The spirit of
SAME is sweeping the nation and I am extremely proud of
our Society, your relentless energy and enthusiasm, and
the impressive achievements of our members…all of
you are doing Fantastic! From the fall regional
conferences in Portland, St. Augustine and Chicago, to
the Fellows Investiture and Fall Board meeting in
Chicago, to the Design and Construction
Committee’s Bonding Workshop in Washington, D.C.,
and to the New York City Post Scholarship Dinner in the
Big Apple, it has been an awesome experience!
In early October, the Northwest
and Pacific Regional Conference brought representatives
from Posts in those regions to Portland for an
outstanding two days of sessions, exhibitor interaction
with government representatives and evening social
events. Congratulations to Rear Adm. Gary Engle, the
Pacific RVP, for getting the military engineer leaders
from Honolulu, Japan, and Korea to Portland, Ore., and
to the conference Co-Chairs, Toni Leon and Pat Keough,
for their outstanding leadership in planning and
executing a great conference. The combined programs and
networking proved to be an awesome combination.
In mid-October, the South
Atlantic and South Central Regional Conference brought
more than 450 attendees to an outstanding facility in
St. Augustine, Fla. The World of Golf was a great venue
for the regional conference and the 4th Annual
Infrastructure Security for the Built Environment
(ISBE) Congress, which was sponsored by The
Infrastructure Security Partnership (TISP), of
which SAME is an active member. Congratulations to the
conference Co-Chairs, Ron Hilton, Civil Services Inc.,
a long-time member of SAME and the Jacksonville Post;
Col. Bob Carpenter, Post President and Commander of
USACE-Jacksonville District; and the two RVPs, Jane
Penny, Earth Tech, and Don Blanchard, Northrup Grumman,
for their extraordinary leadership and for making the
conference a great success. Our hats off also to Dr.
Jim Wright, TISP Chair and Chief Engineer for NAVFAC,
Eva Lerner-Lam, Palisades Consulting Group Inc., and
Marla Dalton, TISP Executive Director, for putting
together a magnificent technical program focused on
infrastructure security. Brig. Gen. Gerry Galloway, USA
(Ret.), University of Maryland, gave a
thought-provoking keynote speech on how the nation
needs to better prepare itself for future natural and
man-made disasters.
In
late October, SAME sent a delegation to the
International Facility Management Association (IFMA)
annual meeting. The group stood out in the crowd of more than 3,000 attendees
and proudly represented the tremendous capabilities of
the uniformed services in facility management. A
special thanks to the SAME Facility Management
Committee, Chaired by Cdr. Gene Hubbard, USN (Ret),
NASA, to Lis Wyatt, Vanderbilt University, for planning
and moderating the panel, and to Capt. Tom Hollinger,
USN, and Col. Les Martin, USAF, for providing the
audience insights into Navy and Air Force best
practices. SAME VP Linda McKnight, F.SAME, KBR, and
SAME Executive Director Dr. Bob Wolff, P.E., F.SAME,
met with IFMA President/CEO, David Brady, and the
incoming Chair, Teena Shouse, CFM, Sprint, to further
the IFMA-SAME partnership that is paying real dividends
to our SAME members.
The spirit of SAME was alive and
well at the Fall Board meeting, with lively discussions
and important decisions. A big thanks to David Brady,
IFMA, for his insights on association trends and
IFMA’s experience with membership—Brady is
our first outside Director and has already made a big
impact on the Board. We had outstanding presentations
by Melissa Smith, EA Engineering, Science and
Technology, as Chair of the Dues Task Force; RVPs Donna
Weinkauf, Asset Group, and Sheila Warren, D.L. Maher,
on Post membership perspectives; RVP Mike Fallon,
USACE, on the 2006 Joint Engineer Education and
Training Conference in New Orleans; and Ron Brown,
Sundt Construction, as Co-Chair of the Century House
Fundraising Task Force. If you want to see the spirit,
just watch the raw energy and passion of Melissa,
Donna, Sheila and Ron—it is overwhelming!
The spirit of SAME was never more
evident than in Chicago in early November. Beginning
with a great meeting of the Senior Executive Group
(SEG) comprised of 13 Presidents and CEOs of Sustaining
Member companies and the five Engineering Service
Chiefs, the discussions on bonding, private-public
partnerships in responding to natural disasters,
mentoring and prompt payment to contractors were
awesome. The frank, open discussion among industry and
government leaders is truly what SAME is all about.
From these discussions, all of the participants are
learning a lot from each other and are putting many of
the ideas discussed into use in their organizations. I
can tell you first-hand that the Navy has benefited
greatly from these discussions. Many thanks to SAME
Executive Director Dr. Bob Wolff, for setting the
agenda, to Rick Galloway, Shaw Environmental &
Infrastructure Inc., and David Winter, GeoEngineers
Inc., for presenting the bonding issues to the SEG.
I challenge each and every SAME
member to accelerate our SAME spirit as we enter the
holiday season. Please make it a priority and spend
time with your families and friends and come back
rejuvenated to help SAME accomplish its mission
and achieve its vision. I also ask our SAME members and
Posts to remember our deployed engineering
team—in Iraq, Afghanistan, the U.S. Gulf Coast,
and countless other locations throughout the
world—and their families. Reach out to them
during the holiday season to keep their spirits high.
Carol and I wish all of the SAME family a most joyous
holiday season and a happy and healthy New Year.
Rear Adm. M.K. Loose, P.E., F.SAME
U.S. Navy, Civil Engineer Corps
SAME President, 2005-2006
