SAME Support to Military Installations. A major aspect of SAME’s mission is to support our engineers at our military installations. Posts should be designing programs that give public sector individuals a feeling of a “Home Post.” In many instances, an installation is an hour or more away from the location of a Post meeting, often preventing many members from attending due to time constraints and the effort involved in getting there. In these cases, Posts should strive to have at least one event at every supported installation each year. This is particularly important now, while many of our members are deployed in support of the Global War on Terrorism. To assist our Posts in identifying a “Home Post,” the SAME HQ staff has developed a "SAME Installation Support Table"; that is accessible on the SAME Web site.This table associates a SAME Post with each military installation throughout the United States and its territories. It’s also of great value to our military members for identifying the nearest SAME Post as they PCS to new locations.You can access this table at www.same.org/installations.

Strategic Alliances. We continue to pursue additional strategic alliances that will benefit SAME and its members, as well as build on those we began last year with the Army Engineer Association, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Small Business office, and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).We have reached agreement with USACE to again co-host the highly successful Small Business Conference (see Calendar on Page 5). The SAME Small Business Committee is taking the lead for the technical program. Additionally, we will conduct two joint Leadership Workshops with ASCE early next year. These workshops present an excellent opportunity for incoming Post Presidents to gain a head start on leading their Posts. I strongly encourage every Post to send their incoming President or Vice President.

We also convened a Facilities Management Task Force, chaired by Col. Marvin Fisher, U.S. Air Force Space Command Civil Engineer, with membership from the five uniformed services, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Defense Acquisition University (DAU), private sector and the SAME Professional Development and Education Committee. The Task Force has three objectives:

• Determine how SAME can assist in the professional development and education of civilian and military members of the uniformed services in facilities management;
• Examine the applicability of the Certified Facility Manager program established by the International Facility Management Association (IFMA) to support the professional development of personnel engaged in military facilities management; and
• Review the facility management competencies defined by IFMA and DAU for their applicability to installation management and SAME programs. Col. Fisher will report the findings of this effort to the Board of Direction at our November 2004 meeting in St. Louis.This is an important effort as all the services seek to improve their management of military installations.

Additionally, the Executive Director has established an Editorial Advisory Board (EAB) that includes the editors and public affairs chiefs of our military engineering services, private sector and several of our National Committee Chairs. The role of the EAB is to provide insight from the military services and private sector to guide the development and coverage of issues and articles in The Military Engineer.The EAB presents a great opportunity to strengthen joint efforts and understanding among the military services to help promote the accomplishments of our engineering family at home managing installations and abroad fighting the Global War on Terrorism.

Last, as discussed in the summary of the Board of Direction meeting in May, we have established a Student Dues Task Force to review how the Society can best attract engineering students, whether or not we should charge student dues, and how we conduct successful mentoring and student outreach activities.The Society currently has approximately 500 student members; however they are spread among more than 60 Posts. The largest student group has almost 150 students, primarily from the Coast Guard Academy. I know we can do better in creating alliances with our engineering schools; however, this needs to be accomplished by the Posts through chartering Student Chapters and developing and maintaining active mentoring programs. I look forward to a report from the Membership and College Outreach Committees on this important subject.

New Criteria for Society Medals and Awards. We have realigned our Society Medals and Awards with the Strategic Plan and increased the clarity and consistency of the criteria by which nominees are judged.To bring this issue back to the Post level, the Recognition Streamer now requires that each Post establish an awards and recognition program, and encourages each Post to nominate at least one of its award winners for a National medal or award. The Society’s program now links National awards to Post awards and better supports our members. Other new requirements and changes include mandatory membership in SAME to be eligible for National awards, professional registration required for the Goethals and Urbahn Medals, and a new Young Member Award that recognizes a Young Member's contributions to the Society.These changes will help to raise the bar and support professional development, education and licensure for architects and engineers. The Board of Direction has also adopted a new process for a majority of the medals and awards that requires the nominator to be a SAME member and for the nomination to be endorsed by a Post President or member of the National Board of Direction.This provides greater involvement of our Post and National leadership in the nomination process, while allowing any SAME member to nominate a deserving individual or organization.

In closing, let me say what an honor it is to be your National President. I look forward to meeting and working with all of you in the year ahead and, together, bringing it “Back to the Posts!”

 L. Dean Fox
Major General, USAF
SAME President, 2004-2005