 How important is it to get site experience as a civil engineer early on in your career? How about learning about the technical codes and what goes into creating them? How can that be helpful? Well, in this episode of the Civil Engineering Podcast, we have Ron Bird from the American Concrete Institute. And he's going to touch on all of those topics and give you some really important career advice that you can use to advance as a civil engineer. Let's jump right in. All right. Now I'm excited to welcome on our guest for today's podcast episode, Ron Berg. Ron is the Executive Vice President and Chief Staff Officer of the American Concrete Institute, also known as ACI. Ron, welcome to the Civil Engineering Podcast. Thank you, Tony. So, Ron, to get us started here, and I want to get into your career a little bit, but let's start off with ACI. What is ACI's mission? Who does ACI serve? Tell us about ACI. Sure. ACI was founded in 1904, so it's got a long history. It is a professional organization as opposed to a trade organization. Its mission is rather straightforward. We develop, disseminate, and advocate for the adoption of our consensus-based information on concrete and its uses. We serve the concrete industry specifically, but as a trade is or as a professional association, rather, we also serve the general public in that we write codes and standards that control how construction is designed and executed. That's interesting. Talk about that a little more in terms of the professional versus the trade, because our listeners may not be familiar with the difference between those two. Sure. A trade organization has a very vital and important role to serve in the industry. A trade organization advocates for the use of a specific material, be it concrete, wood, steel, whatever. A professional organization, on the other hand, doesn't really have that advocacy role to play. We deal more with the science and the theory behind a particular facet of the engineering world, so we do not necessarily advocate the use of any particular material as a trade or as a professional association, rather. What we advocate is the best use and the intelligent use of that material. Okay. Interesting. You really focused in on that material in the different areas as opposed to I guess promoting? Is that the word? True. I guess one could think of it in a simplistic terms. The American Concrete Institute is not going to tell you why to use concrete. They're going to tell you how to use concrete. The trade associations probably are going to tell you why you should use concrete as opposed to something else. I got you. That makes a lot of sense, and that's a really good way to, I guess, at least wrap my head around it and help our listeners as well. Tell us a little bit about yourself. I know you have a degree in civil engineering, and how did you go from that? Tell us about your career journey a little bit. Sure. Actually, I was fortunate after completing my engineering degree. I spent a couple of years working at a commercial quality control laboratory, so that afforded me the opportunity of being on a lot of different construction sites to see how things are done, both correctly and occasionally incorrectly. After a few years of doing that, I actually had a pretty long stand, almost 25, 26 years, working for the research and consulting side of large trade organization. And at that role, I did some interesting work both on the research side and also on the consulting side, a lot of forensic engineering where I looked at building failures, a lot of higher end research for complex structures, complex materials challenges. During that time, I became very active with ACI as a volunteer member for almost 40 years now. And in the role of a volunteer member, I served on a number of technical ACI committees. I served on some oversight committees. I served on their financial advisory committee. And I also served on the ACI board. About 10 years ago, I actually changed careers and I went from my previous employment to being the executive vice president or the chief staff officer of ACI. So I've been a staff member for a little over 10 years now, but I've been a member of the Institute for almost 40 years now. Wow. And take us back a little bit to when you, after you graduated with your degree, and I know it wasn't yesterday, but let's think back a little bit, because this is a decision that a lot of our listeners have to make often. They're coming out of school, they're recent graduates, and they're trying to decide their career path. And from my experience as a civil engineer, one of the most valuable aspects of my career was getting field and site experience. I think it's where you really see things happening that you can't see when you're designing a plan, per se, let's say. Talk about how you got out into the field and what made you make that decision to get into the construction sites or get on sites? Good question. A very valid observation that having that hands-on experience, I think, is really critical to becoming a good, effective engineer. When I graduated, as like you said, it was more than a few days ago. In fact, there was last century to be specific about it. I had a number of different opportunities to choose from, but I was intrigued by the one that was with a large construction quality control and geotechnical firm, because it gave me the opportunity not necessarily to be involved on just one construction site, but on many different construction sites. So that was quite important to me. And like I said, it afforded me the opportunity to see many different construction sites, many different means and methods of construction from small projects to large projects. So I think that was really valuable. In fact, I think in today's world, that's probably even more important, because for somebody my age, I grew up before the world of computers and before the world of joysticks and computer games and simulations. In my age, we did spend some of our time as a youth building things in real world. I don't think that opportunity is quite so common now, and it's important to have that as if you're going to ultimately be in a career where you're designing something or specifying something for somebody else to build. So I found the actual hands-on experience really, really important. Yeah, I had a very similar experience. And what was interesting to me was that when I started as a field surveyor, I was standing out there holding a rattle day, kind of sweating thinking, is this really what engineering is? But I shouldn't have listened to my parents with this engineering stuff. But what happened was I saw things being built, and then when I eventually got into the office more, and I was doing the design work, I would be able to say things like, you know what, you can't really lay the sewer out like this, because practically it just really doesn't work. And that was very valuable to me and really throughout my career. So I can really kind of connect with what you're saying there. And if you're listening to this, if there's any way, shape, or form, either you can get field experience, or if you have younger, recent graduates working for you, you know, try to get them out on the sites whenever you can. I think it's an invaluable experience. But Ron, let's get back to ACI because you spent a lot of years as a volunteer, as you mentioned there. And talk about that first from the benefit of that in terms of your career. You're working as an engineer, you're working in the engineering field, and you're at ACI probably learning a lot of stuff about concrete, the industry. Talk about some of the benefits for you that put in that crossover there. Yeah, the benefits were actually twofold. It started out as a younger volunteer. It was the ability to rub shoulders with kind of the giants of the industry, the people that wrote the building codes, the people that wrote technical standards that were very, very advanced and very in-depth. So it allowed you to perhaps meet the people that you wrote some of the textbooks that you used as a student. And as your career advanced, it actually gave you the opportunity to give back to the profession that supported you. And more importantly, or equally importantly rather, it actually has you understand many of the design rules and the construction protocols that we follow in our normal course of work. So it helped you understand not just the what but the why of some of the things are the way we do. Yeah, that's great. And I think, you know, there are a lot of great organizations out there. For example, ASCENO is one that a lot of our listeners are members of, and they do a lot of great things. What I like about ACI as an organization is you're getting into, like you said, the concrete, the materials that you might work with on a daily basis. So it's a different kind of organization, and it can bring you different kinds of benefits from a technical component. I mean, every organization has their own benefits. And I think, you know, engineers, you know, one of the reasons that, you know, we're speaking today about this is because I think that organizations like ACI, to me, learning about the materials that are used, learning about that component of what you do as an engineer can be very valuable in your project conversations and your conversations with other colleagues, architects, et cetera, having that level of knowledge and speaking with people that have that level of knowledge, I think can kind of help you to be a more well-rounded civil engineering professional. Certainly, and I have one example I could give you that might put it in a little bit of context. If you're a structural engineer and you're designing a beam and you're designing it for sheer, it's one thing to look at the equation and work through the equations, say, yes, I've done all the math right. And that's what you perhaps would learn in school. If you're active in ACI, you're going to probably understand why that sheer equation is the way it is. So you've got that depth of knowledge and that depth of understanding, which I think is really important to make somebody a well-rounded, good engineer. Yeah, really helps you in terms of how you carry yourself in conversations and meetings and things of that nature. All right, Ron, one of the other things I wanted to ask you about in terms of professional societies, associations, I think one of the things about civil engineering that's important is the health and safety of the public is really at the forefront of what we do. I mean, we have kind of an ethical component of what we do to be aware of that and have that in the forefront of our mind. How would you say that the public might benefit from the work of some of these organizations? Well, the public benefits probably in ways they don't realize, which is interesting and it makes us kind of unsung heroes, if you will. But probably the best way I can illustrate that is to go back in time and this would be the early 1900s before building codes existed. Buildings were designed and they were patented designs quite often. So if you went to an engineer or a material supplier, you would buy the Acme building that would be designed by the Acme engineering company to their own standards. And if you go back and look at some of that historical records, you'll see when they load tested those buildings, you know where the engineers stood when they load tested the buildings underneath the load. It was one way to prove to the public that, yes, what they just did was in fact safe. I'm not sure that that's an optimum solution for either the public or the engineers for that matter. One would hope they were doing their job right. But nowadays, the public safety has taken into account by having building codes and standards developed under a consensus process where the best minds in the industry get together and make sure that there's the appropriate balance between economy and safety for the public. So it's a very important role that engineers fill and professional associations fill. The benefits to the public and the good news is the public is probably unaware of it because we have so few building failures in the long run that one doesn't go up in a 50-story building and wonder is the 45th story safe and maybe the 46th story not safe. We just take it for granted that engineers and the building codes are doing their job properly. Yeah, it's a really good point. I mean, a lot of times my kids will ask me, you know, what does a civil engineer do? And I kind of tell them, you know, look outside. I mean, there's really nothing that's out there that, you know, that we kind of don't touch in some way, shape, or form from the roads, et cetera, buildings, and so forth. And yet it's a good point. I think people do take that for granted a lot of the times. And in fact, you know, a lot of people in the industry will often talk about that where, you know, doctors and lawyers get, you know, quite a bit of notoriety and engineers don't always get that yet. You know, engineers have a real impact in terms of, again, the health, safety of the public. And in a lot of other countries outside of the US, you know, they'll put the word engineer before your name, and that's how they refer to you, because of the status of engineers. And I think that that's something too that's that's definitely noteworthy in terms of thinking about, you know, a profession in that way. I want to just go back to something you said earlier in terms of the consensus based standards. Can you talk about what that means exactly? Sure. A consensus standard or a consensus document because they're not always standards is a document that's gone through a rigorous process to make sure everybody's viewpoints are considered. It doesn't necessarily mean that everybody's viewpoints will be adopted, but the process of making sure that they're considered as rigorous, people can vote negative on a particular phase of a document, and they can't just be brushed aside, they have to be dealt with in a systematic way. So that the end result of a consensus document is it represents the best thinking of a collective group of experts. And as we've been talking about that, so of critical importance when you're talking about the public safety, health and welfare. And the consensus process is actually defined. It's not just something that we say we're going to adhere to. There's a set of rules and standards that the American National Standards Institute prescribes of what components have to be in place to be able to be a consensus process. So when ACI publishes documents in particular, our codes and standards, they go through a very rigorous process internally. And then before they're actually released, the public is actually given a chance to comment on the rigor of those documents and those comments have to be considered and resolved. That's great. And I wanted to ask you about that just because, again, like we talked about, citizens may be taking for granted what civil engineers do as a whole. I think sometimes us as civil engineers, we pick up codes, we use them, we read them, but we don't always think about the process that has been gone through to create those codes and where they came from and how they came about. Because it's from what I've learned about it, and sure, I don't know as much as you, but it's a pretty intensive process, as you just kind of went through, and that there are a lot of people dedicating a lot of time to this. And so when you open those code books, know that work went into them. And yes, listen, things change and we need to always update them. But it's good to hear that there are processes like that in place, Ron. Yes, they're very rigorous processes. And they represent a balance between public safety, which is very important. But they also represent a balance between economy. We could clearly over design everything to make it 100% safe all the time under any conceivable scenario. That probably wouldn't be real effective. And as engineers, we don't do that. So there's a balancing act that comes into play with the consensus process. And that's very important too. And these codes and standards, you could think of them as evolutionary documents, not revolutionary documents, there's continuous improvement because we're always learning it. While probably people not in the profession, probably don't realize that the concrete technology does change every day, every year, it's advancing perhaps as rapidly as digital technology is, it's just kind of hidden. But we need to take that into account if there's better ways to do things, if there's new materials that should be recognized in codes, we need to do that. So the codes are evolutionary. So that's why they're changed every several years to recognize new materials, new processes, new things that we've discovered. Yeah, for sure. And in fact, something that I learned about, I don't know, maybe a year or so ago, through our structural engineering channel podcast was the idea of performance-based design that's becoming more common in the industry. For those of you not familiar with it, it speaks a little bit to what Ron referred to in terms of being evolutionary, realizing that in order to change a code, there is a very rigorous process that has to be gone through and it can't change, it can't be updated like every month, every so often, however long it takes, it takes time. However, if there are instances where there might be new materials out, there may be something on a project that's specific, in more and more places, there are guidelines being put in place or there is more performance-based design being allowed in certain areas that give the designers some leeway in terms of what they're doing, still needs to be reviewed, of course, and has to go through all the proper processes. But if you're not familiar with performance-based design, it's certainly something that you should look into because I found it to be very interesting because basically the way I took it, and Ron, you can speak on this too, but the way I took it as someone just learning about it is that it does give us a way to maybe get a little bit more up to date and maybe not necessarily over-design something if there's a better method that's still safe. I don't know if I'm explaining it right, Ron, you can jump in on it, but performance-based design to me sounds like something that can be helpful in this area. It absolutely can, and I think maybe the easiest way to tell you the difference between performance-based design and prescriptive design, and most of what we do is prescriptive. We pick up a code book, it's got rules, we follow it, and then we come out with the design. It's really the difference between a recipe or maybe between a chef and a cook. I can give you a recipe and I can say make these make-a-bats of brownies, follow this recipe, and if it tastes good, it tastes good because the recipe was good. On the other hand, I can say, Anthony, make me some brownies and make them taste really good, and I don't give you any criteria other than make them taste good. That's really performance design. The recipe is prescriptive design, and the performance gives you a lot more latitude, but it also in some respects is probably more difficult to do, but there's a mix of both that are needed. There are some times where you want to make a meal for your family and you've got a limited amount of time to do it in, you're going to pull that tried and true recipe out, and there may be other times where you're going to be a bit more creative and you want to do something that's new and different, and you're going to go the performance route, if you will. Maybe that's a slightly different way to think about it. Yeah. No, that's actually a really practical way to describe it exactly. You're right. Sometimes when you don't have the exact recipe, it can actually be a little bit more difficult, especially for engineers. Give me the list. Let me go through it. Let me check everything off. Engineers like to be told what to do. Like I said, Tony, put a check mark next to it. Yep, I've done that. We're good to go. Yeah. Yeah, me being one of them. But so talk about that in terms of ACI, like the performance-based design. I know you do, you know, you create a lot of codes and help to bring codes to the industry. Are you, do you constantly like keep up the date on stuff like performance-based design and how it can be involved with concrete? Yes, we do. We've got a number of ways we do that. We've got to actually, one of our technical committees is on performance-based design of concrete mixtures, not so much structures themselves. The actual building code, there is a section in the building code that's not taken advantage of too often, but it says that you can take any other route you want as long as you can prove that it is equal to the requirements in the building code. I think as we see more of an emphasis on reducing body carbon in buildings and in structures, we're going to see more of a need to be creative with our designs, with our solutions and the performance side will have a bigger role to play. That's great. Ron, what are some of the trends or what are some things going on right now in concrete that are being talked about a lot that are kind of, you're hearing about in the news. Can you shed any light on some of the trends going on in concrete? Well, certainly probably one of the most significant trends is just this look at being more sustainable and that probably falls into two areas. Maybe the more obvious one is to try to reduce the amount of embodied carbon or embodied energy in concrete. As most engineers know, cement itself, one of the ingredients of concrete is fairly energy-intensive to produce. There's a lot of embedded, embodied carbon in that. There's some moves to try to do that in a more environmentally friendly way, if you will. The other thing that is a real trend in the industry and it's probably not just the concrete industry, it's this idea of resilience. If we build a building that we have to rebuild in 10 years because of a storm or because of a fire, that's not a particularly resilient structure. In fact, that's not a particularly sustainable structure to rebuild the same thing three or four times over during its lifetime. Those two trends, they merge at some level, but those are two very important trends. I think the other trend, and this is a little farther out there, maybe, is this whole sense of nanotechnology. What are some of the unusual new things that we're learning about that might be beneficial in concrete? For example, graphene, which is a fairly new and unique material that it's very expensive material. In most cases, it's expensive to manufacture, but interestingly enough, there's some potential applications in concrete. We're some very low additions of graphene to traditional concrete. That's some interesting things to the physical properties of the concrete that we're still trying to understand and appreciate. Wow, that's interesting. I enjoy hearing things like that, and I enjoy talking to experts like yourself on the podcast, because one of the goals of the podcast is to help civil engineering professionals be as well-rounded as we can and maybe identify career opportunities. Depending on your field, maybe you're in structural or you work with structural engineers on a regular basis, looking into some of these trends, sustainability, resilience, nanotechnology, these can be big opportunities for you or your firm going forward. If you start to develop expertise around some of these areas or further develop your expertise, I think that that's a great way to open up a lot of career opportunities or maybe new business opportunities for your company. I'm happy that Ron shared them with us. Sure, thank you. Ron, before we put you on the civil engineering hot seat, we do it all for all of our guests. Let me ask you one last question. Let's say we have engineers listening. They're interested in concrete. They want to learn more about it. They want to get involved. How can they contribute, whether it's with ACI? What would you recommend? Well, obviously, I'd say become active in ACI. That seems a little self-serving, but it's self-serving from my standpoint of getting more members, but it's also self-serving for the individual. You can be active in ACI in a number of different ways. You can be a committee member. We have a number of technical committees. We have educational committees. We have certification committees. It's fairly easy to be active at that level. If you're a student, we have a large student contingency that make up an important part of ACI. If it's not ACI, I would certainly encourage any engineer to find the time, and I know in today's hectic life it's difficult, but to find the time to identify a couple of organizations that they want to be involved in, whether it's ACI or one of the other professional or trade organizations that become involved, I think what you'll find is what you give to them, you'll get back to unfold and benefit. For sure. I've heard that from a lot of people, and going back to Ron's comment earlier, you're going to learn a lot, of course, about the technical items and some of the trends and maybe some of the guidelines and codes and all that stuff for sure, but the other thing you're going to be able to do is get to know people that have experience in your field. Probably one of the most valuable things that you're going to get to do, you may find a mentor, you may find someone and sit next to them at a meeting or a luncheon and get a piece of advice that will live with you for your career, and to me, in my professional associations and different organizations that I've been involved with, that's been the most valuable aspect. It's always been interesting to me that people develop a very strong affinity to the wherever they went to school, whether it's Texas, Illinois, Iowa, wherever, they've got a strong affinity to that. Most people spend four or five, six years at school, maybe seven, depending on what degree you got and how quickly you achieved your degree status, but when you look at professional associations, we've got ACI members that have been members for 50 and 60 years. Talk about developing an affinity for a group over that period of time, and not only do you develop an affinity for the group, generically, you also develop some really good long-lasting friendships that probably exceed the friendships or the time that you've spent in university. For some of us, it's probably exceeded the time we've spent with our spouses, with our children, so when you stop and look at it that way, it's a pretty important part of our life. Yeah, I would agree with that. I think what you've hit on there is something that a lot of engineers that I speak to don't think about in terms of their career. They think about, you know, you think you always think about maybe salary, position, the projects you work on, the memberships you have, the groups like ACI, but it's the relationships that you make through some of these avenues that create fulfillment, real fulfillment in your career, right? Real engagement, real satisfaction, and so don't forget about that aspect of your career. It's not just about checking all the boxes with salary and your license and the technical stuff. That is all important, but it's the people that you spend your career with that often are, you know, kind of the most rewarding part of it and this is where you meet them in places like this. Absolutely. And then ACI standpoint, where could you go and meet a group of people who care about the difference between cement and concrete? I tell you, if you tell your neighbors there's a difference, they're going to look at you like, well, who cares? You're crazy. You go to ACI and you talk about the difference between cement and concrete. You'll be there with your own kind. Yeah, you're right. They're speaking your language and you can relate to them and that's, I think that's powerful. All right, we're going to take a quick break. We're going to come back and we're going to put Ron in the civil engineering hot seat. I hope you are enjoying this episode of the Civil Engineering Podcast, which is produced by the Engineering Management Institute. Please be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel here for more podcast episodes and for all of our engineering manager, 8020 shorts videos that we publish weekly where we interview successful engineering managers. Now it's time to jump into our civil engineering hot seat segment. All right, we're back with Ron Berg, Executive Vice President, Chief Staff Officer of the American Concrete Institute and we're putting Ron on the civil engineering hot seat. Ron, you ready? I'm ready if you are. All right, so here we go. First question, are there any specific rituals that you practice every day? For example, do you have a morning routine or a lunchtime ritual, something that you do on a daily basis that has contributed to your success as a professional? Well, lately, and by lately, I mean maybe the last five or six, seven years, I've been reading a virtual document that comes out every day called Smart Brief on Leadership. It's a very interesting daily compendium of short articles on what it takes to be an effective leader. Probably 10 or 15% are worth a good read, but I always come away with that something saying, hmm, boy, I maybe haven't thought about that or this is another idea. And then the other thing I do with that I try to pass along insights I've gained to my team also saying, hey, here's something you might want to read because it appeared to be interesting to me. That's great. That sounds like a really good habit. All right, Ron, what's one book that you might recommend regularly or just it could be a book that you found to be extremely helpful in your professional development or personal development, something that comes to mind? Well, other than the obvious, any ACI document would be the obvious thing I would recommend anybody but going beyond that, because I don't think that was the nature of your question. The seven habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey is really an excellent read. It's something that we use with our senior management team. I think although the book is rather lengthy, the seven habits are not that lengthy. And I think there's a lot of good, solid, practical information there. I particularly like the one where one of his habits is seek to be understood or understand before you seek to be understood. I think that's a really, really valid piece of advice. Yeah, that's great. And again, what I love about that, and it's a great book, but what's also great about it from an engineering standpoint is, again, we love frameworks, right? We love recipes. We love frameworks. And we have those seven habits that you can work through. I think that's a tremendous advantage for us as technical professionals or analytical individuals, because we can try to take that framework and apply it to what we do on a regular basis. And so that book comes up a lot on the podcast. I'm glad you reinforced that. All right, so Ron, thinking back on some of the managers that maybe you've had in your career, you know, and not necessarily asking them name names, but if you think about some of your favorite managers, you know, what made them your favorite? What are those characteristics that you've seen in kind of great leaders or managers throughout your career? I'm going to answer that question in maybe a way that you weren't quite expecting, because I did know you were going to ask it, so I'll preface it by saying that. Like many others, I've had a number of really great managers I've worked with. They've all shared some typical characteristics. They've been transparent. They've been loyal. They've been consistent. But also I've had the advantage, and I use this word very specifically of working for some really bad managers, maybe two bad managers. And one of my neighbors shared a quip with me that I think he said it in jest, but it really sunk home. And he said, nobody's totally useless. They can always be a bad example. And sometimes I've found that it's easy to look at somebody who's doing something right and saying, yeah, I do that. Obviously I would do that. But boy, when you've worked with someone that's done something wrong and you understand why what it feels like to be the recipient of that, there's a lot of learning that can be done in that. So I guess my advice to folks would be, if you're working with someone that you don't particularly like or are doing things incorrectly, take advantage of that. Take note of why you felt that way and what you would do differently when you're in that role. So yeah, I think it's been actually a blessing in my case that I've had some really, really good managers. And for the most part, that's been the large majority of them. But I've had a couple of clunkers in the group too. And looking back at it from my current age and my current status, I'd have to say now at the time I wouldn't have said it, but I'd have to say now actually that was a good part of my education and training and upbringing, if you will. I love that. And it's great. And I think it really does speak to a mindset that you can have in that even when something quote unquote kind of bad experience happens for you as long as you can learn from it, right? It becomes you can kind of turn it into a good experience because you're creating, you're avoiding that from happening again or something from happening even worse. And I know kind of a personal example, but recently, like, you know, my wife and I, we have three kids. And I think, you know, one of the kids, our kid's friends was doing something that really wasn't good. And the parent was Latin, and I said, you know what, it is what it is, they parent how they want to, but what we can learn from that situation is we shouldn't do that, right? We should be better. We need to be better than that in our situation. That's what we want to do. And so that's a great point there. I really like looking at it from that angle. All right. I've got one final question, Ron, which we call the civil engineering career elevator advice question. If you got into an elevator with a civil engineer and you had about 30 to 40 seconds with him or her to give career advice in that short period of time, what would it be? This actually harkens back to some things we've talked about already in the podcast. And that is, I would tell an engineer, remember what you do is noble and what you do really matters. I mean, if someone asked you what you do on a daily basis, somebody might say, well, I design beams, I design concrete, mixed designs, I design design roadways. Well, yeah, that's what you do. But the why you do it, I think it's important. You do it ultimately at the end of the day, not to make money for your firm, although hopefully that's a byproduct, but you do it to make the world a better place for everybody, for the general public. And not everybody has a job that can say that about. So I think it's something that we as civil engineers need to remind ourselves of more than every once in a while, but it keeps us focused and maybe it keeps us grounded. And it keeps us understanding that what we do is in fact noble. That's great. Great point and really great to kind of drive that home here at the end, because, you know, back to what we said about people take kind of what we do sometimes as civil engineers for granted. And, you know, we certainly shouldn't take it for granted. And we should be aware of the importance of it, because that does tie into a lot of the stuff that you and I talked about, especially our pledge to the public, which is really important to keep them at the forefront of our mind and their health and their safety. And that's a big component of what we do. So once again, Ron Berg from ACI, Ron, thank you so much for spending some time with us on the civil engineering podcast. I enjoyed the time. I hope the listeners got a little bit of a few nuggets of worthwhile information out of this. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the civil engineering podcast on YouTube, produced by the Engineering Management Institute. We're always looking for new ways to help engineers become effective managers and leaders. You can view all of our content on our website at engineeringmanagementinstitute.org and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel here for our weekly videos. Until next time, please continue to engineer your own success.