Engineering Inc. - Winter 2020 - 37

A KEY STATE IN
THE ORIGIN OF THE
AMERICAN COUNCIL
OF ENGINEERING
COMPANIES, ACEC
OKLAHOMA ALSO
HAS BEEN KEY TO ITS
STATE'S RENAISSANCE

HOMA
Collaboration
Place. Opened in September 2018, the
award-winning park is located alongside
the Arkansas River that runs through
Tulsa.
Although the park was primarily privately funded, the city of Tulsa provided
$65 million in infrastructure improvements to ensure access to and from the
park while enhancing existing walking
and biking trails to link to the park.
"Oklahoma City and Tulsa are becoming first-class cities, and people are noticing," says Martin Hepp, president of
Oklahoma City-based CEC Corp., which
did the MEP work on both Scissortail
Park and the convention center hotel
parking garage. "Oklahoma is continuing to push growth. It is a good day to be
doing engineering in the state."
ACEC'S OKLAHOMA ROOTS

Founded in 1954, ACEC OKLAHOMA
has a long history of leadership in ACEC.
It was one of the 10 founding state
organizations that subsequently formed
the national Consulting Engineering
Council of the United States in 1956, a
predecessor of the ACEC national asso-

BY STACY COLLETT

ciation that exists today.
The first meeting of the 10 founding
state organizations was hosted in July
1956 in Tulsa. The chairman appointed
to lead that meeting, Charles Pate from
Oklahoma, three years later became the
president of the Consulting Engineering
Council of the U.S. That organization
merged with the American Institute
of Consulting Engineers in 1972, and
William Holway, a member from Tulsa,
became the first president of the new
merged organization, which formally
became the American Consulting Engineers Council, and later ACEC.
ACEC OKLAHOMA's 68 Member
Firms employ nearly 2,000 engineers,
architects, land surveyors, scientists, and
other professionals and are responsible
for about $250 million worth of design
for private and public works projects
annually in Oklahoma and throughout
the nation. The majority of Member
Firms specialize in civil engineering and
range in size from a single registered
professional engineer to full-service,
multidisciplinary engineering and architectural/engineering firms employing

ACEC OKLAHOMA AT-A-GLANCE
ACEC OKLAHOMA's 68 Member
Firms employ nearly 2,000 engineers,
architects, land surveyors, scientists,
and other professionals
ACEC OKLAHOMA is led by James F.
Sullins, CAE, who will retire in 2020 as
president and CEO after 32 years of
Council leadership
Each year, ACEC OKLAHOMA
members are responsible for
approximately $250 million in design
services for projects in Oklahoma and
throughout the nation

hundreds of professionals.
ACEC OKLAHOMA is led by Sullins, who marked his 32nd anniversary
as president and CEO on Feb. 1, 2020.
A self-described one-man band for all of
his tenure, Sullins has led the organization's growth in both size and influence
throughout his more than three-decade
tenure.
"When ACEC OKLAHOMA was
formed in 1954, and even through into
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