ACEC Phoenix 2026: The Talent Gap, the Judo Flip, and Leading With Love

Firms are booked a year out.

They can’t find the people to do the work.

And the old playbook for fixing it is broken.

That was the message from ACEC President and CEO Linda Bauer Darr as the Fall Conference opened in Phoenix, during the conference’s Sunday opener. ACEC describes its annual Fall Conference as a gathering of more than 1,100 engineering executives, firm leaders and industry partners.

Higher interest rates. Tariffs that won’t die. Record $6.53 diesel. Construction costs pushed up by the data center boom. And AI accelerating every part of the business, faster than most firms can adapt.

Her verdict: conventional wisdom “is no longer serving” firm leaders.

Here are the four takeaways every engineering leader should be talking about this week, plus the playbook Josh Linkner gave the room for acting on them.

01

The economy isn’t your bottleneck. Your bench is.

72% of firm leaders are significantly concerned about inflation, according to the ACEC Research Institute’s latest survey.

The same leaders report a median backlog of a full year.

Read that again. The work is there. The people aren’t.

A full backlog is only an asset if you can staff it.

02

The roof is only as strong as what holds it up

Darr borrowed JFK’s advice to fix the roof while the sun is shining, then admitted the sunshine has been scarce.

Her point: when the storms don’t let up, the roof is only as strong as what holds it up.

For engineering firms, that’s people.

The backlog is there. The only question is whether you decide your talent strategy now, or let events decide it for you.

03

Competence is not a luxury

Darr tied licensure and qualifications-based selection together: one answers who should do the work, the other how they should be chosen.

Her reason for both: competence is not a luxury when lives are on the line.

And you can’t win on qualifications if you can’t attract and keep qualified people.

04

AI won’t solve the talent shortage

Darr called AI neither a miracle nor a menace, but a powerful tool that demands governance.

Then she said the part every firm leader should screenshot:

ACEC’s new Pipeline Project with ACE Mentor, pairing students with practicing engineers, is one long-term answer. But firms with a year of backlog can’t wait for the next generation to graduate.

Keynote · Jake Wood

Leadership when it matters most

Marine Corps scout-sniper. Combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Founder of Team Rubicon, the disaster response organization that has grown to more than 150,000 volunteers and responded to nearly 1,000 crises.

You’d expect a combat veteran to talk about discipline and command. Jake Wood talked about love.

His biggest message: lead with love. When people know their leader genuinely cares about them, they get bold. They act with courage.

He challenged firm leaders to build a culture where every group in the firm, from new hires to senior principals, is pushed to reach its full potential and become its best self. The foundation for that isn’t policy. It’s trust and love.

Here’s why that matters for the talent problem. Finding great engineers is only half the battle. Keeping them, and getting their boldest work, depends on whether they feel trusted and cared for once they walk in the door.