Influential Women spotlights Aida Baez’s structural engineering leadership

Influential Women featured Aida Baez, PE, a partner and senior structural engineer at ACcord Engineering in Boca Raton, Florida, for her technical leadership and commitment to quality. The profile also highlights her 2021 firm co-founding, her team-based project work, and her view that the industry needs stronger talent pipelines.

Why it matters: - Aida Baez’s profile spotlights a structural engineer whose work sits at the intersection of technical design, constructability, and project leadership. - The profile frames talent development as a growing issue for engineering and construction, where disciplined technical training remains essential. - Baez also serves as a visible example of women advancing into senior leadership roles in structural engineering.

What happened: - Influential Women published a profile on Aida Baez, PE, identifying her as a partner and senior structural engineer at ACcord Engineering in Boca Raton, Florida. - Baez leads planning, design, and execution work on complex structural engineering projects. - Her responsibilities include guiding multidisciplinary teams, overseeing technical deliverables, and helping ensure safety, efficiency, and design integrity. - The profile says Baez co-founded her own engineering firm in 2021. - The firm later received AIA Palm Beach 2024 Consulting Firm of the Year recognition.

The details: - Baez’s project portfolio spans commercial, institutional, and infrastructure developments. - Her engineering approach emphasizes practical, buildable solutions as well as technical excellence. - Her early interest in engineering began after watching a television series that showed an engineer reading plans and working on construction sites. - As a child, she requested a drafting table and began creating her own designs. - She later strengthened her technical base through drafting coursework at an early age. - Baez says her mentors taught her that technical knowledge alone is not enough. - They emphasized discipline, thoroughness, accountability, and awareness of the business side of engineering. - She also learned that engineers must produce clear, coordinated, constructible documents that contractors can build from. - Baez describes work ethic, perseverance, integrity, and purpose as central values in her career and personal life.

Between the lines: - The profile presents Baez’s career as a blend of technical competence and leadership discipline, not just design skill. - Her comments on being underestimated as a woman in engineering point to a profession where confidence and self-direction still matter. - Her focus on mentorship and education suggests the industry’s workforce challenge is not only about hiring, but also about training and retention. - Her emphasis on constructible documents reflects a practical view of engineering that values execution as much as design.

What's next: - Baez sees the shortage of highly motivated, well-trained talent as one of the biggest challenges facing engineering and construction. - She believes the industry should do more to encourage young people toward engineering, construction, and other skilled professions. - She says the field needs to keep emphasizing education, mentorship, discipline, and long-term growth. - The profile points to future industry progress as dependent on investing in people as much as in projects. - More information is available through Aida Baez’s Influential Women profile and ACcord Engineering’s about page.