Message from Linda Bauer Darr, ACEC National President & CEO

Message from Linda Bauer Darr, ACEC National President & CEO on 1/7/2025

Navigate 2025: Key Changes and Opportunities in Engineering

To the ACEC Community,  

Happy 2025! I hope you and your families had a wonderful holiday season and that you took some time to recharge and reconnect.

No chance of easing back into the swing of things this year. With Inauguration Day less than two weeks away, there is already a feeling in Washington of a torch having been passed; since November, the political center of gravity has shifted from the White House to Mar-a-Lago. Last week, Mike Johnson was reelected as House Speaker, but holding on to the gavel didn’t come easily. It took direct intervention from President-elect Trump, who worked the phones to quash a revolt from Johnson’s right flank. In the end, all but two Republican Members got in line and cast their ballots for Johnson.

The Speaker skirmish was an early battle in what is all but certain to be a contentious 119^th Congress. Republicans hold a razor-thin majority in the House and the new Senate Majority Leader John Thune kicked off the new Senate session with a vow to uphold the filibuster. Moving legislation will require bipartisan compromise wherever possible, but look for major elements of Trump’s agenda to move using a budget procedure known as “reconciliation,” which requires only a simple majority. 

For our industry, 2025 will be a year of change, perhaps even a little uncertainty, but mostly a year of tremendous opportunity. The biggest agenda item is tax policy, with the incoming Administration pursuing legislation to extend the 2017 tax law that was strongly supported by ACEC.  We want to go further by restoring the deductibility of R&D expenses and extending tax incentives to address the workforce challenge.  Speaking of workforce, the incoming Administration has also voiced support for more H1-B visas and green cards to attract and keep more engineers -- a critical piece of ACEC’s workforce agenda.  We’re also looking at tremendous opportunities in the energy sector, as well as a regulatory agenda that will make it easier to move forward on needed projects across multiple markets.

The ACEC Research Institute’s most recent numbers project nearly $469 billion in revenue this year – a 2.9% nominal output growth over 2024. We expect industry output to reach $539 billion by 2029, with an average annual growth of 3.6 percent over the period. Market by market, and sector by sector, there is reason for great optimism about the future of the engineering industry. The unstoppable momentum of AI is spurring significant growth in the power market. It also is creating demand for private data centers, which showed a 60 percent increase in investment during the first three quarters of 2024. Earlier today, President-elect Trump announced a $20 billion investment by a Dubai-based developer aimed at facilitating the development of AI and cloud-based technologies. Although the pandemic-driven shift to remote work has dented the office market, the single family housing market is expected to increase by 20 percent in the coming years.

These two examples of our industry capitalizing on AI and remote work – both of which are here to stay – show that we have the ability and the agility to shift in stride with societal change. When one door closes, we build another door. There is so much in our industry to be excited about. ACEC is suiting up for some big legislative battles in the coming year. But the essentiality of what our industry does will make those battles a lot easier to fight.

Speaking of the essentiality of engineering: Thursday at 4PM ET is the deadline for submissions for our National Engineering Excellence Awards. Entries will be judged in March by a panel of experts, which will select top award winners: eight Grand Awards and 16 Honor Awards. One Grand Conceptor Award will be selected from the slate of Grand Award honorees and will be announced during our EEA Gala on May 20, 2025. The holidays may be behind us, but here’s your chance to keep the spirit of celebration for a little longer – so get those projects submitted!

Have a great week,