SOUTHFIELD – The Engineering Society works to be “all things engineering” for the Detroit area and the state of Michigan – preserving Michigan’s status as the No. 1 state for engineers in the nation.
Today?s ESD offers continuing education, leadership development and networking opportunities to today?s working engineers in all fields ? civil, environmental, mechanical, electronic, and more ? as well as to those working in allied technical and scientific fields, from IT to medicine to the building trades.
ESD also sponsors several technical conferences, social events, members-only tours of high-tech buildings and workplaces, and prestigious award programs. Perhaps the best known are the ESD Construction and Design Awards, announced at the ESD Annual Dinner, held each June. These awards honor high-tech construction and green buildings, and uniquely emphasize the partnership between building owner, architect and constructor.
ESD also sponsors youth competitions to promote excitement among young people in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) careers. ESD?s Future City Michigan Championship has teams of middle school students designing cities set 150 years in the future. The Michigan champion, from St. John Lutheran School in Rochester, has won the national championship the past two years in a row, an unprecedented achievement. ESD also offers Engineering SMArT Michigan ? for Science, Mathematics, Architecture and Technology ? for high school students, in which teams design an energy-efficient home, learning about energy efficiency, construction techniques and architecture.
As part of its mission, ESD also produces a glossy quarterly magazine, TechCentury, and covers Michigan technology news on its website, TechnologyCentury.Com Content from this website will now be available to MiTechNews.com readers, and MITechNews content will be available on the TechCentury website.
ESD dates back to 1895, when it was founded by 13 young engineering students from the University of Michigan. It grew to nearly 1,000 members before the Great Depression. During the Depression, it was shored up by the Horace H. and Mary A. Rackham Fund, an educational charity founded by Henry Ford?s first lawyer and his wife. Today?s ESD is a 501c3 nonprofit funded in part by the Rackham Foundation, along with membership dues, corporate support and program revenues. Its membership and board is a ?who?s who? of past and present engineering and scientific giants ? from towering figures like Charles Kettering, William “Bunky” Knudsen, Henry Ford, Alex Dow, Lee Iacocca, Albert Kahn, Richard Kuhn, Father William T. Cunningham, Keith Crain and Dr. David Cole, to today?s top engineering leaders.
For today?s board roster, Click on ESD.Org
