MnSPE Annual Meeting & Awards 2026

by | Apr 15, 2026 | Awards, Events and membership activities

Join us for the 2026 MnSPE Annual Meeting & Awards

All are welcome to join us for our annual spring gathering.

You will get 4 PDHs (3 of them ethics), get to join some enriching educational sessions, connect with PEs across our community, celebrate individual and project awards making an impact, and more.
Our focus for this year’s event is The Pe’s role in Community Health, Safety, and Welfare.

Event Overview

    • Ann Johnson Stewart, PE, will be joining us to share about her work in our Minnesota State Senate. She is the only licensed professional engineer currently serving in the Minnesota legislature.
    • Atty. Kristine Kubes, Esq. will provide an ethics session, Engineering Ethics and Wellness: It’s All About You
    • Dr. Massoud Amin will be presenting Toward the Trusted Grid: Engineering Ethics in the Age of Rapid Technological Change and AI
    • 4 PDHs, including 3 ethics hours.
    • MnSPE updates! We have some great things happening at MnSPE, and we look forward to sharing with you how we are bringing together advocacy work, continuing education, STEM outreach through our MATHCOUNTS program, and more.
    • NSPE Updates. Brian Malm, PE, current NSPE Past President (also a MnSPE past president) will join us to share about what’s happening at NSPE.
    • Awards. We will be presenting our annual awards, highlighting the engineers involved in projects serving the public health, safety, and welfare. Additionally, we’ll announce Engineer and Young Engineer of the Year.

We welcome all – current members, potential members, past members looking to reconnect, our sponsors, awards recipient colleagues, etc. We look forward to welcoming you!

Event outline:

    • 9 AM: Event welcome, Senator Ann Johnson Stewart
    • 10 AM – 12 PM: Kristine Kubes
    • 12 PM – 2 PM: Lunch, awards, MnSPE and NSPE Updates
    • 2 PM – 3 PM: Massoud Amin
    • 3 PM – 3:30 PM: Small group discussions, and wrap-up
    • 3:30 – 5:30 PM: Social at North Oaks Golf Club

Registration options:

Registration includes lunch, full event attendance, 4.0 PDHs (no charge for members for PDHs), social event appetizers. Cash bar will be available.

Location: North Oaks Golf Club (54 E Oaks Rd, North Oaks)

Register by April 24.

Register Here

Program Details

Legislative update from Senator Ann Johnson Stewart, PE

Senator Johnson Stewart will join us to share insights on her work in the Senate, including statewide infrastructure maintenance and the importance of passing a bonding bill, groundwater permitting requirements (SF3852), and her leadership of the Electricity as Vehicle Fuel Working Group, highlighting opportunities for PEs to engage in advocacy at the Capitol.

Senator Ann Johnson Stewart represents Senate District 45, which includes the communities of Minnetonka, Mound, Orono, Minnetrista, Shorewood, Wayzata, Deephaven, Excelsior, Spring Park, Tonka Bay, Woodland, Saint Bonifacius, Minnetonka Beach, Long Lake, and Greenwood.

Johnson Stewart grew up in Wausau, Wisconsin, and earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville and a master’s degree in civil engineering at the University of Minnesota. She was the founder and owner of a professional engineering services company for nearly three decades, and managed hundreds of millions of dollars of infrastructure projects across Minnesota.

Johnson Stewart is a teacher at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities and local technical colleges. A 30-year resident of Minnetonka, Johnson Stewart and her husband have four children and three grandchildren.

Senator Johnson Stewart is the Vice Chair of the Transportation Committee, and serves on the Capital Investment, State and Local Government, and Environment, Climate and Legacy Committees.

Ethics Session with Attorney Kristine A. Kubes, Esq.

Attorney Kristine A. Kubes is principal of Kubes Law Office, PLLC, serving design and construction professionals through all stages of a project – from contracts to payment issues, liens, risk management, defense of professional liability claims. She also represents professionals before their respective licensing Boards. Kristine is a litigator licensed to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, a mediator, and an educator on construction, design, and ethics issues and a certified VitalCog Trainer for suicide prevention in construction. www.kubeslaw.com

Attorney Kristine Kubes will share about the importance of mental health and the negative impact of stress that are often overlooked in the field of engineering. Discipline does not make a sick engineer well. In fact, in some cases, discipline may be a cry for help or sign of other mental health problems that need addressing. This session will share insights about the importance of ethical rules and ethical practice, as well as how to foster communication that creates a healthy workplace, and how promoting mental health and wellbeing serves not only the professional, but the public health, safety, and welfare (HSW).

Toward the Trusted Grid: Engineering Ethics in the Age of AI

Dr. Massoud Amin is Professor Emeritus of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Minnesota, where he held the Honeywell/H.W. Sweatt Chair and directed the Technological Leadership Institute. Widely credited as a founding architect of the modern smart grid, he led security and resilience research for all North American electric utilities following the September 11 attacks and has advised governments, utilities, and international bodies on critical infrastructure for more than three decades. His work spans power systems, cybersecurity, AI, and the ethics of complex systems. He is the author of The Integrity Compass: Leading with Ethics in a Changing World (2026) and several other forthcoming books on leadership and resilience. He lives in Minneapolis.

As artificial intelligence reshapes how infrastructure is designed, operated, and defended, the engineer’s core obligation — to protect the public — has never been more consequential or more complicated. This session draws on decades of work in smart grid architecture, critical infrastructure resilience, and engineering ethics to ask a practical question: What does sound engineering actually require of us when the systems we build are increasingly autonomous, the risks are compounding, and the pressure to move fast is relentless?

The session will combine technical grounding in grid resilience and AI-driven change with readings from Dr. Amin’s new book, The Integrity Compass: Leading with Ethics in a Changing World. Seven copies will be raffled to attendees.

Register Here