At the luncheon, President-Elect Leonard gave a presentation on "The Future of Civil Engineering in 2025," discussing what America was like 100 years ago, some of the progress that has been made by civil engineers in the last century, current challenges faced by civil engineers, and ideas for how we can prepare for our future as civil engineers. Blaine recently served as the chair of the Task Committee to Achieve The Vision for Civil Engineering in 2025, a report prepared by following an ASCE-organized summit of 60 thought leaders with highly varied backgrounds and from all career levels including civil engineers, engineers from other disciplines, architects, educators, and association and society executives.

You can visit the ASCE website to learn more about the Vision for Civil Engineering in 2025. The website includes a copy of the Vision for Civil Engineering in 2025 report, which was released following the June 2006 summit of the diverse group of 60 civil engineering and other leaders as well as the Draft Roadmap Report (March/April 2009), which outlines the steps that the global civil engineering community needs to follow in order to achieve Vision 2025. Blaine suggested that members read the Vision 2025 report and Roadmap Report to identify a few areas where they can be proactive and involved or identify a personal skill or attribute that they can improve upon.

Blaine Leonard will be installed as the next President of ASCE at the 139th Annual Civil Engineering Conference in Kansas City, Missouri, which will be held from October 29-31, 2009. Blaine is the research program manager for the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) in Salt Lake City and has been with the Utah DOT since 2001. This will be the first time in many years that a government worker will hold ASCE's top position while remaining employed (some of ASCE's past presidents have come from government positions but they retired before serving their term as president).

Within ASCE, Leonard has served as vice president of Zone IV, director of District 11, governor for the Society's Geo-Institute, president of the Utah Section, chairman of the Utah Section geotechnical group and president of the University of Utah Student Chapter. In 2000, he was named the Utah Section Engineer of the Year.

He earned a bachelor's degree in civil engineering and master's in geotechnical engineering from the University of Utah. A licensed professional engineer in Utah, Arizona, California, Idaho, Wyoming and Colorado, Leonard is a resident of Farmington, Utah.