Elevating the Industry to New Heights–The 2022 Yearbook of Engineering Achievement

By Luke Carothers

Usually, the time for celebrating accomplishments comes at the end of the year.  A year’s latter months usually provide just the right environment for a sense of wistfulness and nostalgia, and for us to look back on everything we accomplished over the past year.  Here at Civil+Structural Engineer Media, we wanted to bring that spirit of celebration forward a few months.  We are excited to announce the opening of the 2022 Yearbook of Engineering Achievement (YEA) competition.

This is the second year of the competition, which was started in accordance with C+S Engineer Media and Zweig Group’s mission to Elevate the Industry.  This competition and the resulting awards identify AEC projects that have demonstrably moved the industry forward through community and environmental impact, innovative technical processes, or groundbreaking vision and execution. In 2021, these criteria gave us an amazing range of projects and firm types.  The projects covered in the 2021 YEA run the gamut from drinking water improvement and flood prevention to office redesign and neighborhood revitalization, all the way through infrastructure expansion and residential innovations.  

Out of more than 34 projects entered, twenty projects were selected as inaugural winners from five different categories: water/stormwater/wastewater, transportation/infrastructure, residential, environmental/sustainability, and small firm.  These projects were in every corner of the United States, representing 9 different states and multiple countries.  The firms behind these projects were both large and small, with the smallest firm having just 6 employees to the largest having well over 1000.

This year’s competition is going to look a little different.  First, we are adding another category—energy.  Additionally, we are altering last year’s format to look more like EDVY.  Last year, firms were asked to complete a rather long questionnaire about the project, followed by uploading a series of photos.  These were compiled into judging packets that were individually scored by our judging panel.  

This year, we are letting you tell the story of your project. There is still a short form with a few questions to answer.  However, firms will also be able to upload any photos or videos that feature their project.  These photos and videos, along with some information from the submission form, will be displayed on csengineermag.com/yea via the same flipbook format that supports our award-winning magazine.  During the first week of online voting, our website visitors will be able to vote once per day on their favorite project.  The top twenty videos at the end of this time will be announced as our finalists.  These finalists will then be presented for a second round of online voting to determine our top awards such as the 2022 Summit Award and our 2022 Best in Category.  The Summit Award is reserved for the project that receives the highest number of votes during the second week of voting, and Best in Category is awarded to the highest vote-getter in each of the six categories.  

We are excited to get the 2022 competition underway.  We believe that this format will widen the spotlight, allowing as many projects as possible to shine bright for our audience to see. Submissions for the competition will open on July 18th.  

If you have any questions about the competition or the submission process, please do not hesitate to contact me at lcarothers@zweiggroup.com.

Luke Carothers is the Editor for Civil + Structural Engineer Media. If you want us to cover your project or want to feature your own article, he can be reached at lcarothers@zweiggroup.com.