Leadership begins by taking the first step and not waiting for others to act. As a profession, we have bemoaned the failings of politicians and bureaucrats to make the investments we believe are required to have an efficient and effective national infrastructure system—and by extension an effective and efficient competitive national economy.
We developed tools like the American Society of Civil Engineers’ report card to measure the inaction of others and have spent a considerable amount of time talking to ourselves about how bad things are and how they should be fixed.