SAME Focus on Membership Yields Positive Results

Greetings SAME Members and friends! Please accept my most grateful appreciation and thanks for your hard work and great progress over the last 12 months. Last May, we embarked on three focused goals in support of the SAME Strategic Plan:

· Increase the relevance, diversity and public sector participation in SAME through inspired leadership at the Post, Regional and National levels.
· Support continuing education for licensure, professional certifications and professional development of members.
· Support the Nation’s deployed engineering team and their families.

From conferences and workshops to partnerships and restructuring elements of the Society, your efforts have been absolutely awesome!

Preparations continue for the SAME 2006 Joint Engineer Education and Training Conference & Expo, and I invite everyone to join us in New Orleans, La., from May 30 to June 2, 2006. For those who have not yet seen for themselves the hurricanes’ devastation along the Gulf Coast, I must tell you that the experience truly spotlights the critical importance of our profession. I can’t think of a more fitting place to hold our national conference.

The City of New Orleans and the conference hotel are ready for us and the Louisiana Post is developing an excellent technical program from which our members will have the opportunity to learn from industry experts and earn professional development hours. As we have done for the past few years, we will have a Young Members’ Mentoring event Wednesday evening. Also, we are once again offering a reduced registration fee for public sector attendees. This will be a great opportunity for learning and sharing ideas and I encourage you to attend!

As always, an important feature of each conference is the Honors Ceremony, in which we recognize outstanding individuals, Sustaining Member Companies and Posts. The complete list of award winners will appear in the May-June issue of The Military Engineer. I would, however, like to single out for recognition Roger J. Wozny, P.E., F.SAME, Schemmer Associates Inc., winner of the Walter O. Bachus Gold Medal. As a longstanding contributor to the Omaha Post, a Past President of SAME and former Chair of the Academy of Fellows, Roger has always exemplified the spirit and actions that our Society promotes. Congratulations Roger—we are all very proud of you and we’ll offer our congratulations in person in New Orleans!

I commend the 36 Posts that sent representatives to the two SAME leadership workshops that were held in January 2006. The workshops were focused on aligning Posts, Regions, National Committees and SAME HQ with the Strategic Plan and were a tremendous success! My special thanks to Stephen Shepard, HQ Director of Training and Post Operations, for his hard work and leadership coordinating the workshops.

Brig. Gen. Joe Schroedel, USA, Southwest RVP, provided a superb overview of civil engineering and SAME to the 300 attendees at the joint SAME /ASCE workshop in Salt Lake City, Utah. The workshop also marked the first Student Council Workshop, which we hope will become an annual event. The Student Council was formed by the Board of Direction to provide students the opportunity to meet SAME Young Members as part of our overall mentoring strategy. A big thank-you to Matt Metcalf, AMEC, Chair of the SAME College Outreach Committee, Sarah Nieves, University of Nebraska, President of the Student Council, and the Young Members Council for arranging the event and developing a program that was well-received by the students. Also, I’d like to acknowledge that donations made to the SAME Education and Mentoring Fund enabled 12 Young Members to attend.

At the leadership workshops, Posts shared many success stories on how they are working on our third goal of supporting our deployed engineering team and their families. Many Posts have held special events and sent packages, letters and phone cards. Thank you very much and keep up the good work!

Congratulations to the individuals nominated to be on the Board of Direction. The SAME Nomination Committee worked hard to develop an excellent slate of officers and elected Directors from a pool of well-qualified nominees. Those elected will join the Board on June 1 at the annual meeting in New Orleans. Our Board represents the diversity of our Society. Of the 41 voting members, we are proud to have two minorities, 10 women, five young members and five small businesses. We also have a good representation of both the public and private sectors—split at about 50 percent each—and all five uniformed services are represented as well.

This will be my last opportunity to write to you as your President. I look forward to turning the gavel over to Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock, P.E., USA, following the election and I know that he is eager to build on your many accomplishments and achievements. I have thoroughly enjoyed the last year, and thank all of you—the members and volunteers—who make SAME the great organization it is. I also want to thank the SAME HQ staff, which is working hard to support our Posts and members. Finally, very special thanks to the members of the 2005-06 Board of Direction, who have really worked hard to set the strategic direction to sustain SAME into the future. All of you made a lot happen...and made it fun! Best wishes!

Rear Adm. M.K. Loose, P.E., F.SAME
U.S. Navy, Civil Engineer Corps
SAME President, 2005-2006

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