SAME Charleston Post Activities in 2011

On September 15, 2011, at 11:30 am, Mark Lazo, PE, from O'Brien & Gere, will speak at our monthly meeting on "Protection Design at DOD Installations: Requirements and what to consider on your next project. Note that this meeting will be held at a new location, Hilton Garden Inn Charleston Airport, 5265 International Blvd., North Charleston, SC 29418. This is in the same area as the Tanger shopping complex, Sam's Club, near the Charleston airport and the intersection of I-26 and 526.

Here is a link to register for the meeting online.

There will be a board meeting before the meeting at 10:00 am.

The SAME Charleston Post expects to hold our monthly meetings at this new venue for the next six months, with the exception of December, when there will not be ameeting.

On October 5, 2011, the SAME Bragg-Pope-Fayetteville Post will host its First Annual Sporting Clay Tournament at Drake Landing, 3146 Chalybeate Springs Road, Fuquay-Varina, NC.

Participant Fees are $75 per person. Fees include: Shells, Clays, Hearing/Eye Protection, Golf Cart, Shotgun rental, BBQ Dinner, & PRIZES.

You may bring your own shotgun if you wish, but you will be required to use the supplied shells.

$30 for all Hecklers (a.k.a. Networking Pass—limit 2 per company). Heckler Fees include: Golf Cart & BBQ Dinner. Click here for the flier.

On October 13, 2011, Ladson Beardly, from AECOM, will talk about "Utility Support for Expansion at Camp Lejuene, NC". Note that this is rescheduled from the third Thursday to the second due to another major SAME event within the Carolinas region.

We expect to have a second annual Charleston Post SAME Oyster Roast, but the date hasn't been set yet.

Our final meeting of the calendar year, on Thursday, November 17, 2011, Miller Love, from Collins Engineering, will speak on South Carolina Certifications and Licensing.

As usual, there will be no meeting in December.

Past Activities

On August 18, 2011, we heard an "Overview of Demolition of Magazines at Joint Base Charleston" from Aaron Jamison, of the Micah Group.

On Thursday, August 25, 2011, the Charleston Post held a Meet and Greet from 5:30 to 7:30 pm at Dublin Down Irish Pub, 245 Seven Farms Drive, Daniel Island, SC, for all SAME members and those interested in becoming members, and for everyone to meet our new leaders. Click here for the flyer advertising the event.

On July 21, 2011, David Rose, from Rose Consulting, spoke on forming Teaming Agreements and Joint Ventures for the purpose of pursuing federal procurements and the importance of understanding the NAICS codes; set-aside categories, and SBA rules. Click here for Mr. Rose's presentation on SBA rules on joint ventures.

At the meeting on Thursday, June 16, 2011, our speaker, Patty Chandley, PE URS Group, discussed "Lessons Learned from a Natural Disaster Tabletop Exercise". Click here for the minutes from the meeting.

Potable water is a mission-critical asset. Military water systems are subject to a variety of intentional and unintentional threats and hazards. A safe and reliable water supply is necessary for human consumption, food preparation, sanitation, aircraft and equipment maintenance, and, at times, for fire fighting and decontamination. A military installation can continue their flying mission for short periods of time using bottled water, meals-ready-to-eat (MREs), and portable latrines. However, a disruption of the potable water supply for more than a few days will ultimately cause a military installation to relocate their mission and many of their mission critical personnel. Therefore, it is critical that installations perform drinking water emergency response exercises to help plan and prepare for the timely restoration or recovery of this critical asset.

This Lunch-N-Learn presented lessons learned from a recent natural disaster exercise between an Air Force Base and the surrounding communities. While the scenario for this exercise was an earthquake, many of the lessons learned would also apply to a hurricane and this presentation focused on these lessons learned and the resulting action items.

The Industry Day program on May 19, 2011, was a huge success at the Embassy Suites in North Charleston. Click here for the program agenda, including links to presentations.

On Thursday, April 21, 2011, 11:30 am, we met on the USS Yorktown at Patriots Point, in Mount Pleasant, SC. Bob Howard, Operations Director for the Patriots Point Authority, spoke about the challenges of maintaining 70-year-old ships in a tidal zone.

For those of you not familiar with the Yorktown, its keel was laid on December 1, 1941, with an expected construction duration of three years. Six days later was the Pearl Harbor attack, and work was expedited, completing the ship in fourteen months. During that period, the first Yorktown was lost following the Battle of Midway, and the ship under construction was renamed from Bon Homme Richard to Yorktown. The ship served two years in World War II, a couple of months in Korea (it was being modified to accommodate jet aircraft during most of that conflict), and two tours of duty in Vietnam.

On Thursday, March 17, 2011, Paul Smith, from B.P. Barber, spoke on Engineering Design and Construction of Wastewater Lift-Stations at Parris Island, MCRD and MCAS Beaufort.

The April 21, 2011, meeting, will offer a special deversion to the USS Yorktown at Patriots Point, in Mount Pleasant. Bob Howard, Operations Director for Patriots Point, will discuss the complexities of maintaining an almost 70-year-old ship permanently docked adjacent to an active navigation channel and subject to the abuses of saltwater, sand, and tides, and vulnerable to incoming hurricanes. An excellent preview of Mr. Howard's talk can be found in a recent article in the Charleston Post and Courier.

At our meeting on Thursday, February 17, 2011, 11:30 am, Al Hitchcock, Chairman of Save the Light, Inc., the organization formed to save the Morris Island Lighthouse, will gave a presentation on the Phase II work, involving the foundation stabilization effort. This Design/ Build project, completed in the summer of 2010, was completed in 5 months , by local contractors at a cost of $2 million, utilizing a construction technique known as micro-piling. Save the Light, Inc is a 501 c non-profit organization with their office on Folly Beach.

At our meeting on Thursday, January 20, 2011, Dr. Rob Mullins, Jr., Stantec Consulting spoke on "Levee Challenges in a Post-Katrina Environment"

Dr. Mullins discussed some of the lessons painfully learned about storm damage reduction projects from Hurricane Katrina and the rebuilding process in New Orleans and Louisiana. Stantec, Fugro Consultants, Eustis Engineering and Burns Cooley Dennis have been working on an indefinite delivery-indefinite quantity (IDIQ) geotechnical design contract and gathering a huge amount of soil data in support of bringing the 350 mile levee system up to the 100-year level of protection before the start of this year's hurricane system.

For further information, see the slideshow "Geotechnical and Design Challenges in Rebuilding New Orleans' Levees" from the 2009 California Water Conference in Sacramento, CA, or the article in the July-August 2009 issue of The Military Engineer, page 57, on "Geotechnical Engineering in New Orleans". The latter article was co-written by Dr. Mullins and Blake Cotton.

Prior to joining Stantec, Rob was a Vice President of SAIC and before that served as the Deputy District Engineer for Programs & Project Management at the Louisville District of the US Army Corps of Engineers.