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Oregon government needs more project delivery experience. Despite increasing revenues, the talk is all about cuts and the need to make do with less. There has been no emergence of clear leadership willing to take risks and provide a rallying point for Oregon’s infrastructure. It hasn’t changed much since 1969, when the U.S. first put a man on the moon. Despite much hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth, Oregon’s infrastructure is no closer to being renewed than it was in the previous election.

The architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry now has a few of its own vying for votes in the next elections. At least three candidates have a background in our industry, and each one has experience actually producing a result. They offer a very different perspective than many of the other candidates who have legal or social service backgrounds.

Stu Emmons, an architect, is running for a seat on the Portland City Council. He has some new and novel ideas for ending homelessness in the city, or at least significantly reducing its impact. As an architect, Stu has seen how projects come together and what is necessary to ensure that, at completion, they achieve their initial goals. Stu has pretty healthy opposition in the primaries and will need to overcome several fairly experienced professional politicians to be successful. He’ll need all the help that the AEC community can muster.

Dave Poulson, an engineer, is running for the 19th District’s Oregon Senate seat. He has no primary opposition, but will have his work cut out for him in the November election. Dave is an engineering manager and a professional engineer. He has some ideas about improving graduation rates in Oregon’s public schools as well as working to bolster small business and wages. Dave is a really smart guy who understands how to get things done and has a worldview of things.

Lynn Peterson, an engineer, is running for Metro Council president. She has a couple of graduate degrees from Portland State University in civil engineering and urban planning. She brings with her a recent stint heading the Washington State Department of Transportation as well as service on the Clackamas County Commission. Given all of the endorsements from unions and other politicians, she looks like she has morphed into a professional herself, but we’ll still claim her as one of ours.

Governance is an important function in our society. For it is there that the major decisions are made that set the priorities and create the projects that affect our quality of life. The roles that these candidates are vying for affect our daily lives. We will be impacted more by the winners of these elections than by the national figures in the news every day.

Many of us are busy running our businesses and trying to expand them. All of the candidates have various degrees of experience doing the same. Voters in the AEC industry should take a close look at each of these candidates and understand their backgrounds, learn their positions on the issues impacting our lives, and find ways to support them.

Oregon’s population just broke the 4 million mark. And it’s not likely that the population increase will diminish. To maintain a reasonable quality of life – the one that brought many people to Oregon – it is essential that our infrastructure be up to date. Putting these candidates in positions of influence is essential for the political system to understand how infrastructure initiatives are delivered to Oregonians.

It takes a long-term view to deliver infrastructure. It does not lend itself to emergency measures. Each of these candidates understands this. Oregonians have not been shy to appropriate funds for things that matter to them. However, they have not been acclimatized to appropriating money for infrastructure (water included).

Like all else, the technologies and strategies affecting infrastructure evolve. Mechanisms that were appropriate 40 years ago have been superseded. Who would use a rotary telephone when you have an iPhone in your pocket? Yet when it comes to infrastructure, Oregonians seem satisfied to continue to use the rotary phone. Occasionally components fail, and individual pieces are replaced. That’s hardly a strategy for a wholesale reinvigoration of a critical component of Oregon’s economy. We should put these candidates to the test of implementing infrastructure and look to them for results.

Christian Steinbrecher is president of Ukiah Engineering. He is the author of ASCE Oregon’s report card on Oregon’s infrastructure and a past recipient of ASCE Oregon’s Engineer of the Year award. Contact him at 503-297-4827 or [email protected].