The numbers could not be more clear.
Civil engineering workforce needs (as projected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics) are rising faster than the supply of U.S. graduates (as projected by the American Society of Engineering Education).
That’s not a good equation for the civil engineering profession, which is precisely why ASCE has been working on a variety of initiatives and partnerships to help jumpstart the engineering workforce.
“Anybody working in this industry is probably very aware of the fact that we do not have enough students in the pipeline, and we certainly don’t have enough workers in the workforce,” said ASCE 2026 President Marsha Anderson Bomar.
“Projects are being delayed or canceled because there aren’t enough people to do the planning, the design work, the construction work, the oversight, et cetera.”
The ASCE Board of Direction, at its quarterly meeting Jan. 8 in Jacksonville, Florida, voted on a series of motions that will activate the Society’s workforce development strategy for the rest of the decade.
Those include shorter-term, one-to-five-year goals like exploring redefined roles for the civil engineering team and new or refined educational requirements or pathways to address unmet workload needs, as well as longer-term work like continuing to feed the talent pipeline, with an eye on raising the number of engineering graduates in the next 5-10 years.
The board approved changes to Society rules to implement the new committee structure outlined at the October 2025 meeting: in short, a new board-level Committee on Workforce and Education overseeing related committees and working groups.
The board also approved additional resources for ASCE outreach work with an emphasis on K-12 programs that inspire previously underrepresented groups and community college programs.
Specifically, in the next five years, ASCE aims to:
- Reach students annually through precollege outreach conducted by 350 ASCE outreach champions
- Establish ASCE engagement programs at 12 community/technical colleges
- Increase ASCE student membership
- Expand diversity in the pipeline through greater inclusion of underrepresented groups
“ASCE has pivoted,” Anderson Bomar said. “We have reimagined our workforce and education committee structure. We are investing to help support outreach. And it’s so important because we know that the population is shrinking. If we sustain the same level of engagement, we will never have enough people to do the work needed for all these great infrastructure projects.
“So by changing the conversation, by engaging those people who maybe have not been heavily engaged before, by taking the time to invest in them, we’re going to help show them how exciting and essential civil engineering is, and we can fill that workforce pipeline.”
Governance reframing continues
The board passed the first reading of an amendment to the Society’s constitution based on the last year of work by the Task Committee on Governance Reframing and the previous year's work by the Reimagine ASCE Task Committee.
The key changes would include transorming the ASCE Board of Direction to a 12-member board and establishing a Geographic Board of Governors, similar in structure and function to the existing Technical Region Board of Governors.
The reframing aims to enfranchise more members in the election process (giving more people more roles to vote for); provide for more effective board deliberations by giving each director a greater voice; expand leadership roles and responsibility at the region level; support multiple pathways to leadership; empower and provide better connectivity to the geographic regions; and bring needed expertise and perspectives to the board through at-large directors.
“The members deserve the best possible organization and the best service from the organization,” Anderson Bomar said.
“On the technical side, which is where I’ve spent a lot of my time in ASCE, we have an organizational structure that allows all the different institutes to learn from each other in depth. They get together and discuss what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, their successes, their challenges, and the content of what they’re working on with real cross-collaboration.
“So our thought is that to serve the members better we should have an organization similar to the technical structure that allows the leadership of different regions to come together, to learn from each other, to share good ideas, to collaborate, to do many, many things together that will help them individually be better, and then help us collectively provide better member value.”
The conversation during the board meeting provided a tremendous amount of perspective for the task committee as it continues to shape and reshape the specific reframing details. The task committee will also continue collecting member feedback ahead of the March board meeting.
If the plan is approved on second reading in March, the constitutional amendment would go on the May 2026 ASCE election ballot, requiring two-thirds of voting members to approve it to take effect.
Thinking big picture
The winter board meeting is always the first chance to see the new group at work and how the new year’s dynamics take shape. So far, so good, said the 2026 president.
“One of the things that is really important to me is hearing from everybody at the table,” Anderson Bomar said. “That has not always happened. And I was very excited that at this first meeting, everybody jumped into all the different conversations that we had. So, cheers to that, and I’m looking forward to that at every single meeting we have.”
The other overarching theme for 2026 is high-level strategy. To that end, Anderson Bomar set up two brief inspiration sessions at the end of the meeting agenda: one from Frank Martz, city manager of Altamonte Springs, Florida, discussing the innovative culture he’s created for the city; and another from Sabrina Kievit and Fares Al-Lahibi, students at Manhattan College who have established a thriving student chapter while helping to grow Al-Lahibi’s research into a promising business already deploying new engineering technology around New York City.
“I want to foster a different way of thinking, being at a higher level,” Anderson Bomar said. “So, I was excited to bring in these three speakers. I wanted the board to really see what is possible when you empower people, when you create a great environment, a learning environment, a trust environment. And I think that was well received by the board.
“Yes, we have certain decisions we have to make as a board, certain procedures we have to follow. But we also have to be those forward thinkers for our organization: Where are we going? What’s important to our membership? And how do we lead us into that bright future?”
