Your People Are Here: ACEC Coalitions at the 2026 Annual Convention

There’s a moment at every convention when the big-room energy fades and something more valuable takes over, with a smaller table, a familiar challenge on the whiteboard, and a room full of people who actually get it. For hundreds of ACEC members, that moment happens inside a Coalition meeting.

Think of it less like a subcommittee and more like finding your professional neighborhood. Whether you run a small firm juggling every role at once, or you specialize in MEP systems or structural design, land development, or surveying, there’s a Coalition built around the specific world you work in every day. The same codes, the same client headaches, the same market pressures. These aren’t networking groups with name tags and small talk. They’re working sessions with people who already speak your language.

At the Annual Convention, all seven Coalitions had a chance to connect: surveyors, geoprofessionals, land development engineers, structural engineers, MEP engineers, design professionals, and small firm leaders. Each held committee meetings, many of them open to any member who wanted to pull up a chair and get involved. Each hosted a roundtable where the conversation could go wherever it needed to go.

That collaborative spirit showed up throughout the convention. Coalition leaders emphasized that many of the industry’s biggest challenges, from energy demand and infrastructure resilience to talent shortages and project delivery expectations, no longer fit neatly into one discipline. The most valuable conversations often happened at the intersections, where members could compare perspectives across specialties and walk away with ideas they could immediately take back to their firms.

In one of the more fitting moments of the week, the structural engineers and MEP engineers didn’t just meet separately. They sat down together. A joint session between two disciplines that spend their careers working across the same buildings and wrestling with many of the same pressures. It’s the kind of cross-coalition conversation that doesn’t happen by accident.

The issues driving those discussions are anything but abstract. MEP firms are navigating the pressure of integrated and sustainable building design amid tightening codes and decarbonization targets. Geoprofessionals are confronting a workforce gap serious enough that more than half of firms have recently turned down work due to staff shortages. Structural engineers are working through licensure barriers. Land development firms are adapting to new energy demands reshaping site design. These are the conversations happening right now, in firms like yours, and the Coalition roundtables are where members stop reading about those trends and start figuring out what to do about them.

For newer attendees especially, the meetings offered an easy entry point into the broader ACEC community. Coalition sessions created space for members to move beyond introductions and build relationships rooted in shared expertise and day-to-day experience. The kind of connections that tend to last long after the convention ends.

If you’ve been an ACEC member but haven’t plugged into a Coalition yet, the Annual Convention was a clear reminder of what you’re missing. These groups aren’t an add-on. They’re arguably the most practical part of your membership. Ready to find your people? Join a Coalition today and start connecting with peers who understand your work from the inside out.

We’ll see you in Phoenix. Join us at the 2026 ACEC Fall Conference, October 25-28, at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge. Click here to receive email updates about when registration opens and other event details.