May/June 2021 Editor’s Note for American Infrastructure Magazine

Dear Readers in Online and Print,

Welcome to the May issue of American Infrastructure Magazine. With President Biden’s ambitious July 4th vaccination goal for the country and low levels of COVID-19 positive cases in almost every state, it seems like life will be back to normal before the year ends. As the nation charges ahead towards a return to normalcy, the pandemic-fueled passion for addressing our nation’s issues remains.

Now that the virus and relief efforts have been addressed, the national consciousness has shifted to our nation’s infrastructure. Recently, President Biden announced an ambitious and expanded infrastructure bill that was meant to not only address much needed repairs to the nation’s infrastructure, but also to help modernize it to be more environmentally friendly.

In this issue, we feature industry experts who give some insight into what this bill, and other legislation and innovations, could mean for the infrastructure industry, which has for so long needed intervention.

As Kathy Maness, president of the National League of Cities, says in her column this issue, “Infrastructure concerns are not problems limited to rural or urban areas or specific regions. This is a whole of America issue that will take a whole of America approach to solve.”

As the country continues to grapple with the changes, the nation’s infrastructure and the organizations and agencies involved with it continue to forge ahead. In this issue, we also highlighted a few projects that will change the lives of a great number of people in the country, such as the I-69 Finish Line project, which will help create a route from the Canadian Border to Indiana and add miles of interstate highways for residents along the way.

For this month’s interview, we spoke with Governor David Ige from the state of Hawai’i who gave us an all-encompassing interview about everything from Hawai’i’s path to post-pandemic recovery to how it’s helping advance energy and emissions goals to what it’s infrastructure challenges are.

After a year filled with sadness, fear and worry, it is refreshing to see more positive and encouraging news, especially about infrastructure, making headlines. We hope this issue makes you feel more optimistic about the future of infrastructure and the nation.

As always, if you have any news or projects you would like the team here to know about, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at alexa@builder.media. I hope you enjoy the issue!

Sincerely,

Alexa Moreno Perdomo
Assistant Editor