Dibble Participates in ACEC’s STEM Game Day at U of A
Dibble was honored to participate in the ACEC STEM Game Day stadium tour at the University of Arizona (U of A). We led middle schoolers to high school freshmen on an exciting journey through U of A’s football stadium, showcasing the STEM careers that make game day possible!
Michael Olson, PE, Utilities Project Engineer, led the event and shared the following thoughts on his involvement:
How did you get involved?
“It’s hard to say no to Mr. Greg Haggerty (Dibble’s CEO)! Honestly, I wanted to champion the UArizona event because I saw the pictures from the ASU event and wanted to participate in it the previous year, but they had enough support to make that event a success without me. But what could be better than having that type of event for kids in Tucson at UArizona, where I went to school? I thought contacting the right people to get an event at UArizona going wouldn’t be too hard. So, I volunteered to spearhead the efforts to bring the event to Tucson.”
Why are events like these important?
“The industry needs talented people and will need more talented people for the foreseeable future. Talented people must be prepared before entering college to get through the required schooling. As an industry, we need to be a little more visible and accessible because most people have no idea how awesome we are! Without infrastructure, our society and cities would not function!”
What was the event like?
“This year, these three game day events got professional engineers out in front of 1,500 middle school and freshmen students to discuss what civil engineers do and how rewarding what we do is. The kids were engaged; they loved it! You could see many of them thinking about things they hadn’t thought about before. Groups of students excitedly pointed out infrastructure to each other! Many students asked sincere questions of the volunteers and learned at the events. Everyone had a great time. UArizona, ASU, and NAU were supportive because they also saw the need to bring more students to their programs. Honestly, if I had had this type of event as a kid, I would have gone into civil engineering first and not had to change majors after finally talking to people in industries at the big UArizona career fairs.”
