CORRE Project Manager, Cameron Shiffer, PE, is participating in this year’s ACEC Leadership Institute program and recently joined with other ACEC-WI members for this year’s Legislative Day in Madison. We asked him for a quick recap of the session and his main takeaways:
“I’ve attended several sessions since last fall and each have been very valuable learning experiences. This particular event, ‘Government Affairs and Legislative Day,’ involved learning how the government is involved in business and how we can advocate for issues affecting the engineering industry. We met with legislators and local representatives to discuss topics related to the civil engineering field.
“As the President and CEO of ACEC-WI stated in a follow-up email, the event was a success! By the following day he had already received several phone calls and inquiries from legislators.
“It was enlightening to see how simple actions on our part can have a major effect on our industry. Simply discussing issues we are seeing with legislators and letting them know how our industry and the people of Wisconsin are affected can help secure our position in the transportation world.
“Additionally, several current legislative proposals could have drastic effects on our industry that we may not even realize. Luckily, we have people representing the engineering industry who look out for those sorts of things and lobby on its behalf.”
Caption: left) Representative Warren Petryk of Assembly District 93 in Wisconsin; center) Cameron’s discussion partner, Eric Sorensen; right) Cameron Shiffer, PE