Post Notes Archives

Northern Virginia Post awards students

The SAME Northern Virginia Post hosted Celebrating our Future Engineers to present scholarship awards to students. The event also featured SAME Camps presentations by high school students and the 2012 Arlington Diocese Science Fair NoVA SAME Award. Celebrating our Future Engineers was held August 2, 2012 at the Fort Belvoir Officers' Club in Fort Belvoir, Va.

Post President Capt. Jay Manik, P.E., F.SAME, USCG (Ret.), welcomed the attendees while Camps Chair William Kilpatrick, Ph.D., PE, CEng, LEED AP, HPE, moderated the 2012 SAME Camp Presentations. The 2012 Scholarship Awards were presented by Scholarship Chair Capt. Tom Christensen, USN (Ret.)

Congratulations to the following presenters and award recipients:

The 2012 SAME Camp presenters included:

• Ashley Huynh – Robinson Secondary School U.S. Army Camp, Vicksburg, Miss.
• Spencer Cobb – Yorktown High School U.S. Marine Corps Camp, Camp Lejeune, N.C.
• Lauren Schwartz – Lake Braddock High School U.S. Navy Seabees Camp, Port Hueneme, Calif.

The 2012 SAME Northern Virginia Post Student Scholarship awardees:

• Carlos Flores-Garay – George Mason University
• Sean Lindenmuth – George Mason University
• Vincenzo Basile – George Mason University

The 2012 Arlington Diocese Science Fair NoVA SAME Award was given to:

• Sophia Gull, Corpus Christi School Project: Up, Up and Away

Learn more about the Northern Virginia Post by going to www.novasame.org. Click here to see the 2012 Celebrating our Future Engineers program.  

Scott Field Post presents scholarships to students

The SAME Scott Field Post presented scholarships to engineering students on July 2012. The Post Sustaining Members contributed more than $9,000 to the Post's scholarship fund. The Post has various mentoring and outreach programs that promote and encourage students to study math, science and engineering. Go to www.same.org/scott to find out more about Scott Field Post and their Educational Outreach Programs.

Join SAME in supporting and promoting the educational and professional development of present and potential future engineers. Each year, SAME hosts numerous programs intended to achieve these goals, including workshops, webinars, educational sessions, scholarships, and outreach and mentoring activities. Support this cause by donating to the SAME Education & Mentoring Fund.

See slideshow of SAME Scott Field Post's scholarship presentations below:

Charleston Post awards scholarships to local students

On June 21, 2012, the SAME Charleston Post awarded a total of $13,000  in scholarships to five high school seniors and five college students in North Charleston, S.C. The Charleston Post Scholarship Program aids qualified and interested students who desire an education and career in engineering, architecture, science, math, or a related field of study.

Charleston Post received a high number of applicants from students belonging to various high schools and universities in the area. Due to the growth and success of the Post during the last several years, a record number of scholarships were awarded, contributing to the $1 million scholarships SAME Posts award annually around the globe.

Each of the five high school seniors who were chosen for the award received $1,000.  Four college students received $1,500 each while Mellissa Jackson, a Clemson University engineering student, received $2,000.

Congratulations to the 2012 Charleston Post scholarship awardees!

High School Scholarship Recipients

• Addison Lucas, Ridge View High School- Lucas will be attending the University of South Carolina majoring in Civil Engineering. Lucus is a member of the National Technical Honor Society and the Varsity Soccer Team. He has participated in mission trips to Mexico, Mobile, and Charlotte as a member of the Spring Valley Presbyterian Youth Group.
• Karl Noble, Garrett Academy of Technology- Noble will be attending Clemson University majoring in Mechanical Engineering. Noble is the President of the National Honors Society, member of the National Technical Honors Society, Varsity Football Captain, Varsity Soccer Captain, and member of the Distinguished Gentlemen’s Club.
• Davis Reed, Bishop England High School- Reed will be attending Clemson University (Calhoun Honors College) majoring in Bioengineering. Reed is the 2012 Bishop England Valedictorian, member of the National Honor Society, Mu Alpha Theta, High School Leader in Middle School Ministry, and active in multiple athletic activities.
• Nathan Smith, Stratford High School- Smith will be attending Clemson University (Calhoun Honors College) or Furman majoring in Mathematics, Computer Science, or Biology. Smith is a Club Secretary of the National Honor Society, member of the National Beta Club, Senior Class Secretary of the Student Government Association and Senior Board Organization, production manager of the Broadcast “Real TV” School News program, and active in multiple athletic activities.
• Bailey Walker, Summerville High School- Walker will be attending Clemson University (Calhoun Honors College) majoring in Bioengineering. Walker is a member of the National Honor Society, Trident Medical Center Junior Volunteer, Summerville High School Competitive Performance Ensemble squad leader, French National Honor Society, Student Council, Beta Club, School Improvement Council, President Eisenhower People to People Ambassador, Plant Club, Model United Nations representing Egypt in competition, and a chemistry lab assistant.

College Scholarship Recipients

• Matthew Delavega, The Citadel- Delavega is majoring in Civil Engineering. Delavega is a student member of the SAME Charleston Post, Tau Bet Pi Engineering Honor Society, NROTC, ASCE, and the Citadel Trident Society. He was selected for the Seaman to Admiral 21 program and is a recipient of the US Navy NNPTC Personal Excellence Award.
• Christine Fletcher, Clemson University- Fletcher is majoring in Mechanical Engineering. Fletcher is the social chair of the Pi Tau Sigma Mechanical Engineer Honors, and member of the Alpha Lamda Delta General Engineering Honors, intramural soccer and Ultimate Frisbee, National Society of the Collegiate Scholars, Baja SAE team, and undergraduate Mechanical Engineering Student Council.
• Zachary Messick, Clemson University- Messick is majoring in Biomedical Engineering. Messick has been part of the RISE community and multiple intramural sports. Messick organized a non-profit organization to assist middle school musicians who can’t afford to rent musical instruments or take private lessons.
• Robert O’Brien III, Clemson University- O’Brien is majoring in Electrical Engineering. O’Brian is a member of the Dean’s List, President’s List, Phi Sigma Pi, Alpha Lambda Delta, National Society of Collegiate Scholars, Clemson Cross Country Club, National Intercollegiate Running Club Association, and Intramural Ultimate Frisbee.
• Mellissa Jackson, Clemson University- Jackson continues to excel into her second year of a multiple year scholarship attending Clemson University majoring in Engineering. Jackson is active in the Presbyterian Students Association (PSA) and intramural basketball. She lived in a “living-learning” environment called RISE (Residents In Science and Engineering).

Go to samecharleston.com to learn more about the Post and their scholarship program. For more information, please contact Liz Moore, Publicity Director, SAME Charleston Post at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

Calif. Posts Host Readiness Workshop

The Orange County, Oxnard Ventura and Los Angeles Posts held their first regional Readiness Workshop at the Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos, Calif., in May. With the focus of increasing rapid response and recovery in a local or national natural disaster or terrorist attack, the program presented a wide range of thought provoking topics that included response resource coordination, the importance of infrastructure resiliency, and ways of finding partnerships and contracting mechanisms. Presentations from the workshop may be downloaded from www.sameoc.org/filedownloads.html.

William “Bill” Anderson, Director of The Infrastructure Security Partnership (TISP), posed the question: “Is Resilient Infrastructure the same as Critical Infrastructure Protection?” His presentation focused on ways of creating resilient businesses, agencies and communities before a disaster to save lives, time and money. He stressed that success in shortening the duration of the long-term disaster recovery phase for enterprises and communities is dictated by the extent to which they are prepared to immediately enact recovery response efforts. He proposed a web portal be developed to connect and interface available public response recovery resources and private sector response recovery operations through existing databases throughout the nation. Anderson stressed the importance of developing an SAME database network at the local or regional Post level to heighten community and regional the capabilities and resources to respond quickly in a disaster, particularly around our homeland defense and critical infrastructure facilities.

The event drew speakers from several local agencies. Nancy King, Ph.D., from the U.S. Geological Survey Pasadena Field Office at Cal Tech, gave an in-depth presentation on earthquake and tsunami preparedness, with the admonition: "We live in earthquake country! It’s up to each of us to prepare." She shared historical evidence and discussed USGS products such as CISN Display (a real time earthquake alert and notification system) and ShakeCast (a situational awareness tool for emergency responders and critical facility operators).

Regina Canale-Miles described the Joint Regional Intelligence Center (JRIC), which is part of the California State Threat Assessment System (STAS), a six-center fusion center network. Their area of responsibility includes the seven counties: Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo, the same territory covered by the FBI Los Angeles Field office, and the Department of Justice Central District of California. The JRIC plays an invaluable role in the region’s intelligence mission, balancing the need for information gathering and intelligence production against the protection of civil rights and civil liberties. As emerging threats were identified in 2011 or notable events unfolded, the JRIC Situational Awareness Watch produced real-time alert notifications and other products–460 in all–to keep partners up-to-date. The Tips and Leads branch received 2,714 suspicious activity reports, a 15 percent increase over 2010. In support of the co-located FBI threat squad, Tips & Leads prioritized, researched and entered appropriate leads into the e-Guardian threat tracking system for assessment by the FBI threat squad. Several cases were opened as a result of this work.

Alex Watts from USACE Los Angeles gave an overview of emergency support functions, including infrastructure protection and emergency repair, infrastructure restoration, engineering services and construction management, emergency contracting support for life-saving and life-sustaining services, infrastructure protection and emergency repair and restoration. He cited examples from the Katrina and Joplin, Mo., disasters. His unit's focus is to provide a tactical operations and communications platform in forward areas to support rapid ramp-up of initial emergency response missions. During emergency situations, getting contracts in place to assist in the recovery is time critical. Normal contracting procedures will not work. USACE utilizes existing Performance Oriented Construction Activities (POCA) contracts at the local level, and Headquarters utilizes the Advance Contracts Initiatives (multi-year contracts) giving preference to local firms, where possible. In addition to his presentation, Watts brought their Mobile Emergency Command Post for participants to tour.

USACE Emergency Mobile Command Post

Other presenters included representatives from Los Angeles Federal Executive Board, FBI Infragard, and Los Angeles Police Department’s Antiterrorist Archangels.

Many of the more than 50 SAME members and non-members who attended the workshop remained after its conclusion for thought-provoking discussions and networking. In addition to receiving Professional Development Hours, participants came away inspired to continue collaboration and cross-training with a more resilient approach to responding to and mitigating hazardous events. Post leadership will strive to make this venue for building understanding and cooperation an annual event.