As a result of suggestions made at the State Convention in June of 2025 and the fact that NSPE is redesigning their awards to make the applications on line, your Board of Directors have issued a challenge to the Practice Division Chairs and your MSPE Awards Committee to revise and simplify the award applications in time for processing them for this year’s award selections.

The team that has been working diligently since late summer includes your Awards Committee consisting of Michael Buchter,  Mike Atkinson, Julie Hawkins,  Jim Fisher, David Heise, Christine Grunbaum, Blake Murray and Chair Mitch Krysa.  The second group is the Practice Division Chairs (PDC’s) with Bryan Gregory of PEPP, Lexi Hunsucker of PEG, Gary Marquart of PEI, Jeff Hoevelmann of PEC and Dr. Mark Nowack of PEHE.

The Awards Committee is responsible for the Hall of Fame Award and the Young Engineer of the year award and oversees the Presidents Extra Mile Resolution.  All other awards are owned and administered by those Practice Divisions (PC’s) mentioned above.

While one would think it to be a simple task to revise and existing document…well that was and is not the case.  Several of these apply to all PC’s so the applications must be coordinated and take advantage of those similarities.  In addition, for each award there is a “Criteria” document that describes the awards and of course the criteria required to be considered for the award.  The next issue was that Practice Divisions have special awards such as the QBS for PEPP that takes special consideration.

Then there is the issue of making simplified applications web based.  After several manipulations with Wild Apricot, we found that the best course was to make the applications a function of Google Docs.  Since that time the committee has been reviewing, editing and revising to complete the task.

As of February 5, most of the applications have been approved by the owners and we expect to finalize and release the new applications by Valentines Day.

So, after receiving the release from the Awards Committee and the PDC’s, please consult our website for the newly revised and much simplified and improved instructions and applications.  Most of the deadlines are March 31.  Please make sure to review the criteria and instructions and review the new application forms.  By doing so you will save a significant amount of time researching and compiling data for the submission.  By no means does the committee consider the revised processes perfect and understand there will be a need for further revision.  The new process is better, more universal and easier to compile and submit.  You can always contact the Practice Division Chairs, the Awards Chairman or the MSPE administrative offices for assistance.

Briefly, the form is online through a Google doc, so data entry is on the form.  You can start and come back later and add to it until such time you submit, and you can also go back and revise it up until the deadline then you will not have access to it.  The text boxes have size limits for the reasons to keep the submittal concise and allow for evaluators to limit their time to review.  There is also a page limit for the entire document.  If you need to submit additional justification, there is a place to upload your documents but be aware of the total page document requirements.  (Consult the criteria and instructions for those limits.)

Upon clicking “Submit” the application will automatically be sent to a file for MSPE Administration to handle.  You do not need to send anything else to the Awards Committee, PDC’s or MSPE Administration.

So, let’s get started and get the energy moving forward on helping MSPE celebrate our members through this Award Process!

The team members associated with this effort are applauded for their efforts, commitment in time, meeting attendance and for conduct exemplary of a Professional Engineer.  There were 13+ Zoom meetings, conducted bi-weekly beginning July 30, 2025, and everyone attended generally, with minor absences due to work requirements.  Team members participated and contributed in each of these meetings.  Team members engaged their own committees to ensure reviews were properly conducted and the effort of Blake Murray to work on the construction of the online format was tremendous, and very much appreciated.

When given the opportunity please extend your thanks to this team!

Respectfully submitted for this team by Awards Chairman, Mitch Krysa, P.E.

NSPE Awards

NSPE awards are particularly described on the NSPE website at:

https://www.nspe.org/membership/about-nspe/awards-recognition

These awards and deadlines are: