XD’s Corner

Happy New Year to everyone.  As customary in the February SAME News, I’d like to provide a report on how SAME did in 2006 and what we have planned for 2007.

Last year at this time I outlined a number of SAME HQ initiatives for 2006. Let me quickly summarize some of them and highlight our accomplishments. We made progress on most of these initiatives and will carry over some to 2007.

Acquire a Web-based Association Management System (AMS). We did it, at a cost of about $250,000. The transition into the system is proceeding slower than expected, but by the summer of 2007, we should be fully operational. Please be patient with us during this transition process.

Initiate Quarterly Training and Education Webinars. We did not get this accomplished, but we are hiring a new staff person who will help us expand our education offerings in through Webinars and classroom-based continuing education. Through our strategic partnerships with the National Society of Professional Engineers, International Facility Management Association and the Construction Management Association of America, SAME members may participate in Webinars offered by these organizations at member prices. We will continue this in 2007.

Establish and Maintain Training and Education Calendar. We expanded our calendar to include education and training opportunities offered through our strategic alliance partners and Academic members. We plan to push out more of this information to our members in 2007.

Promote Academic Memberships and the Establishment of Student Chapters and College Mentoring Programs. While we have increased the number of Student Chapters and mentoring programs, we decided to wait for the AMS implementation to launch our marketing program to academic institutions. We plan to launch this campaign in 2007.

Member Survey. We accomplished a successful Reader Survey that will help guide SAME publications in the months ahead. Eighty-five percent of the 978 respondents rated The Military Engineer as “good or excellent” and 93 percent felt the length of the articles was about right. The Design and Construction theme was rated the highest (74 percent) and Government and Industry News was the top-rated Department (68 percent). When asked whether members would like SAME News in an electronic format, about one-half of the respondents indicated “Yes” and one-half responded “No.” A high percentage of readers said the length of Government and Industry e-News was about right (89 percent).

Redesign SAME News for E-mail Delivery. Based on feedback from the reader survey, we postponed reformatting SAME News for e-mail delivery. Upon successful implementation of the AMS, whereas members can select a print or electronic version, we may revisit this initiative. Currently, all members can view SAME News on the Web at www.same.org/samenews.

Century House Renovation. We completed the Century House Fund Campaign, raising more than $250,000 of the $300,000, which was needed to restore Century House and establish of a Gallery of Distinguished Military Engineers. We will initiate the planning, design and construction process in late 2007 once we have completed the transition to the new AMS.

For 2007, our major focus at SAME HQ will be to complete those actions we began in 2006, fully implement the AMS, and initiate a continuing education program with a combination of Webinars and classroom instruction.

As with all growing organizations, we have had some turnover of staff personnel in the past several months. We have hired Capt. David McAuley, JD, USN (Ret.), as our new Director of Training and Post Operations, replacing Stephen Shepard who left to pursue other interests. Capt. McAuley comes to us from the Internet Society. Our new Director of Membership is Diana Dawkins who comes to SAME from the Society of Nuclear Medicine. Lorrie Cerny is the new Post Operations Specialist, transitioning from my Administrative Assistant. We currently have two positions open: a Continuing Education Program Manager and an Administrative Assistant.

We held an extremely successful Post Leadership Workshop in Denver, Colo., Jan. 19-20. Lt. Gen. Carl A. Strock, P.E., USA, and Rear Adm. Richard Barror, Ph.D., P.E., USPHS, spent time with the 52 attendees, of which 50 percent were from the public sector and 50 percent were from the private sector.  Attendees included two Regional Vice Presidents (RVP)—Col. , Tim Byers, USAF, from the Mid-Atlantic Region and incoming Rocky Mountain RVP Julie Timmons, Farnsworth Group Inc.—and incoming Small Business Council Chair, Mercedes Enrique, Custom Mechanical Systems. We thank those who participated, as well as SAME HQ employees Lorrie Cerny and Natasha Rocheleau who were the instructors. SAME HQ will be sponsoring some Post Leader training at the 2007 Joint Engineer Education and Training Conference & Expo in Philadelphia, Pa., in May and another Post Leaders Workshop in Minneapolis, Minn., Aug. 24-25.

I look forward to seeing you at upcoming SAME events. Please feel free to contact me with your feedback at rwolff@same.org.

Bob Wolff, Ph.D., P.E., F.SAME
SAME Executive Director
rwolff@same.org