Epstein Hosts ACE Mentor Chicago Program

Last night, Epstein was the host for a mentoring session for high school students participating in the ACE Mentor Chicago Program. These ACE sessions take place every Tuesday night from 5 to 7 p.m. and this year long program's goal is to expose underprivileged high school students to the Architecture, Construction, and Engineering industry by teaching and explaining the process of how to plan, design and build a building. Additionally, the ultimate objective of the program is to help these students build problem solving skills, show them that they can go to college, help them with finding scholarships, and lastly to build a professional network to help them become successful in whatever they do.

The specific program that Epstein hosted last night featured a presentation by Epstein's senior mechanical engineer, Martin Barenbaum, PE, who presented the basics of being an engineer and what makes engineering such a fascinating field.

In addition, Epstein's architectural team member, Mark Rustin, ran a sketching activity involving finding details in construction and then drawing that detail. Since we hosted the event in our 9th floor loft space most of the students drew the saw tooth roof connections of our unique skylights.

This program also included a presentation from the structural engineering firm of CE Anderson on structures and structural engineering.

The final component of last night's session was led by Epstein's assistant project manager, Laura Rebbe, AIA and engineers from CE Anderson where the students had to try to build bridges out of paper that could hold a bobble head.

Lastly, besides Martin, Mark and Laura the current Epstein ACE mentors include mechanical engineer, Carla Espinoza, architectural team members Cassiday Love, Jenn Pisano, and Sean Miller, and electrical engineers Michael Shepherd and Miguel Arana. Also, our specific ACE Program Team includes, besides Epstein and CE Anderson, the firms of Perkins & Will, Clune, and ARUP.