SunSentinel Mention

February 5, 2021

Peter Moore, P.E., F.ASCE, ENV SP, LEED AP

President, Chen Moore and Associates

Last week: Recently, the American Council of Engineering Companies released the 2020 Engineering Industry Contribution report. This was significant because it finally identified the contribution that architects and engineers have on the economy separately from construction dollars. With an over $600 Billion contribution to the economy and generating $1.55 of GDP for every dollar spent on design, it was found that 1 in 33 Americans owe their jobs to this profession and over $120 Billion in taxes are contributed from these businesses. Enabling $2.2 Trillion in construction activity annually, this accounts for 11% of annual GDP in the US.

Looking ahead: Next week, I’ll be heading to Tallahassee for a series of meetings. While COVID is preventing the typical face to face interactions at the Capitol, it is important that everyone keeps their eyes on the ball with respect to key legislation. As the chair of the “engineers,” an affectionate term given to us when legislators can’t remember our alphabet soup of organizational acronyms, we’re pushing for more resiliency oversight and funding, funding dedicated to water projects like the dedicated transportation funding, smart energy planning, liability relief for engineers that volunteer in disasters and more. Make sure you advocate!

SunSentinel Mention

January 29, 2021

Peter Moore, P.E., F.ASCE, ENV SP, LEED AP

President, Chen Moore and Associates

Last week: Last week, I wrote about participating in a conference that was entirely in virtual reality, so I feel an obligation to debrief you all on the experience. There are some current limitations – the headset has limited battery, using the technology takes a good amount of time to learn, and the VR environment can make you get vertigo – but there is real merit in immersive technologies. I loved the ability to turn my head and “look” at someone when they were speaking to me – it felt like a real meeting. It won’t replace a handshake, but VR can transform.

Looking ahead: I’ve already had a dozen meetings on legislation that is coming up impacting my business and the environment. In the coming weeks, I’ll continue to advocate, locally and in Tallahassee, for the positions I support. I’m very excited about proposed legislation from state Reps Overdorf and LaMarca, putting a priority on water infrastructure funding and resiliency, respectively. As an engineer, as a native Floridian and as a father, these are truly the most important issues that we’re facing in the next couple decades. We need to address these issues today, and we all need to get involved.

SunSentinel Mention

January 22, 2021

Peter Moore, P.E., F.ASCE, ENV SP, LEED AP

President, Chen Moore and Associates

Last week: With all eyes turned to President Joe Biden‘s inauguration, Gov. DeSantis made a number of overdue appointments to a variety of boards. DeSantis’ appointments include posts to the University of Central Florida and Florida Atlantic University boards of trustees, the Florida Housing Finance Corporation Board of Directors, the Real Estate Appraisal Board, and the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority Governing Board. It is well documented that there are hundreds of empty posts in local and statewide boards that are getting close to not being able to make quorum, so I hope this is a good first start!

Looking ahead: I won’t know if what I’m doing next week will be newsworthy for some time. I’m participating in a virtual CEO Forum. That unto itself isn’t very interesting, but the format of the meeting is. The entire meeting will be held in virtual reality. What I find most amazing is that something I previously thought of as only applicable to games with some application to visualizing abstract things – like looking at building systems which previously were only on blueprints – is being applied to a meeting among CEOs. It will be educational at least, hopefully transformational.