The Education and Mentoring Fund (E&M Fund) Steering Committee, co-chaired by Lt. Col. Lou Martinez, P.E., USA (Ret), Martinez Engineering & Management, and SAME Executive Director Robert D. Wolff, Ph.D., P.E., F.SAME, met on Sept. 6, 2006, to guide the use of funds in support of SAME’s education and mentoring goals.

The E&M Fund now has a corpus of $150,000—up from its initial investment of $15,000 in 2003—and almost $20,000 in cash.

The corpus is invested in CDs with interest rates from 3.5 percent to 5.25 percent, yielding a total of about $7,000 a year in interest that is used to fund approved programs. Other money for approved programs comes from SAME members’ donations, which average about $3,000 a year, and from the United Services Benefit Association’s (USBA) $1,000 donation.

The Steering Committee determined that in the future, all E&M Fund sponsorships—which include donations of $2,500 or above—will be put into the corpus, while all other donations will go into the cash fund to support approved programs and related expenditures.

The Steering Committee’s goal is to grow the corpus to about $400,000 to help the E&M Fund provide support to ongoing programs. To establish such a legacy, the Steering Committee decided to focus on approving programs that can be conducted on an annual basis, rather than on one-time initiatives.

In addition, the Steering Committee also set a goal to raise an additional $10,000 a year, over and above the average Fund income of $10,000, so that a $20,000 annual program budget can be established. While there is currently $20,000 cash on hand for programs, the Steering Committee recognized that fundraising efforts must begin to fill in the gap between the $10,000 in projected annual income and the $20,000 in projected requirements. To help reach that goal, the Steering Committee will establish a Task Force to explore holding a Silent Auction at the 2007 Joint Engineer Education and Training Conference & Expo in Philadelphia, Pa., in coordination with the Philadelphia Post. The Task Force will be asking each Post to donate items for auction that represent special characteristics of the Post’s hometown or region.

The Steering Committee also agreed to support an annual expenditure of $20,000 to include the following activities and their associated budgets:

• Stipends of $1,000 each ($6,000 total) to the
       Student Council President and recipients of the
       Student Leader Medal, Young Member Medal, Tudor
       Medal, Sverdrup Medal and NCO Medal to attend
       the 2007 Joint Engineer Education and Training
       Conference;
  
  
• Airfare reimbursement of up to $400 each for 10
       Young Members to attend the SAME Leadership
       Workshops (five in January and five in August) for a
       total of $4,000. (SAME HQ has budgeted for hotel
       and registration fees out of its operating funds);
  
  
• Books provided to distinguished graduates at the
       military service schools ($500 total);
  
  
• Student Council participation in the Post
  Leaders Workshop in January ($8,000); and
  
  
• The purchase of a table at the New York City
       Scholarship Dinner for 10 West Point Cadets for a
       total of $1,500. 
  
  While a goal of the E&M Fund is to support the SAME Engineering and Construction Camps, the camps are planned to be self-supporting; therefore there is no set budget for supporting the camps. The E&M Fund has supported each camp by paying travel expenses for several mentors each year.
  
  For more information on the SAME Education and Mentoring Fund, or to make a donation, go to www.same.org/donate.

Lt. Col. Lou Martinez, P.E., USA (Ret), Chair