Shoshanna: You have served on the AACE Board of Directors as President-Elect, President, and Past President from 2022 to 2024.  Why was it important for you to be in that leadership position?

The short answer is, “Giving back brings me joy”! I have been in the project controls industry for over 30 years, and I still feel like I’m teaching but learning simultaneously.  To stay current in our field, we need to stay engaged with people in the industry and be cognizant of industry trends.  AACE is the gathering of the best minds in the project controls field, and to me, there is no place better for me to give back than being on the AACE Board of Directors!

What was your vision as the AACE President?

I saw my role as the organization’s strategic beacon. One of my key visions was to “Build a sustainable stream of project control talent for generations to meet the demand for our field.” If we constantly look for the next succession candidates instead of developing them, we are not doing our jobs right. 

Sounds like an awesome but daunting mission?  How do we tackle it?

The vision is achieved via three key missions: educate, guide, and repeat.

Okay.  Let’s start with “educate.”  AACE already has great resources, like the Total Cost Management Framework and multiple Recommended Practices.  What else should we do?

My career is built on nuclear construction projects, so the culture of “continuous improvement” is deeply ingrained in me.  We have fantastic resources at AACE, and I want to keep them current with the latest industry developments.  Take the topic of Nuclear Estimating Classification (RP 115R-21), for example; there was an overwhelming call from the nuclear industry for AACE to guide the world on how to approach estimating classification with nuclear projects, including refurbishments and new builds such as small modular reactors.  

Keeping our “body of knowledge” current to the industry and our members, with real, tried-and-true, experience-based recommendations, is critical to the success of project control professionals worldwide. This is the common motivator behind the experts at the AACE Technical Board, the Certification Board, and the Education Board. 

How does “guide” differ from “educate” then?

For me, guidance is about putting the education into practice.  In my day job as a project management consultant, I often provide recommendations for my clients to become better practitioners of project controls – I show them how the best practices are applied, and their businesses flourish because of it.

It sounds like guidance is the application, and education is the foundation.  Can you give an example of that?

For example, we have guidance on how to determine project success with data and metrics in our recommended practices.  However, people often mistake project controls as the “data provider” only.  We are much more than that!  Data, for its own sake, is not worth anything, no matter how fancy the tool it originated from.  Experienced project control professionals know how to distill the data and tell the right story so that the right decisions are made, and the right conversations occur within the project team.  This ability to analyze and then advocate is something that AACE can promote via the establishment of our mentoring program and knowledge sharing at our annual conference.

Let’s talk about mentoring.  Some folks are still confusing it with training.  Can you define what mentoring means to you?

I would characterize mentoring as an open invitation for someone to hear your ideas. The mentee leads the conversation, and it can be about any subject: career advice, an issue at work, industry trends and opportunities, or even venting because it was a bad day. It is important to note that the mentor does not give the mentee all the solutions to their problems but guides them to seek out the best path. 

Sometimes, mentors learn something out of those discussions, too! I remember one of my mentees did a PowerPoint presentation to me, describing his strategy to resolve the problem, and one of the graphics they used was such an effective depiction of the subject that I ended up borrowing and using it with his permission!

I think “repeat” refers to the sustainability of “educate” and “guide”?

Absolutely.  Most of us on the Board of Directors and the various AACE boards are volunteers. We are dedicated to the cause of “educate” and “guide.” Still, we also need to continuously groom the next generation of “educators” and “guides” to develop a continuous pipeline of project control professionals.  This is critical to the growth and public recognition of our profession.

Regarding people, what makes you most proud of the AACE leaders and volunteers?  

That has to be the volunteer’s altruistic dedication to the common good for the profession.  In your day job, there is a monetary incentive for someone to deliver and follow through on their commitments.  That doesn’t exist in volunteer space.  I love being in meetings to see how connected people are, the intrinsic joy of the people seeing their contribution bearing fruit! Take the technical board, for example, which is responsible for approving AACE’s recommended practices and overseeing the technical program of the annual conference.  Technical writing and reviews are arduous and laborious.   We won’t be doing it if there isn’t enough passion for the industry. 

Lastly, what was your most significant achievement in your tenure as President-Elect, President, and Past President? 

There would be so many, but if I were to pick one, it would be the Strategic Planning Task Force that rewrote our governance and the updated strategic plan that we are on right now. The plan’s reception was phenomenal, and the metrics proved it yielded results: We started seeing member growth, greater recognition of our certifications, and so many new forums for members to interact with! I cannot be prouder of the team!

Thank you, Shoshanna, for all you’ve done and will continue to do for AACE!