As America reflects on 250 years, it’s not difficult to find the impact of civil engineering across that history.
From sea to shining sea, innovative infrastructure dots the nation’s landscape and has defined the American epoch – the skyscrapers and highways and ports and rail lines that have been the very lifeblood of the country.
“Civil engineers over the past 250 years have planned, designed and operated the nation’s infrastructure, allowing for our national economy to thrive, as well as protecting the public health, safety and welfare,” said Darren Olson, vice president and water resources department head for Christopher B. Burke Engineering in Chicago. “Our infrastructure has connected us as a nation, and it’s going to allow us to continue to thrive and ultimately connect to the economy and society that we want to live in.” It’s not just the Erie Canal or Route 66 either. Civil engineering, it could be argued, has made the American way of life possible.
“Every minute of every day, we are impacted by the work of civil engineers, whether it’s turning the power on, it’s turning your water on, getting on mass transit or onto a plane,” said Maria C. Lehman, past president of ASCE. “It all involves what we do.”
Nothing if not adaptable
The history of infrastructure in America is the history of a brilliant talent for adaptation. Just consider transportation. Canals expanded economic growth. Railroads sent it into overdrive. Horse-and-buggies gave way to automobiles. Highways connected the country. Air travel connected the world. The evolution never stops.
“Civil engineers have a broad array of skills and knowledge and use them creatively,” said ASCE president Marsha Anderson Bomar. “This cultivates a workforce that is adaptable and one that finds the right solutions for the challenges we face.”
ASCE president-elect Carol Haddock, former director of public works for Houston added: “I think about all the times throughout the history of this country that we’ve encountered a challenge and had to use the tools that we have in place but also adapt to the situation that’s at hand.”
“And that’s one of our greatest strengths as civil engineers: our ability and our flexibility to find the best solution for our communities. We sometimes talk about having to repair the plane in the air as a joke, but for many public works agencies, that’s absolutely true on a daily basis. That’s what we do.”
Making the grade
ASCE releases an infrastructure report card every four years, grading different sectors of infrastructure. Over time, these report cards have provided important snapshots of American infrastructure for both policymakers and the general public, while pointing toward potential solutions and paths toward improvement.
The $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed into law in 2021, marked the largest infrastructure investment package in American history. Not coincidentally, the 2025 ASCE Report Card for America’s Infrastructure showed improved grades in eight infrastructure sectors and boasted the best overall grade (albeit still a ‘C’) for America’s infrastructure this century.
“What we’re seeing with the report card is [the infrastructure sectors] where we invested … the grades improve,” said Olson, who served as chair of the 2025 ASCE report card. “But we need to [continue] that investment and we need to make sure that we’re investing in resilient infrastructure.”
Looking forward
America’s 250th birthday presents as natural an opportunity to look forward as it does to look back. What will the next 250 years of infrastructure look like? Underwater cities? Flying cars? Both, probably.
“Engineers are really good at imagining what the future will be like,” said David Odeh, senior vice president at WSP USA. “In fact, that’s what we do for a living. We have to design buildings, highways, water systems, power systems, that have to last – sometimes centuries into the future.”
The kinds of challenges that drove tremendous change in the 19th century or in the aftermath of World War II aren’t isolated incidents tucked away in history books. If anything, the next 250 years of change will be even more disruptive and even more unpredictable.
“The rate of change in all of the trends that we see, that impact civil engineering in our profession, it’s accelerating,” Odeh said. “Think of key trends like power and energy; changes in the climate that are driving storms and floods and wildfires; changes in technology that are resulting in new types of infrastructure.”
Optimism for the future is rooted in 250 years of American civil engineering adaptability.
“We have always been able to pivot, depending on what the challenges of the time are,” Lehman said. “It’s the way we’re trained. It’s the way we execute on every project we work on.”
Read more and see the complete ASCE America at 250 video at USA Today.
