy with berms, high Gates, raised roads, living shorelines, footballs. Now to fit perimeter flat control features into existing industrial and residential infrastructure, impacts on adjacent water bodies and tidal wetlands had to be considered as we went forward. The result incorporates primary and secondary armour stone bring amendments. 2 thousand linear feet of living shoreline that offsets necessary encroachments by creating more than four acres of tidal marsh, which protects from future flooding. The Ohio Creek Watershed project, not only improved flooding, prove the flooding issue, but the overall quality of life for the community through economic, public health safety and expanded connectivity accessibility. Without completion scheduled for 2022. This project now serves as a successful model. Resiliency for coastal communities facing similar challenges associated sea-level rise. Throughout to continue the open and trends. Parent communication city is dedicated Neighborhood Development Specialist to make certain that residents are well-informed, connected, and engaged throughout the remainder of construction. Again, always China's elements of community partnership. And when you're done. So sustainability, resiliency, equity, social equity needs to be heart, smart, future focus Community Design. And there's much planners, designers and engineers we can do to make this happen. We're then we may realize equity as it relates to how and where infrastructure is built. Now we as technical experts approach planning, design, and construction. It's really important to tie all these things and take them into consideration. This includes everything from affordable housing, healthy designed access to public transportation. The key to progressing this and projects is listening to communities to understand what they truly need, not what we think they need. It's about collaboration, partnership. It's about doing a lot of listening. Last fall and the light of the George Floyd murder, murder, BHP hosted a webinar and discussion, drew upon the presser of urban environmental policy and planning at Tuffs University, Dr. joint agents article. For him, black visible cyclists need to be part of the post-pandemic transport planning to. This program was designed to promote awareness around the ways in which our approach to planning and design can have the power to challenge or continuous systems of inequity. Calcium questionable elements of our practice have been burrowed into our normal way of doing things unconsciously, leading to increasing and equity. However, by intentionally thinking through and proactively altering our design and planning guidelines and practices. We're able to move towards more equity in our built environment. And it all starts with listening. Listen to what people who will benefit from the project are telling. Here's a short example. Blanket tickets know who's on the mass Massachusetts Department Transportation Board of Directors. Will also an urban planner, clarifying what it means to go and listen to projects constituents. What can urban planners do to meet people where they are in order to be more inclusive, to get more opinions. I mean, it goes back to the community thing is to make a saccade. It was, it was starting to remind me of something. And I am very much an optimistic skeptic. So that's pad of the sphere in which I live. Here in Boston, there was this project called the 2008 Act. Basically was a bus rapid transit project that was going to go through down blue Moab, which goes through a community that has just been ravaged by an equity, segregation, etc. And it was everyone's like we have federal money. It's an amazing project. They're going to have Subway like service. So the team put all this together, you got the federal funding and then talk to the community about it. And the community made it very clear that absolutely not, That's not going to happen. And so years after that, I had been doing some research trying to get an understanding of what might work for the community if there was any way to kinda scrap those plans. And I talked to people like, whoa, go to this advocacy group, go to this social service place. And I was like, But you went to all those places and they're like, Yes, I make so why would we do it again? So what I did instead was I went to a local restaurant, I went to a local coffee shop. I went to the churches, I talked to the leaders of faith, actually talk to the people who live in the community who have created not in organization that you can go to their website, created these, these families and created these community centers. And I think thinking a little bit more thoughtfully and not just going and googling CDCs in a particular community. But it does once again require you to talk to people. And I think planners laws on just don't like to talk to people, especially about issues like this. And so I do, I think it's just re-imagine what community engagement means. Because it can't just be that little box that you check and it can't be just continuing to go back and say people are going to get the exact same answers. But it's going to require people to leave their offices. And now it's even worse. But it is this thing that I feel like planning to do. Well last time. They didn't do it well before the pandemic. So then it doesn't become a question is how are we engaging these communities? How are we meeting them with all the restrictions that we have? They're not going to be at a social service and they're not going to be at the local community center. They're going to be in many other different ways. And I think that's where you need to start training planners to go out into the community and have a conversation as opposed to community engagement. Now, Mike was talking from the perspective of an urban planner. But as an engineer, you could easily replace engineer, scientist. All of that into her discussion there. We all need to be more thoughtful and proactive about listening and going out in the community for you, start trying to solve a problem. I share that with you to take part. I want to share with you also a story about an effort to help revitalize a community in Orlando, Florida. The parent more neighbour, Pam, where community in Orlando, Florida suffered from many inequities, neighborhood experienced increasing the population or unemployment, insignificant roadway construction, slowing economic growth. Homeownership in this community hovered just 9%. Unemployment reached more than 20%. This is all pre COVID. Since the late teens, urban planners and engineers from our team worked to revitalize the area with a focus on access to healthy food, mixed use development, green space, and access to public transit. Part from shrinking inequity, city's healthy, clean design approach made the palm or neighborhood Understandable. Partnership with the community consortium resulted and equipment to build ten sustainable family homes every year for two decades. Home gardens were also promoted, making residents healthier and reducing the need for trips to the grocery store, ultimately supporting self-sustainability. The primer redevelopment effort also led to say, to examine inequity in other neighborhoods across their footprint. In particular, because we moved into this year and last year, COVID-19 stay-at-home orders brought attention to the digital divide that existed in Orlando. Many other cities throughout the country without adequate access to the Internet. Schoolchildren, without high-speed Internet access to make the transition to online learning. In the ice, they were unable to virtually connect with family, friends, essential services. So as part of the Orlando Future Ready plan to kind of developed out of what was discovered in the parent more project that we worked on. The city recently began initiative to lessen that digital divide. See supplying local community centers with tablets, Wi-Fi hotspots available for checkout at no cost to resonance. Now Orlando residents have access to technology for homework, job searches, Community Health updates, breaking news and more. Smart community programs like this and addresses societal Ecuador be problem can have significant impacts on people's lives. All three of these projects. They weave together efforts of civil engineers, environmental scientist, urban planners, people who are all working to figure out how do you put together the pieces that what we all bring to the table to move these projects forward. And it does this perspective around sustainability, resiliency, and equity. It allows you to do that partnership with the community. I want to dive a little deeper here though, into the idea of creating equity. Want you to consider how to bring it into the Teams that each work on. The back and the same webinar that I mentioned regarding systemic racism, planning and design of our transportation systems. Your agents challenged us all to be more intentional about building diverse teams in order to enrich the team's overall quality of thought and perspective. Want you to listen to Dr. aging. I say in all of my soul to whether they're on cycling or not. Does your organization look like the people it serves? If it isn't, if it doesn't, and this could be a non-profit, this to be a governmental organization. This could be a political policy. If your organization doesn't look like the people who says, Well, I'll you legitimate or you trusted, or you effective. Can you even do what your mission statement says you should be doing? This is an area that each of us are capable of making a difference and matter who you are, no matter what role you're in. Don't be hesitant to speak up, to be an ally, to be a leader. Now recently the engineering consulting industry leading Trade Association, the American Council of engineering companies, made up of the leaders of more than 5500 US firms, recognized that we needed to address diversity inclusion in our industry has known how to approach sometimes uncomfortable top. Now, being a leader of a firm that's always helped diversity as a core value. Thanks to a blue hand, retargeting is VSB co-founders. I felt compelled to step up and help explore the top partnership with two other firm liters. We surveyed some of the leading firms getting data on 60 thousand employees across 35 of the largest firms. Through that effort, we also gained, not only does that data for our diversity, for our industry, we've also collected insights about how firms were addressing increasing diversity and creating inclusive environments in their firms. Once we got people talking about this uncomfortable topic, are able to more deeply engage a 22 member working group to explore lessons learned, leadership insights and successful examples of firms. What frames we're doing to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion. The working groups spent the better part of nine months meeting and developing a guidance document in the resource guide. Martin Council of engineering companies recently published this document and shared freely I'll share with you after today. I encourage everyone on the line today, download it and use it as a guide as you help build your team's going forward. Recently, shared this story with you that I believe with our industry is going to lead the way and solving. Some are a nation's most nations most complex challenges. We need to compete for highly skilled talent to prepare for the rapidly changing nature of our world and our society. It's critical that remain focused on building teams, organizations, universities and businesses. Include individuals with diverse backgrounds, thinking and perspectives to help us get to smarter solutions, better results for our clients. Now in closing today, this lecture series is happening virtually right? Because of Zoom having become, aren't bundle for the past year. Plus, we've learned a lot over the 14 months. As individuals, as individ, organizations, as institutions of society. There's no going back. There's no, when this is all over, we'll go back to normal. Now. We have to move forward. Must apply all we've learned, not just in the classroom but in society to make the world better. So as you ponder embarking on your professional journey, please, I implore you, do not get lulled into thinking that the goal of our problem-solving efforts is merely a technical endeavor. To take the heart, the responsibility to bring a mindset and a commitment to sustainability, resiliency, and equity to all you plan, design a bill. And that's exactly what another blue him president, by weaving into all of this administration's efforts. You have the opportunity to improve people's lives, to create great places, to build the future. You have the opportunity to be a community builder, city built a shape or the built environment. You have an incredible opportunity to make your mark as leaders, helping to improve society. Grab a hold of that opportunity and pursue it with a passion and purpose. I promise you. You will have not only enjoyable career, but an emotionally and spiritually enriching one as well as you leave your mark on the surf going forward. Go blue. And I really appreciate you guys inviting me to be with you today. Thank you very much. Thanks, Mike. I have a couple of questions that I'd like to start with. Everybody who's attending. You're welcome to put your questions in the Q and a, and we will get to as many as we can. The first one, Mike, you mentioned listening and community engagement and played a video regarding engagement. When we work in the field, we often have difficulty with community buy-in. What does VH be due to work towards community buy-in? It starts a lot with really listening at the beginning. I think sometimes our industry has been challenged with we get handed an assignment that already has a definition of what the purpose of the project is. I think as we go forward and we work with whether it's a client or a community. You have to revisit what the real purpose of the project is, what you're actually trying to dress and solve. And it really is impractical to think you could do that without engaging the community and engaging the community historically. And Lisa, we've done incrementally better. I think we need to get much better. Was a series of did you talk to this group? Did you attend this meeting? Did you posted on a website? It was more actions that you could, if you will, check off as Monica said, that were done as opposed to did we really get input and information? And if that means you're not getting it there, you've got to find different ways. You've got to work with community action groups to figure out how can I connect with this. They were, how can I really understand? The issues are, and how can we work to make sure that we're solving the right problem that the community is challenged with. Sometimes it takes an extreme amount of effort, but again, to get to a project solution that you think is wonderful and you're ready to cut the ribbon. And the communities all stand around saying, Well, that wasn't aren't real problem. Which has happened in the past, you know, is very self-defeating. So it's really about doing whatever you can, reach me on anyway, you can, and employing people, engaging people who know how to find and connect with the people in the community and create a trustworthy relationship with them. And again, part of this I think, is connected to the idea that, you know, you have to have. And we have to build teams that have a broad and diverse background of people so that they can offer a true understanding and perspective of the communities that we're trying to work. Thanks Mike. Another question. Since civil infrastructure, through its design, construction, operation, and maintenance, has a huge carbon footprint. How can we, as a civil engineering community, best help society move to lower to net 0 CO2 emissions. If it was easy, we would have thought of it already. This is not an easy undertaking and I think the practicality of it is just the part of what do we go build, but go back to, okay, what are really the challenges and the issues? How do we, how do we have the conversations about, you know, how a community might be evolve and be planned and designed that how can we drive down the need for single occupant trips? The type of cars that are generating greenhouse gas. How do we move to two different elements of mobility? How do we think about how we plan our communities? You've probably heard of a lot of conversation around communities planned for a 15 minute walk for everything that you would need. And again, these are my pen a C is out there, but they're all pieces that we need to be thinking about and moving forward on. I think we also know from the civil engineering field and Lisa, my career started in final design and I've kind of worked my way back into a lot of the kind of planning and making sure we're asking the right questions at the beginning. We have a tremendous amount of historical guidelines and standards of how we're going to use certain materials and elements. We need to be much more aggressive as a, as a community, as an industry to rethinking those elements. And to thinking about bringing and weaving in different materials and different approaches to, to advancing some of the solutions that we're talking about. Because you're right, There has to be physical hard elements built. And we need to be open to looking at new and different ways to address that. Thanks Mike. One of our civil PhD students would like to ask, how do we as a civil engineering community. Become more susceptible to buying into innovative practices. I was talking with some folks at Federal Highway Administration and they mentioned to me how there is a disconnect between innovative design, for instance, research and what is currently being done in practice, and how much inertia there is to see change in our practices. Obviously this is to be expected. However, the mentioned to me that the things I am researching now will most likely not be implemented in practice for another 50 plus years potentially. Ultimately, it seems like we're constantly pushing for innovation, but it takes a lot of buy-in for everyone to accept these innovations. Therefore, what are some pragmatic solutions that we as civil engineers in the community can buy into for our community to be more accepting of these newer and more innovative practices. You've hit the nail on the head. That's kinda what I was referring to in my previous comment. I think it's incumbent on all of us to be much more engaged in, in trade associations, in Standards Associations, in taking on positions of leadership, whether it's on public sector or private sector. And bringing these ideas, these new solutions, these new materials forward. The reason, the reason they are so hesitant to move forward. The reality of the situation is, again, over time, the people that tend to be in those positions who are setting the standards or her holding onto the past, are sometimes unaware and maybe nervous about trying something new. As they're towards the latter part of their career. We have to be proactive. We need to encourage people of forward thinking elements into advancing in their careers to be able to take on these positions and to bring that open-mindedness going forward. So from realistic things, you need to be active in the different specification societies that are reviewing, whether it's through TRB or AASHTO or you could go down the line depending on if we're talking about water. Now, there's different associations that are always looking at how you bring about change in the specifications, design guidelines. They're not sometimes the exciting dynamic positions, but there's the positions that influence the change of what design guidelines are, what specifications are. So unless we're getting in there and we're expressing our voice an opinion, and bringing examples of how dynamic the world is, the things that are being researched now, if they're being conveyed to someone who has no idea kind of how to connect with what the researcher is conveying. That's where the disconnect happens. That's why we need people to be much more proactive than to just head down in their office, you know, doing research. We're doing design and planning and design activities. You've gotta do both. You've gotta be active in what you're technically advancing. You need to bring a broader perspective and get to the leadership roles. You can be the agent of change. This is not for the faint-hearted. That's, that's where you've got to move beyond just a technical problem solver to being someone who's the agent of change that you want to have. All of us. Thanks, Mike. Another question. Among the many issues, what do you believe will be the most challenging issues civil engineers will face in the coming years. I think there's, there's two big areas I think are somewhat related. I think we haven't yet come to grips with the societal impacts of what will come out of autonomous vehicles. I mean, right now everybody's focused on kind of the unique aspects of the autonomous vehicles and how's it work and how will we get it to, to kind of communicate how we get in a mixed fleet, but move all of that away. Okay? What changes are likely to happen to society when you do get to that point where you've got full absorption of an autonomous vehicles. What will it do to the, the layout of communities and cities? What will it do about peoples? Now you think of what we've learned on working virtually and think what or where will people live, how will they choose to maybe take a much longer for that few days? They do want to be president in office to engage face-to-face with people or teams, would they be willing to travel much further within an autonomous vehicle because they could be doing different things and getting work done and things of that nature. What will it do to the Laos cities? And once you do that, what does it do to the real estate industry and what does it do to the development of the next wave of the layout of real estate in communities and all of the aspects that go from there. I think the other one that is challenging us. It's all about thinking about what's going to happen in society that will create the challenges that we engineers will be part of helping to address, right? Because we, we tend to need to be thinking of what the society me, that we can help address. So when you think of what's going on in the world and the kind of almost that, that tipping point I think where the, the realities forget the debate or how, or what the realities of what governments around the world and private sector industry is investing to address the issues of climate change. And what we need to be doing with energy policies around the world as that changes. And is that significant investment changes that the makeup. You know, of our, of our energy mix. How does that change society? How does that change the built environment? How does that change the way communities are laid out? So for me, that perspective always comes. What a civil engineers need to be thinking about is what's going to be changing in society. And what does that mean for the challenges that will be facing? So I think sometimes we wait and react. I think we need to be an active participant in those discussions about what's happening on a societal level and what are the outcomes of how to help society evolved to live, you know, high quality of life experiences. And then how do we as civil engineers make that happen? Thanks Mike. This question is about our beach communities. In Delaware, we have very popular beach communities that have a big economic impact on the state and just continue to grow. We continue to build big homes right on the beach, even after they get whipped out by hurricanes and N400 stirs. We, meaning state and federal agencies continue to spend huge amounts of money on beach replenishment. But this is not sustainable. How can we begin to get these communities to think about smarter and more sustainable ways to deal with this and still be able to enjoy these beautiful parts of our state. I couldn't agree more with the premise of the question. I grew up in Philadelphia and up until two summers ago and spent some of every summer in Ocean City, New Jersey. And they've done a lot, spent a lot of time in Dewey, in her home with and at the Outer Banks. And I've, my whole life, I've been amazed when these places get hit. And we just kinda put it back where it was. It's kind of silly. But I don't think it's just the wagging the finger and saying we shouldn't be doing that. Because the impact in the short-term is people's lives and livelihoods, right? I mean, you talk about the economic engine that the speech communities aren't. So this is where we have to move beyond just our technical engineering knowledge and why we need to be part of discussions with people with different backgrounds and perspectives to say, okay, how do we change the nature of how the people in a beach community today are employed? Now, how do you kind of live with what are we? A constantly evolving waterfront. And how do you think of, you know, how do you live in a way and build a community in a way that's resilient to a significant element of that change, but can still provide the access and the positive experiences of someone wanting to enjoy beach. We've clearly overbuilt this because of zealousness and response purely economic drivers. This is where we need to be more proactive in the conversation as civil engineers about what the alternatives are. Not just kinda wagging a finger that shouldn't be bad because it's going to fall down again and we're just going to spend the same money to go back. This is why, again, I think we've gotta be active participants in the discussion. I think we have to be part of the conversation. That is a broader discussion. Which society we need to see engineers in, not only public sector but political office to bring that the broader perspective to the discussion. Keep all those things going forward. Sorry. And and be part of that because it doesn't make sense. We all know it. We all just kind of nod our head and move forward. You have to take it on proactively. Thanks Mike. What is important to keep in mind when we attempt to quantify social and equity impacts of a project, it seems difficult to measure these impacts. That is, that is an understatement. I think that is one of the biggest areas for for research and the incorporation of the planet. I think we've a long way in the last few years and I, and I do think it's been heightened. And COVID just kind of all of us kind of seeing and thinking and watching a lot of the same things. So there are not black and white data driven solutions, yet. There are some that are beginning to be evaluated where traditionally we would have looked at. Well, we can only quantify think of a highway project. We can quantify air quality benefits or travel time. But we need to go much broader. We need to have more research and understanding on the economic. Excusing benefits are shortfalls of what different project alternatives create, not just in areas that are immediately adjacent to a project. Because think about it. Nothing is you drop a pebble in the water. It doesn't just create one, right? There's concentric rings that go out. And we need more research to help quantify those elements. But we can't stop and wait until all of that is known and defined and can be put into a specification and design guideline. We have to really think about the reality of the impact on people. We have to engage the communities that we're working with that were supposedly solving these challenges to kinda help the communities immediately adjacent abroad. Now, again, this raises the, the, the challenge of secondary impacts and how far you know that a regulatory system, the US will go. And I think that's one of the areas that's going to be right for evolution going forward. I know we're recently we've been asked by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation to help them with what type of lens for projects that are generated by making improvements to traffic, how to use equity as a lens in, in that effort. And we're just going through that research and putting forward some ideas right now. Coming there was a project that was just awarded to, to affirm Arab about a month ago. And it was to look at the second crossing from part Oakland, San Francisco area. And one of the things they challenge the people proposing on the project was to lay out how you would at each major decision points. When the alternatives analysis, how you would use, you know, community or social equity as one of the lenses for your decision-making each step forward. It's one of the most dramatic examples I've seen woven into a request for proposal from a major public sector client. I think we're gonna be seeing more of that. So it's a big area of research, it's a big area of creativity. And I think you have to be careful not to be so number driven that we lose touch with kind of the goal and the essence of what we're trying to do to to create equitable environments for the people in our communities that are, that are impacted and shaped by our decisions. Thanks Mike. This next one is from one of our, another PhD student. Don't you think we need first to provide sustainable materials, then we can support and build sustainable cities. I hesitate to, I think that there is truth in that, but I hesitate to, to wait. There are a lot of good decisions we can make. There are a lot of we can't put, you know, building and expansion and you're dealing with changing and moving demographics, can't put it all on hold. I think we have to do both at the same time and we have to learn as we go. Thank you. Would working with social scientists be a good place to start in understanding social and equity impacts of projects on communities. There are so many tools, asset-based community development as just one example. Absolutely. It's interesting. Again, I went to to work in the engineering consulting industry and it was all engineers. You know, when I when I joined BHB in the late nineties, it was a firm that describes itself as engineers, scientists, planners, and designers. It's like, wow, that's pretty interesting. Now you flash forward and we've stop defining ourselves by who we have because you need all sorts of people. And social scientists are part of the growing members of teams that we have on our as part of the HB and is part of teams going forward whether we hired outside experts in, in elements of kind of sociology and understanding what's going on society to help inform us. And we're trying to make sure we're preparing our people who are coming more from a kind of science, scientific, technical background for how to engage and collaborate with people from the social side of the discussion. And I think it is that open-mindedness that we as engineers and science and technically oriented people, need to be much more open to and prepare ourselves so that it, it has to be a collaboration. It's not. I need a report from our social scientists. Tell me what to do and we need to work together to understand all the elements in fact. But that goes well beyond just sociologists these days. Like I said, you really need to understand elements and not do you need to be experts, but you need to understand enough to engage in a conversation with, to be around a table with finance years, with big data scientists, with people who are at the leading edge of technology. How do we weave all of these people into a conversation? Because at the end of the day we're trying to solve challenges, not to get it technically accurate answer, you have to do that, but that's the foundation. We're trying to solve problems that improve the quality of life for people. I mean, and that's. And endeavored to get passionate about and never let up on to keep trying to forward. But it takes, it takes a little bit of everybody working together. You've gotta bring out the kind of very open for seal mind to the conversation. Just two more. One from our Associate Chair. She says, Thanks for your dynamic presentation. What advice, training, or experiences would you encourage undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty to acquire now in order to lead efforts towards building more sustainable communities. I think expanding your your areas of knowledge beyond what you're learning. In our academic programs for engineering, environmental scientist or things that nature, yes. That needs to be your technical foundation area and that has to be solid. But I think you never can stop learning both in taking classes outside of your major as you go forward, in what you read as you go forward, and what kind of things that you just take into your daily activity. I think in addition to that, you need to be able to really write and convey your message because you might have the most wonderful insight. But if you're not able to kinda share it in written and even more importantly, kind of in a verbal, verbal situation where you can collaborate with people. Not to win a point, but to get your point out across in a way that it can be added onto by others in the conversation to move to a higher level solution. Then that brilliant idea you have unfortunately just stays burrowed in your mind and kind of drives a little crazy. So I think working on kind of the interpersonal skills in addition to always expanding your knowledge, read things outside of your technical area of a focus and broaden your perspective. Never stop broadening your perspective. Thanks Mike, laugh question from one of our faculty members. What do you know now that you wish you knew when you were a student at UT to question to question the y bar. And I and I completely get it. And I go back and think it would be hard for me again. There's so much technical knowledge to learn to get that foundation as you come out of school, particularly as an undergraduate and you've got to get that. But once you had that, once I have that, I don't want to cast aspersions anybody else? Once I had that, I thought that was the Holy Grail. And it was about driving that forward. And it took me a while to understand the need to go back and understand the question that was being asked originally. And to always want to understand, well, what are we really trying to solve for? Not just because there has to be a two lane road here, a bridge here. What happens when either side of the road of the bridge, what's going on? Why did this project even Recommended to be done. And once I understood more about understanding the perspective of that, again, this is all about improving communities, everything we're doing, that's why we do these things. What did the community really want? And then armed with that, it turned it, it opened up my whole perspective of what we were doing, how much I enjoyed it, how fascinating it was. And it became a passion and a purpose, not just a technically motivated solution. Thanks Mike. Anybody who is attending, if you have any other questions for Mike, please feel free to reach out to him. His e-mail is m, character CAR are a key H ER at VH B.com. And I mean that if you have any questions, I wish I could be there with you guys today. I'm sorry, we're in this format. I look forward to when we can all come together again, but dumb, please reach out to me. I'm more than happy to have a conversation with you, you know, have a discussion, explore anything. I just can't say enough about what University of Delaware has meant to me over the years. And I just really, You know, it's funny that it really did start with Dr. occur lighting the fire under me and then coming in contact with a few other blue hands along the way in a surprising way that it really kind of allowed me to, to, to shape and enjoy this career that I just, to this day. I, I love what I do and I'm having a blast doing it. And I think the civil engineering gives you an incredible opportunity to go do that. Before I turn things over to Jack and over one, I really want to thank Chair Jack Plato. I really appreciate the invitation to be here today and the people who kind of helped get today ready, Christine Mary short told to help with all the technical elements behind the scenes with them coming across today called murphy, Heather barren. Appreciate it. And going back a little further, there's two gentlemen. I hope they're still on the line. I'm not sure. But I'm Dean changes. And Professor Shannon. It's great to see you guys online today. And I thank you for connecting meaning and keeping me engaged with your d over the years. I appreciate all the work you guys have done. And it's fun to see when Jack, what you're doing with the program now. Thanks everybody. Thank you, Mike. Really thank you, Andy. Each beat out with an excellent presentation. And I really appreciate your willingness to present on these relevant topics. And I look forward to seeing them unfold in the future and the things that your company is going to do in the future as well. Finally, I'd like to thank the audience for their attention. They're excellent questions. For a few more that I think we could have gotten to this. We're running out of time. So thank you again and have a great afternoon. Thanks, everybody.
Kerr Lecture 2021: Mike Carragher
From Christine Murray April 14, 2021
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