TABLE OF I CONTENTS ENGINEERING NC. N OV E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 04 V o l . 15, No. 6 F E AT U R E S BEYOND BEAN COUNTING 14 There's more to today's accounting and financial man- agement software products than just number-crunching. By Jim Parsons ACEC EXECUTIVE ROUNDTABLE 19 Executives from Fortune 500 companies and ACEC engineering firms shed new light on procurement. Edited by Melanie D.G. Kaplan BALANCING REWARD AND RISK 22 EDDIE ADAMS/CORBIS OUTLINE 14 Does your firm have enough insurance for the big project? By Thomas H. Porterfield 10 22 FALL CONFERENCE 26 C OV E R STORY More than 800 attend Por tland Conference, which FOUR MORE YEARS 10 featured the Dean/Bennett How the Bush re-election will impact the engineering industry. debate. By Dana Wilkie COVER PHOTO BY MICHAEL O'NEILL/CORBIS OUTLINE D E PA R T M E N T S FROM ACEC TO YOU 2 LEGISL ATIVE ACTION 8 Ever y member has a stake in membership Congress extends TEA-21; ACEC fights anti- re c r u i t m e n t . competition bills. ASK MEMBERS 3 MEMBERS IN THE NEWS 28 What part of your job brings you the most AARP honors Stanley Consultants; Christeson satisf action? on tap for water award. NEWS & NOTES 4 ONE ON ONE 32 ACEC wins major tax cut for A/Es. MIT, Ray Messer, president of Walter P. Moore, Stanford head list of top engineering discusses how his involvement with ACEC sc hools. has benefitted his firm. 26 Engineering Inc. promotes the advocacy and business interests of ACEC by offering news, legislative analysis and business practice information to member firms, clients, opinion leaders and policy makers. The articles and editorials appearing in this magazine do not represent an official ACEC position or policy unless specifically identified as doing so.