“I feel like a proud mom!” Volaree Rendon exclaims after watching a team of software engineers—all graduates of her brainchild, the Bentley Systems Premier Scholar Program—present their work at a conference in Denver. The team had built a digital twin of the infrastructure just outside their hotel—complete with the interstate, rail station, and highway overpass—that allowed attendees to visualize, measure, and analyze the model’s data in real time, without opening a single piece of CAD software.
Volaree Rendon, Bentley Systems’ director of solution engineeringRendon, Bentley Systems’ director of solution engineering, got the idea six years ago to create an intensive and immersive program that certifies experts in Bentley’s OpenRoads and OpenBridge design tools. The program focuses on helping engineers gain a deeper understanding of the software, with the goal of uplifting and inspiring the best and brightest engineers—so that they can, in turn, uplift and inspire others.
To Rendon, the presenters at the September conference in Denver validated her vision and hard work. “I could see something that I created coming to fruition,” she says. “We gave them the existing ground data, and then we set up the infrastructure cloud portal, and we said, ‘Go for it,’ and they did all the rest.”
Today, the Premier Scholar Program is a sought-after accreditation program with more than 200 alumni around the world.
From concept to curriculum
In 2020, Rendon and her colleagues began exploring ways to make training stick and elevate it beyond the cycle of training and retraining. Rendon wanted to create a version of the deep trainings she received at Bentley that were often organized around a product release. The training was “pretty intense,” she says. “We all got punchy, we were there for a week, but it was really effective.”
The experience gave her an idea: Identify passionate Bentley software users across engineering firms who could lead strenuous workshops, where the best and brightest engineers could discuss ideas, solve problems, and emerge inspired—ready to share their insights with colleagues. Rendon approached her coworker, Don Lee, with the idea. “I was like, ‘Hey, what do you think about having some sort of advanced boot camp where we get the most badass people, find those people in the organization, get them in a room talking, engaging?”
Lee liked Rendon’s idea, as did Bentley’s leadership. The result was a pilot program in early 2021 that involved 15 people from three engineering companies: JMT, AECOM, and WSP. The full program launched that summer.
“Premier Scholar isn’t just a program; it’s a catalyst for transformation,” Lee says. “Built from real industry experience, it turns recognition into responsibility and responsibility into innovation. Our mission is simple: empower professionals to lead boldly and elevate organizations to shape the future.”
The program’s sponsor is Francois Valois, Bentley’s senior vice president for Open Applications and a key executive focused on artificial intelligence (AI). Valois says the program allows Bentley to tap into the energy among its users. “The Premier Scholar Program strengthens advanced OpenRoads Designer skills through case studies, offering expert users a chance to further develop and join a global network of OpenRoads specialists,” he says.
The Premier Scholar Program now offers sessions throughout the year in different parts of the world for OpenRoads, Bentley’s software for the planning, design, construction, and operation of roadways, intersections, roundabouts, drainage, and utilities. Three other sessions a year focus on OpenBridge, Bentley’s application for bridge modeling, analysis, and design. (Bentley plans to expand the program to include OpenRail in the near future.) A maximum of 20 participants, each recommended by their organization, are selected for each program “to keep it exclusive and elite,” Rendon says.
The growth and success of the program is fueled by the ever-growing community of Bentley software users, says Scott Urbas, the company’s manager for civil content development. Urbas has been running the program for the last two years. He organized the activities in Denver by collaborating with Premier Scholar graduates to create and present a digital delivery workshop that showcased the 3D model they developed. He also organized a pre-conference networking session specifically for Premier Scholar graduates so they could connect in person. “When other users learn about the program and its exclusive events, their interest is piqued and they express a desire to join,” Urbas says.
Rendon, wearing baseball cap with Bentley logo, poses with Bentley colleagues and Premier Scholar Program participants.A golden ticket
The trainings include three days of workshops and case studies, led by Bentley experts, followed by individual work on a capstone project. Each participant has three weeks to solve a real-world design problem that typically involves building something new, fixing something that’s broken, or finishing something that‘s incomplete. The final presentations are scored “pass” or “fail” by a panel of Bentley experts. “This is a proving ground for the best of the best to show how much they know about our solutions and prove it by successfully completing the workshops and capstone project,” says Rendon.
Graduates earn Premier Scholar status, a gold badge, and join the elite Premier Scholar Alumni Community. They can participate in exclusive master class sessions held year-round that are designed to maintain engagement, foster connections, and expand their learning. “Through the program and the master classes, we are truly building a connected community of Premier Scholar experts across the globe,” Urbas says. Alumni are often eager to show off the fruits of their labor, such as by adding Premier Scholar to their title on LinkedIn, and are featured in company news releases that tout their achievement.
“We make sure that it’s not a participation trophy. It’s tough,” says Rendon. “We make it difficult on purpose, because we want people coming out of this to feel proud about it and to feel like they accomplished something. They’re really excited to get this accolade.”
Hot commodity
One early sign that the program was taking off came at a recent conference, when Rendon ran into a 2021 alum of the OpenRoads training, Kyle Rosenmeyer of the VHB engineering firm. “He came up to me and he said, ‘Volaree, you and Don changed my life,’” recalls Rendon. “And I think that was probably the moment where I thought, ‘OK, wow, this is really something.’”
Rosenmeyer says the program gave him something invaluable: credibility.
“I could tell right away that the badge I got meant something, that it already started to change my work life, even though it was just small at first, it was immediate,” says Rosenmeyer, who also went on to get accredited as an OpenBridge Premier Scholar.
“I joined the program when I didn’t have the same years of experience as some of the other attendees. I didn’t have all the projects in my portfolio like some of the other attendees,” he says. “But I left that program with credibility, where the next projects I worked on, I was taken more seriously as an expert and OpenRoads designer. I had more autonomy to decide how we would model our projects and how we would produce the product that we were creating.”
After completing the program, Rosenmeyer decided to pivot his entire career into technology, and teaching and training, joining VHB in a full-time technology role. “I’ve told Volaree this many times, that she is part of my origin story that has made me who I am,” he says.
Alumni relations
Rosenmeyer has become an advocate and champion of the program, an example of what Rendon describes as Premier Scholar’s “self-perpetuating” nature: alumni often are involved in subsequent programs and deliver presentations at a monthly get-together.These days, Rendon takes less of a direct role in the Premier Scholar Program as Urbas taps his industry credibility and broad connections to build the trainings into a global program with deep community support.
“I’ve since handed my baby off to Scott [Urbas] and he has done an amazing job with that, and is scaling it, and he’s passionate about it,” Rendon says. “It’s more than I could have hoped for.”
