By Blaine Leonard, P.E., BC.GE, Pres.10.ASCE
I wish I had known when I was in engineering school that the big decisions — and even some of the small ones — are not always based on technical insights. Instead, they can be largely political.
As engineering students, we were trained to gather information, perform analyses, evaluate alternate designs, and reach decisions based on those technical procedures. The resulting answer or decision was often highlighted as the one and only correct solution.
In the real world, however, the information is usually incomplete, the analysis can be somewhat speculative, and there is often not just one answer. And even when there is, that singular conclusion does not always determine the final decision.
Early in my career, for example, a city planning commission approved a development program with a marginally effective drainage plan on a very flat site. None of the members seemed interested in the technical details of the drainage issue, but one commission member who owned a landscape nursery wanted to be sure we used large trees, based on his knowledge of tree calipers.
In another case, a client required me to reduce the slopes on a road profile — not because the slopes I had recommended were inappropriate but because, to him, the exaggerated scale of the plan and profile sheet made the road “look like a roller-coaster.”
Still another instance involved agency leaders, who were also engineers, selecting a higher-cost solution to a technology problem based not on the cost but on the potential public perception of the solution.
None of these decisions resulted in a solution that was clearly wrong from a technical standpoint, although two of them pushed the engineering parameters to the edge of my comfort zone. Still, in my view, these decisions ignored the best technical conclusions.
In his 1976 book The Existential Pleasures of Engineering, construction engineer Samuel C. Florman explored why engineers find satisfaction in their profession and what their role is in society and technology. Yet even to Florman, “The big questions of what to do next are not technical, or only partly technical. They are primarily political.” His conclusion does not mean that our engineering judgment and analysis are wasted or unnecessary.
Our input is essential. But engineers need to realize that decisions are made in a much larger context. The logical approaches we recommend will influence — but not drive — the direction of society. It has taken me years to fully recognize this and appreciate my contribution.
Blaine Leonard, P.E., BC.GE, Pres.10.ASCE, is a transportation technology engineer for the Utah Department of Transportation.
This article first appeared in the November/December 2025 issue of Civil Engineering as “Wish I'd Known.”
