Providing Clients with Educational Opportunities

As advocates for our clients and project collaborators, Nitsch provides opportunities to learn about a range of engineering and industry topics through two programs that provide AIA and ASLA learning units:

• Client seminars provide information on a wide range of industry topics, ranging from land surveying to resilience to permitting in the City of Boston. Past topics have included:
  • Climate Change and Resilience: A Regional Approach to Issues and Challenges
  • Smart Cities: Technology+Urban Development
  • Worcester’s Growing: What’s Up?
  • The Changing Face of Ownership: Working with OPMs
  • Building Resiliency: From Gray to Green
  • Stormwater Management: How Changing Regulations WILL Impact Your Projects
  • Green and Complete Streets: The Future of Transportation Design
  • Getting Survey Results That Work: Putting Together the Elements of Success
  • Leadership Management Transitions: Preparing Yourself Whether You’re the Current CEO or the “Next Generation” Leader
  • The Business Case for Sustainable Design
• Lunch-and-learn sessions, where our employees visit client offices to share information. Each of our programs provides 1 AIA LU or 1 LA CES PDH (some HSW):
  • Sustainable Sites: Three Case Studies
  • Sustainable Stormwater Solutions
  • Green Infrastructure/Low Impact Development (LID) for Sustainable Sites
  • Stormwater Master Planning
  • Innovative Water Management: Rainwater Harvesting and Alternate Water Reuse
  • Land Surveying and GIS: What, When, and Why!
  • Complete Streets
  • Traffic and Parking Impacts of Development Projects
  • Demystifying the Permitting Process: Getting Projects Built in Boston

Building the Future of Engineering

Engineering is well known as an industry for its lack of diversity: only 13% of engineers are women, 14% are Asian, 7% are Hispanic or Latinx, and 4% are Black. One key way to address this lack of representation is through increasing engagement in engineering among under-represented K-12 students. Nitsch focuses on addressing this through education and outreach, with our primary focus on supporting educational initiatives such as:

• Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day: Since 2002, we have held an annual event for 6th – 12th-grade girls to educate them about various engineering fields (we have a different theme every year) and to demonstrate that engineering is fun! See more details on our annual Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day event including additional resources and how to sign up to be on the invitation list.
  • Interested in doing some engineering activities at home or school? Check out our page of downloadable activity packages here!
• STEM Education for K-12 Students: From Massachusetts STEM Week to EWeek to the United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley’s BoSTEM initiative, Nitsch tries to share information and build excitement about engineering as a profession for K-12 students – particularly those who are under-represented in the field (such as women and people of color) or are from under-resourced communities.