I am a Future World Visionary

Civil Engineers design, build, and manage the physical infrastructure that facilitates the global society we live in; “Civil Engineers build society”. I think I was drawn to this profession because of my passionate drive to help as many people I can in an impactful way through my dedication to continual personal development in both technical aptitude as well as meaningful interpersonal connections at all scales. I believe there is possibly no more nobler way of achieving this than through voluntary service. I have been drawn to work with organizations dedicated to impactful large scale service; Organizations such as Civil Air Patrol which I have continuously been involved in since my youth, and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) with which I have just barely begun to share my personal time and energy on my life long journey in volunteer public service.

I don’t really care to celebrate my birthday very much, or to have attention directed at me as an individual. Yesterday, the completion of my 29th 584 million mile journey around the Sun, was probably my favorite birthday I’ve had since 2016 which was with a handful of good friends in the Army. This year was with some 300 strangers and acquaintances at the ASCE Multi-Regional Leadership Conference - East, none of which probably knew or cared that it was my birthday. The thing in common between these two birthdays was people; One of which involved people I had close personal relationships with, and the other involved people I don’t know personally, but both involved people I share a close sense of purpose with.

I can’t think of a better way to spend my birthday than with people. For me, specifically people united in something together; people who care about something together and who care about each other.

The more challenges I learn about in my education that society faces in the future, right now, and has faced in the past, the more I have become overwhelmed thinking about the daunting task of taking on these challenges going into the future. People trust Civil Engineers just as much as other professional fields involved in public services to keep the safety and welfare of society as the number one priority in all of our work. This means intentionally looking out for *everyone* in our global community as well as the vital natural Earth systems we all interact with and rely on. Beside this public trust, some people may still see Civil Engineering as the crude non-innovative field among other engineering fields; a field in which we simply iterate through cycles of expanding and maintaining existing status quo infrastructure systems. This is anything but the reality of what we do. Civil Engineers are innovators just as much as any other engineer or profession. They have continuously been at the forefront of innovative solutions to some of societies biggest challenges and will continue to move forward in being at the forefront of innovating sustainable solutions to new and existing societal challenges.

The challenges we face as a society that may seem too big to tackle are an opportunity. An opportunity for all of us, our global community, to come back to humanity and to create a built environment which facilitates the welfare of all in harmony with our natural environment in order to shift towards a more perfect, more sustainable future. I will be a leader in this effort as a Civil Engineer by actively involving the perspectives and concerns of everyone within our society at all scales and unifying the efforts of other professional fields to secure and facilitate not only our immediate short term safety and welfare, but that of generations to come (and that’s a lot of people).

This is my passion: to help people. Engineering is how I do that at scale. I am a Future World Visionary for all. What is your future world vision?

Explore and engage in our Future World Vision as Civil Engineers:

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