SAME NoVA Post March Newsletter

March 2024

Our Mission: Build Leaders and Lead Collaboration among Government and Industry to Develop Multi Disciplined Solutions to National Security and Infrastructure Challenges

2025 SAME Strategic Plan

From the President:

Greetings SAME NoVA Post Members!

The National Women’s History Month’s theme for 2024 celebrates “Women Who Advocate for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion” and recognizes women throughout the country who understand that, for a positive future, we need to eliminate bias and discrimination entirely from our lives and institutions. Many women have long contributed to war efforts before the opening of military specialties in the fifteen years between the Vietnam War end and Operation Desert Storm.

Some examples of women's contributions to the engineering profession include:

Edith Clarke became the first woman to earn an electrical engineering degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Edith worked from 1919 until 1945 at General Electric, becoming a salaried electrical engineer after just two years of employment (quite an achievement for a woman at this time).

Ethel Bailey became SAME's first female member in 1926.

Lillian Gilbreth is heralded as a pioneer in the field of industrial engineering and psychology, and often referred to as the ‘Mother of Modern Management’. She became the first female member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and worked with General Electric to improve the design of kitchen and household appliances.

Hazel Graham was SAME's first female Post Secretary when she was elected to the position at the Seattle Post in 1950.

Also in 1950, Marie Hodges was elected as the Society’s first female Post Treasurer for the Mobile Post. Professionally, she was an architect in the Design Branch of the Engineering Division of the Mobile District Office.Betty Farwell was appointed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ first female supergrade (GS-16) HQ Director of Real Estate in 1978.

SAME spotlights women making history at https://samenews.org/tme-looks-back-women-making-history/ and https://www.same.org/news/womens-history-month-2023/

Our March GMU luncheon featured Mr Jaime A. Pinkham, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army (Civil Works) speaking on the Nation's Infrastructure with over 60 attendees. With the nation recognizing that aging infrastructure requires a whole of government and industry approach, Mr. Pinkham's presentation is timely and very relevant.

As of March 4th, all the exhibitor booths were sold out for the Joint SAME NoVA and DC Posts 16th Annual Small Business Conference on Wednesday, April 24th, 2024, at the Capital Turnaround in Washington, DC. The NoVA and DC Post Veterans Committees are combining efforts to host a Veteran's Lounge that will have veteran support organizations offering assistance to transitioning military and veterans. The lounge highlight speaker during lunch will be Ben Wham, F. SAME, of Global Recruiters of Charlottesville, providing a presentation on transitioning military and veterans in the AEC industry.

If you have any ideas, suggestions, comments, improvements, or criticisms, please contact me or any of the Post Board members to discuss.

Thanks for your continued incredible support of the NoVA Post!

Phil,

Lt Col Philip Hicks, PE (AL,VA), PMP, USAF (Ret)

SAME Northern Virginia Post President

Dewberry Engineers | Senior Project Manager

2024 DC & NoVA Post

Leadership and Mentoring Program (LMP)

On Wednesday, 13 March 2024, our LMP met at the Arlington National Cemetery Visitors Center with COL (USA Ret.) Pete Mueller, PE, F.SAME for a discussion about “Leadership Lessons Learned from the Army, Private Industry, and as an SES”. Thanks again to Pete for supporting our LMP and to Ms. KD-A for sharing her conference room with us!

Next our LMP will meet at the National Guard Memorial Building in DC on 23 April 2024 for “Leadership from a Non-Commissioned Officer Perspective” from a panel of senior NCO speakers = Master Chief Petty Officer Delbert Terrell (USN), CMSgt Charles Powers (NGB/A1 Superintendent), and SMSgt Daniel Trudeau, PMP (316th Civil Engineer Squadron Superintendent) moderated by our past LMP graduation, MSgt Bradley Wilson (Innovative Readiness Training (ANG & USAF). Thanks Brad for organizing this exceptional event!!

Annual GMU Lunch Program Recap

We had our annual George Mason University lunch on March 7^th at the Johnson Center. Our Guest Speaker was Mr. Jamie Pinkham, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works. Mr. Pinkham provide great insight to the Civil Works side of the Army and his past experiences.

In attendance was our GMU Chapter President, Fernando Rodriguez, and Chapter member Kevin Munson. They were available to talk with attendee about their trip to Costa Rica, joint with Engineers for International Development (EfID). They went on an assessment trip to Los Andes, La Cruz Guanacaste to help develop a plan to provide a drinking water well for the community. The project will consist of multiple phases with the first implementation trip scheduled for Summer of 2024. Also, in attendance were several of GMU’s Civil Environmental and Infrastructure Engineering Students. These students are the future and we as a Post want to continue to support them in their studies and future.

16th Annual DC & NoVA Joint

Small Business Conference

Join us April 24th for our local SAME Small Business Conference that brings together the State & Local and Federal agencies and businesses throughout the DC, Maryland, and Northern Virginia area to network, discuss upcoming contracting opportunities, connect with potential teaming partners, and more!

Less than a month away so make sure to sign up today!

24th Annual Scholarship Golf Tournament

Join us for our 24th Annual Golf Tournament to support our

Scholarship fund!

Get your foursome together, or

we will put you on a team, and consider being one of our Sponsor!!

Science and Engineering Fair Participation

On Saturday March 17th, Fairfax County held their Regional Science and Engineering Fair at Robinson Secondary School which is a competition for students who attend high school in Fairfax County.

SAME NoVA Post member Patrick Hogeboom represented the Post and served as a Category Judge and was the Environmental Engineering Category Chairperson.

Eleven Environmental Engineering Category Judges evaluated 17 projects. The judges used a rubric to evaluate the projects. The students each gave short 5–10-minute presentations on their projects to the individual Judges during the three and a half hours of judging. To see the Awards and photos, please check out Fairfax County's Regional Science and Engineering Fair website and article.

Veteran's Corner

Veterati | America’s Mentoring Network for the Military: Join thousands of Service Members, Veterans, and Military Spouses in setting up free 1-hr mentorship phone calls with successful professionals. Register as a protégé or mentor at https://www.veterati.com/

American Corporate Partners | Founded in 2008, ACP aims to ease the transition from the military to the civilian workforce. ACP is the only nonprofit organization engaged in national corporate career counseling for our returning military. Register as a protégé or mentor at https://www.acp-usa.org/mentoring-program.