Meeting Agenda:

Luncheon Cost:

Social time and lunch (if you so desire) will be from 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM in the dining room of the Officers Club.

The Club’s cafeteria-style lunches are typically $10.00 or less; people who partake in the cafeteria-style lunch will pay the Officers Club directly.  If you come only for the presentations, there is no charge.

Post Meeting and Presentation will be from 12:30 PM to about 1:15 PM in the ballroom of the Officers Club.

Please RSVP by Monday, February 25^th:

RSVP with your intent to either partake in the cafeteria-style lunch or to come for the presentation only; this will help the Officers Club staff to ensure that an adequate amount of food is prepared.

Either leave a voice mail message with Jim Mosner at 651-290-5512, or click the RSVP button in the left-hand column, or send an email message to james.b.mosner@usace.army.mil

Brian Swanson from the University of Minnesota, receives the Post's mug for his very interesting presentation about the new TCF (Gopher) Stadium that is under construction at the U.  Brian packed a lot of info into the hour presentation.  Brian covered the time from how the stadium, after decades of wrangling, was finally approved for construction up through the present time of placing the pilings for the new structure.  It was obvious from the many questions asked by the attendees, that the new stadium is greatly anticipated by many people.  It undoubtedly will be a terrific venue to watch the Gophers in the future.  As Brian pointed out, get your season tickets for this season's games or else you won't have much of a chance to get tickets for the inaugural year.
 

The Scholarship Application Form is now available on the "Scholarships & Young Member" page of the web site.  The form can be downloaded as either a MS Word file or as a fill-able PDF form.  There will again be three scholarships available, but new for this year the value of scholarship has been raised to $1500.  The deadline for submitting scholarship applications is Friday, April 3rd.

Two scholarships are planned to be awarded in what is called Category I, which is for high school seniors and Post-secondary students, regardless of discipline, who are children, grandchildren, or siblings, of members of the Minneapolis-Saint Paul Post.  Sponsoring members must be a SAME Minneapolis-Saint Paul Post member for the current year and have been a member of the Post for a minimum of at least one year prior to the current year.  Applicants must be registered as full-time post-secondary students in the fall of the year of selection. 

One scholarship is planned to be awarded in what is called Category II, which is for all Student Members of the SAME Minneapolis-Saint Paul Post who will be registered as full-time post-secondary students in the fall of the year of selection.  Applicants under this category must be registered through SAME as a Student Member; student memberships are free for full-time undergraduates at an accredited college or university, or high school students.  At least one of the scholarships in this category will be awarded to a student in an engineering, science, or technology-related field.

A committee of Post members evaluate the applications.  All applications are kept confidential, and only the winners are announced.  For additional information, please contact Ben Tustison at 916-329-1522.  Scholarship Application Packages can be downloaded from the Post’s website at:

http://www.same-msp.org/PDF/Scholarship_App&Inst_2008.doc or
http://www.same-msp.org/PDF/Scholarship_App&Inst_2008.pdf

Application packages should be mailed to Ben at the following address:

MBK Engineers
ATTN: Ben Tustison, P.E.
Chairperson, SAME Scholarship Committee
16610 26th Avenue North
Plymouth, MN 55447-1844
 

If you know of a highly talented and motivated student who is interested in an action-packed week-long experience at one of the three engineering construction camps that SAME has organized ... please have the young person contact Post VP Ben Tustison regarding interest in being considered for this opportunity.  The deadline for contacting Ben Tustison is 15 March 2008.

SAME offers high school freshman, sophomores, and juniors the opportunity to attend a one week camp.  They learn leadership, engineering and construction skills, and have fun with students from all over the world.

The Minneapolis-Saint Paul Post would like to sponsor a high school student to attend either one of the following summer camp opportunities.  The Post will pay the Registration Fee and and ¹/₂ of the Airfare; the student's family is responsible for the remainder of the airfare..

High school students that are interested in this opportunity should:

1) review the camp website(s) and the links to eligibility requirements and application forms so that all requirements are clearly understood, and

2) contact Ben Tustison at 763-205-2651 or tustison@mbkengineers.com to submit your name as being interested in this opportunity.

From the qualified respondees, the Post will select one attendee and one alternate; the alternate may be able to attendee if the primary selectee is unable to attend or if additional space becomes available at the camps.  Once the Post has selected an attendee and an alternate, the selectees will be given additional instructions for submitting the required applications.  Selections will be made by 30 March 2007, which will the selectees adequate time to complete the required applications.

Click on the names of the camps below to hyperlink to the National SAME web pages that have additional details about the camps along with detailed registration information. 

SAME / US Army Camp
Vicksburg, Mississippi
June 8-14, 2008

SAME / US Air Force Academy Camp
US Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, CO
June 27-July 3, 2008

SAME / US Navy Seabees Camp
Port Heuneme, California
July 20-26, 2008
 

As most of our Post members already know, the Minneapolis-Saint Paul Post and the Rock Island Post are co-hosting the upcoming 2008 SAME Joint Engineer Training Conference and EXPO what will be held at the Minneapolis Convention Center from May 20-23, 2008.  Many members of the Post have sent several years planning this event, and many more have volunteered to assist as we get closer to the big week.  Things have been running very smoothly (as we would expect from our excellent group of planners), Exhibit Booth sales are nearing 80% which is fantastic at this point in time, and Sponsorships are now over 50% and have picked up a great momentum since the first of the year.   The next big crunch is to get individuals to begin registering themselves to attend.

The on-line registration site is now open for business, it is at  www.regonline.com/2008SAMEJETC.  The on-line registration will be open through April 30th ... but please don't procrastinate, register NOW!

Detailed information about the events, technical program, and exhibitors for the conference is at www.SAME-2008.org.  We hope that all the local members of the Post will be able to attend the conference in some capacity; it will be a top-notch event and perhaps the second biggest thing in the Twin Cities other than the Republican National Convention.

We need help for the following two items ... if you can assist, please contact us ASAP ...

Item 1 --- Item for a Silent Auction

New at this year's conference the Young Member Council and Academy of Fellows will host a silent auction during the Ice Breaker.  The purpose of the auction is to raise funds for the Society's Education and Mentoring (E&M) Fund.  The E&M fund provides education and mentoring support to high school and college students, as well as the Society's Young Members, Non-commissioned Officers, and Small Businesses.  Each Post is asked to provide an item for the Auction.

If you have ideas or leads on what might be a great item that the M-SP Post can donate, we would very much appreciate hearing your ideas.  Even better yet, if you have a item that you would make available to the Post, that would be terrific.  Contact Jim Mosner at 651-290-5512 or james.b.mosner@usace.army.mil with any ideas you may have.

Item 2 --- Location for delivery and handling of Registration Materials

If any of our local Sustaining Member firms would be able to receive, store, and provide space for a crew of registration materials stuffers, we would greatly appreciate hearing from you.  It is anticipated that the various registration items (conference bags, pens, program books, nametags and lanyards, etc) will be delivered between May 1st and May 15th.  We need a facility to receive and store these items during that time.  And then during the days/weekend before the conference we will need space for a crew of volunteers to help prepare and stuff the registration packets.  Ideally we would like to be able to prepare the packets at the location where the items are stored.  On Monday, May 19th the registration materials will be taken to the convention center. 

We need to identify the location where these items will be delivered by the end of February, before we begin ordering the items.  If your firm is interested in helping with this "logistical" issue, please contact Jim Mosner at 651-290-5512 or james.b.mosner@usace.army.mil as soon as possible.
 

This year's state final event for the Future City Competition took place on Saturday, January 26th at St. Thomas University.  It was a Blast!

At this year's event, the Minneapolis-Saint Paul Post sponsored one of the Special Awards that was titled "Readiness for Natural and Manmade Disasters".  It was presented to the team that demonstrated the most thought in addressing risks to its infrastructure and populous stemming from potential natural disasters and manmade disasters.  Consideration was also given to teams that have prepared their city's leadership and citizens for dealing with these types of situations.

Helping with the judging for the SAME special award were Post President Jim Mosner, the Post's newest member Jane Delorme (partially obscured), and Aaron Mikonowicz (right front).  The pace for judging was hectic since 35 teams had to be interviewed in 3 hours, about 5 minutes per team.  It is hoped that for next year, the Post will be able to field two teams of judges.  As fast-paced as it was, all agreed that it was a terrific experience and will be first in line to do it again next year.

The teams that won Special Awards were presented with plaques certificates and gift bags that were provided by the sponsoring organization.  M-SP Post President Jim Mosner presented the Post's gifts to the team from Cygnus Academy in Anoka for their city that they called "Samville"; they did a terrific job of discussing and demonstrating the considerations for readiness-related issues in their city of the future.

A number of M-SP Post members assisted in other various aspects of the competition.  Keith Anderson (HR Green), Drew McGovern (HR Green), Suresh Hettiarachichi (HDR), and Alan Palmer (Stanley) filled judging roles for the Computer Simulation component, Essay and Abstract, component, and Scale Model and Oral Presentation component of the competition.  These too are fun and personally rewarding facets of the event to help with.

But without a doubt, the Post member that went way over the top in his level of participation in this year's event was Paul Eickenberg (Wenck Associates) who spent many months mentoring not one, but two teams from Hopkins North JH.  Each of his teams went on to win one of the eighteen special awards what were presented.  Way to go Paul, great job!
 

All Engineers and Engineering Societies are invited to participate in Tech Fest, a large Engineers Week event at The Works in Edina, Sat., March 1st.  Engineers can participate by describing science and engineering displays to the young, future Engineers that attend.   Or if you have an idea for or a display or demo, let The Works know ASAP.  Coordinate your project or activity with kris@theworks.org.

The event runs from 9am to 5pm and volunteers are needed to work 2-3 hour shifts during the event.  Here is an opportunity to have some fun and be a participant in one of the biggest Engineering events of the year.   It is expected that over a 1,000 people will attend this event.

The Works is a non-profit "hands-on, minds-on" museum that makes science and engineering fun for kids 5 to 15.  More information on The Works can be seen at www.theworks.org.

TechFest Event Flyer

 

The Post would like to thank and congratulate Post members Curtis Anderson and Larry DeVries for submitting an article to The Military Engineer (TME), which was recently published in the Jan-Feb 2008 edition on pages 71 and 72.  Their article was a historical perspective looking back at the activities of two particular Seabee Mobile Construction Battalions during the early part of the Vietnam Conflict.

The fact that Larry and Curtis submitted an article to TME, helps the Post in achieving one of the award requirements that we try to achieve every year.  We highly encourage our members to submit articles to TME as well as other professional publications.  If you do submit an article to any publication, we ask that you send us a message and a little bit of back-up information so that we can have documentation for next season's awards submittal.