Fall Conference Kicks Off in San Diego

General Session attendees at ACEC’s 2025 Fall Conference got a personal welcome this morning from Todd Gloria, mayor of the Conference’s host city of San Diego. Directing his warm and funny remarks to his fellow “infrastructure nerds,” Gloria discussed the importance of the engineering industry, and how it is often underappreciated because when infrastructure works as it should, it’s usually invisible. “My tap worked this morning, and I was very happy about that,” he joked. On that subject of taps working, Gloria referenced the Engineering and Public Works Roadshow event held over the weekend at Pure Water San Diego, an innovative water reuse project aimed at moving the city toward water independence. The Pure Water project is an example of both the essentiality of engineering but also of its invisibility. What is required, said Gloria, is finding ways to “make infrastructure sexy.”

This year’s Conference was billed and programmed as largely tech-centric, and that theme formed the lion’s share of ACEC President and CEO Linda Bauer Darr’s opening remarks. Darr began by acknowledging the turmoil back in Washington—a still unresolved government shutdown, changes in immigration policies, and court challenges and rule changes around DBE certification. On the latter, Darr announced a townhall session during the Conference, with future educational opportunities for members in the near future.

She then pivoted to a discussion of how technology—particularly AI—is changing the rules of engagement for the industry. Noting that today marks the 15^th anniversary of the launch of Instagram, Darr shared a stat pointing to the exponential growth of technology: Instagram took two months to reach one million users. ChatGPT hit that same milestone in under a week. “A moment in time is a lifetime in tech,” she said.

Darr went on to present a “worst case scenario” that was the result of what she called a ChatGPT rabbit hole. Her question: “What if engineering firms fail due to technology taking over?” The answer was striking: “If design engineering firms failed because technology replaced much of their role, it would be because the profession failed to claim its role in guiding, governing, and complementing technology.”

Said Darr: “Truer words have never been spoken by a machine.”

She went on to outline the technical and ethical obligations of the engineering industry to steer AI responsibly. “We must engage AI deeply—not just its capabilities, but its consequences.”

But, Darr closed, engineers are more than up to the task of navigating the new tech landscape and ensuring that integration happens responsibly. “We are not tools of technology. We are its conscience. So, let’s lead with courage and with confidence. And by doing so, engineers will rise because we were built for just this moment.”