Engineering Inc. - March/April 2009 - 20

1 9 8 0–1989 The History of A C E C e decade began with an antitrust suit filed against the Council by the Department of Justice claiming that ACEC’s prohibition on competitive bidding amounted to price fixing. The Council agreed to draft new Professional and Ethical Conduct Guidelines that eliminated price competition as an ethical breach. ACEC also signed a consent decree requiring annual certifications over the next 10 years that neither the national organization nor any of its Member Organizations would have any professional guidelines discouraging firms from entering into design competition or providing free services on a contingent basis. In the wake of the case, ACEC established a Legal Defense Fund—later renamed the Minuteman Fund—to aid firms in conflict with federal agencies on issues affecting the practice of engineering. Throughout the decade—and more than 50 times in 1982 alone—the Council had to point out to federal agencies that they were required to follow the Brooks Act in the procurement process. In many cases, the agencies were unaware of the law. As membership surpassed 4,500 firms, the Council enjoyed several significant legislative victories, including a 1982 law that required federal agencies to “pay on time” or include interest payments; the Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1982; and major tax provisions in the 1987 Budget Reconciliation Act, such as the use of cash accounting and allowance of taxes and payments on a fiscal-year basis. The Design Professionals Coalition was created in 1983 by ACEC’s larger firms to represent their business interests at a time when more small business set-asides were being initiated in government. The same year, ACEC conducted a national public relations campaign to promote consulting engineering. The campaign placed 40 advertisements in 20 national publications and reached an estimated 7 million readers. An ACEC-sponsored exhibit at 20 ENGINEERING INC. MaRCh / apRIl 2009 Th Parsons Brinckerhoff and Sverdrup designed and managed construction of the 1.5-mile, eight-lane Fort McHenry Tunnel in Baltimore. When completed in 1985, it was the world’s widest underwater tunnel for vehicular traffic. the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History attracted several hundred thousand visitors. ACEC launched the Voluntary Peer Review Program in 1984. Later renamed Organizational Peer Review, the program attracted more than 1,200 firms for peer reviews over the next 20 years. In 1986, ACEC founded the American Tort Reform Association (ATRA), led by then-ACEC Executive Vice President James Coyne, a former congressman. ATRA’s mission was to address unfair liability statutes nationwide. The American Medical Association later joined ACEC as a sponsor of ATRA. In 1987, the Council named Howard Messner executive vice president. Messner, who had previously served in high-level administrative roles in government, would serve as the Council’s chief staff executive for the next 12 years. The ACEC Legal Counsel Forum was established in 1987 to enable lawyers in Member Firms to discuss legal issues facing engineering companies. The same year, the Council created the Coalition of American Structural Engineers (CASE) to address insurance and liability issues unique to structural practices.

Engineering Inc. - March/April 2009

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