Zachary Vacek

Zachary Vacek is a civil engineering senior, and has served as both president and vice president (his current position) in UB’s American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) student club. He was the first junior elected president of UB’s ASCE in five years. He joined ASCE as a freshman, and became involved with the board planning the regional conference that was held at UB in 2016.

In addition to serving in three separate board positions in ASCE, Vacek worked as a campus ambassador and a teaching assistant. He was able to take courses in the transportation discipline early on, and is taking his senior year to explore options in other civil engineering topics, while serving as Vice President for UB’s ASCE.

He secured two internships while enrolled at UB; one with the New York State Department of Transportation and one with Clarke Patterson Lee, a national architecture, engineering and planning firm.

While he has not yet ruled out graduate school, Vacek says it is more likely he will try to find a job upon graduation. He says the Department’s supportive environment has had big impact on him. “Everyone wants to see each other do well. It’s probably the best simulation of what the real world is like because everyone has the same end goal.”