View from a scissors lift of the Public Works Expo, part of the 2018 American Public Works Association convention.About 5,000 professionals with an interest in public works and infrastructure issues are in Kansas City this week for the American Public Works Association (APWA) conference.
With more than 125 educational sessions and more than 80,000 square feet of exhibit space, the week-long event is being held in conjunction with the International Federation of Municipal Engineering (IFME), which represents 27 to 30 countries around the globe.
“International exchange of information, innovation, skills, and experience is even more important in today’s global world than when the federation was formed 60 years ago,” Doug Draper, president of IFME, told the crowd during an opening session Sunday.
Among those attending was Fred Mousavipour, assistant director of public works for the City of Los Angeles Bureau of Street Services.
“So far, so good,” Mousavipour said Sunday, after the conference’s first day concluded. “You get to get acquainted with new technologies and network. You get to collaborate, to see what others are doing, what’s working, what’s not working in other cities, so we can learn other innovations and how they’re doing it.”
That includes learning from others in order to avoid costly mistakes in your own county, he says.
Public works professionals came from not only North America but also from Australia, Belgium, France, Guyana and South Korea.
Attending the conference are public works directors, city engineers, city managers, fleet managers, property and equipment superintendents, utilities managers, community development directors, transportation managers, park directors and county officials.
Also attending are representatives from engineering and other consulting firms, manufacturers, construction companies, and a multitude of other service providers.
Susan Pearson, a public works engineer from the Colorado mountain town of Silverthorne, came for professional development and also to look at new technology and equipment, she says.
“It’s awesome,” she says of APWA 2018. “It’s been great.”
Infrastructure funding remains high concern
Highway funding remains a top priority for this group. High-efficiency vehicles, and even those that are electric or use other other fuel sources, will impact the revenue stream in the next decade.
As the gap grows between federal and state gas tax rates and increasing costs of construction, the APWA has a Washington office that is pushing hard for infrastructure funding.
The group is moving into a greater advocacy program, Scott Grayson, APWA executive director, told the crowd during the opening session at the Kansas City Convention Center.
He spoke of concern over infrastructure funding and the disappointment when the White House announced that rather than $1.5 trillion in spending for infrastructure, there would be $200 billion spending for seed money to generate that $1.5 trillion.
Moving toward stronger advocacy for the greater good
APWA has been stepping up efforts, urging members to tell their stories about infrastructure, transportation, emergency preparedness and more. The organization, which is based in Kansas City, Missouri, has strengthened its advocacy efforts through staff based in Washington, D.C.
“We’ve got an incredible advocacy program,” Grayson told the crowd.
Immediate past APWA President William “Bo” Mills, who is director of Public Works with the City of Germantown, Tennessee, told the crowd he’s seen how effective the organization’s staff as a voice representing public workers’ concerns in Washington, D.C. and Ottawa, Canada.
He says a newly created Young Professionals Committee “is off and running,” and the “high-functioning” board of directors has done a great job.
He urged members to become involved in their local chapters to help continue the organization’s progress over the last three years.
“Folks, you can help with this. We need to continue this momentum, but it takes volunteering,” he says.
Sign Up to Skill Up
Keynote speaker Roy Spence has helped America during some of its toughest crises, including helping the victims of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma with the One America Appeal video. It featured five living former U.S. presidents who were interviewed in five different locations by film crews on only a days’ notice.
He’s co-founder and chairman of GSD&M, a marketing communications and advertising company, as well as an author.
Spence and his teams created the stirring “I Am an American” PSA after 9/11 terror strikes, among other powerful campaigns. They’ve included the “Don’t Mess with Texas” push to stop littering. He showed clips of those marketing campaigns to the public works crowd Sunday.
He told attendees that “we have to kill the myth” that a four-year college degree is the only path to success. Spence wants to encourage more young people to consider apprenticeships and community colleges in a new initiative called “Sign Up to Skill Up.”
He described his new “Promiseland Project,” a long-term marketing and grassroots campaign designed to unleash the “power of purpose” to help bridge America’s cultural divide.
Spence says he intends to use the power of positive, nonpartisan, solutions-driven and purpose-inspired marketing to build that bridge.
To learn more about The Promiseland Project, go to thepromiselandproject.com.
