Louisiana Engineering Society Baton Rouge Chapter
President’s Address
By: Robert Degeyter, P.E.
The sounds of birds singing, children playing and lawns being mowed for the first time in months are signs that springtime has arrived. The months of January and February have traditionally been the busiest months on the LES calendar. This year was no exception with lots of activities taking center stage during these past few months. The 2007 Joint Engineering Societies Conference was held at the River Center on January 17th & 18th. We had a very strong turnout for the statewide conference. Many thanks go out to Brenda Gajan and Alan Krouse, P.E. for planning and coordinating the event and the LES Baton Rouge Chapter Board for helping moderate the technical sessions and hosting the event.
The annual regional Future Cities competition was held in Alexandria on January 26th. The theme for the competition this year was “Fuel Cells”. This is a great event that our organization sponsors for the enhancement of students with aspirations to the engineering profession. Teams competed statewide for the chance to represent our state at the national competition in Washington, D.C. on February 20th & 21st. Once again, I am proud to say that St. Thomas More of Baton Rouge took top honors at the statewide competition for the 8th year in a row. They earned a trip to the national competition boosting their dynamic and interactive model, MWINDA which means “The City of Light”.
At the national competition, they competed among 35 schools around the country. The team consisted of Mayor Emily Ponti, Krisha Sherburne - City Planner, and Jake Bowers - City Engineer. I am equally delighted to say that St. Thomas More of Baton Rouge won the national competition for the second time in the last three years and their teacher, Ms. Shirley Newman, was formally presented as the first inductee to the National Future Cities Hall of Fame. Congratulations to the St. Thomas More team for a job well done and highly respected in representing our state at the national level. Many thanks go out to Brenda Gajan and Mike Marchand, P.E. for planning and coordinating the statewide event.
The annual local MathCounts competition was held at the Louisiana Technology Transfer Center in Baton Rouge on February 9th. This has proven to be an excellent event that our organization sponsors for the enrichment of students with high academic math skills and ambitions to the engineering profession. Glasgow Middle School continued their strong showing at the local level as they were the top team and sported four of the top five individual scores at the Baton Rouge regional competition. The top three teams were invited to the State MathCounts competition which was also held in Baton Rouge at the Holiday Inn on March 16th.
At the State competition, Glasgow Middle School, Westdale Middle School and St. Jude the Apostle School competed with middle schools from around the State. Glasgow took first place in the team event and placed two of the top four individuals. Ms. Claudia Allums, team coach for Glagow Middle, along with David Zhang and Zeshum Ahmed also from Glasgow, will represent Louisiana and Baton Rouge at the national competition in Fort Worth. Congratulations to them and all the other participants for competing. A special card of thanks goes out to Gavin Gautreau, P.E. and Brenda Gajan for organizing and hosting the event. Also, many thanks to all the volunteers for helping contribute their time and energy to make the competition a success.
The annual Engineers Week banquet was held during engineering week on February 22nd at the Baton Rouge Country Club. At the banquet, we celebrated and honored people that have made positive contributions and achievements to the engineering profession and the community as well as accomplishments of prospective students with aspirations to the engineering profession. All Baton Rouge Chapter nominees for the 2007 Statewide Honors and Awards were recognized for their achievements as well as Future Cities and MathCounts winning teams and all scholarship recipients. The banquet was well attended and a huge success with nearly 130 guests. Many thanks go out to Robbie Lear, P.E., L.S.I. for planning and coordinating the banquet and the engineering community for sponsoring the banquet.
Once again, it is time to elect officers for the LES Baton Rouge Chapter for the upcoming year. Robbie Lear, P.E., L.S.I. has agreed to move up from the President-Elect position to President for the upcoming year. Also Ken Robichaux, P.E. has agreed to serve his second year as Secretary-Treasurer and Gerald Doyle, P.E. has agreed to serve his second year as Director. Therefore, we need to hold elections for three positions, President-Elect, Vice President and First Director. We are currently accepting nominations for these offices. If you are interested in serving on the LES Baton Rouge Chapter Board, please contact me at (225) 766-6330 or .
St. Thomas More of Baton Rouge Wins National Future Cities Competition
A city of the future – “Mwinda” – engineered by students from St. Thomas More School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has won the 2007 National Engineers Week Future City Competition™. The students – Jake Bowers, 12, Emily Ponti, 14, and Krisha Sherburne, 12 – teamed up with their teacher Shirley Newman, and volunteer mentor, chemical engineer Guy Macarios. St. Thomas More was the winner of the Louisiana regional competition held on January 26 in Alexandria.
Teams from 35 middle schools nationwide, winners of regional competitions in January, participated in the Future City National Finals, February 19-21 at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. The St. Thomas More team receives a trip to US Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama, provided by Bentley Systems, Incorporated.
The St. Thomas More team’s Future City – Mwinda, meaning light in Lingala, a dialect of the Republic of Congo – is a new city in an old land. The mission of Mwinda is to ensure opportunity for a good life by providing power, housing, water, food, and transportation. Located on the Fimi River near the Equator, Mwinda is in an area necessary to this mission: access to water, proximity to Lake Mai-Ndombe, settlement both on savannah and peripheral forest lands, and availability of rich mineral deposits. With innovative technology and modern engineering practices, Mwinda has developed an integrated, interdependent industrial design. Using principally renewable energy resources, the city produces excess electricity which it sells to other cities and countries of what has been called the Dark Continent. In one application, PAFC fuel cells (PAFCs) are powered with hydrogen from phyto-hydrogen generators, genetically enhanced algal cultures which produce hydrogen as a byproduct, and with solar collector hydrogen generators. A second system, TseTse (mythological African goddess of lightning), uses massive lightning containment capacitors, composed of dielectric glass and conductive metals from waste. Third, the Candu Reactor, powered by raw uranium mined robotically, operates in the industrial zone.
Future City is sponsored in part by Engineers Week, February 18-24, a consortium of more than 100 engineering societies and major corporations, founded in 1951 to increase public awareness and appreciation of the engineering profession and technology. The Louisiana Engineering Society is the lead sponsoring organization for the Future City competition in the State of Louisiana.
The Louisiana Engineering Society, and especially the Baton Rouge Chapter, is proud of the St. Thomas More team. Congratulations on a job well done!
Baton Rouge Host Regional and State MathCOUNTS Competitions
STATE MATHCOUNTS RESULTS — a team of four middle school Mathletes and their coach will represent Louisiana at the 2007 Lockheed Martin MATHCOUNTS National Competition in Fort Worth on May 11, 2007.
The students and coach representing Louisiana are: Daniel Cooper, Lake Castle School (Madisonville, LA); Michael Fishman, Boyet Junior High School (Slidell, LA); David Zhang and Zeshum Ahmed both from Glasgow Middle School (Baton Rouge, LA); and Coach Claudia Allums, also from Glasgow Middle. These students were the top individual scorers in the recent Louisiana Statewide MATHCOUNTS Competition.
Each team member has trained since the fall and competed in local and state competitions to earn his spot on the state team. These top Mathletes earned an all-expense-paid trip to Fort Worth where they will compete both as a team and individually for the chance to win trophies and scholarships. In order to earn the title of “National Champion” or “National Team Champion” individuals and teams will have to outscore 228 competitors from 57 territories representing all 50 states, the District of Columbia, U.S. territories and Department of Defense and State department affiliated schools.
MATHCOUNTS, a nationwide math enrichment program that combines coaching and competition, was designed to improve math skills among U.S. students. The program targets middle schools because it is a crucial stage in student interest and ability in mathematics. This year, 103 students participated in the Louisiana Statewide program.
Leadership of the 2007 State MATHCOUNTS program was provided by members of the Louisiana Engineering Society (LES) in association with the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE).
In Louisiana, Shell Oil Company is a major MATHCOUNTS sponsor. “Shell is pleased to support MATHCOUNTS. This program fits perfectly with Shell’s strategy to support promising students as they pursue innovative projects with an underlying emphasis on math and science.” John Hofmeister, President - Shell Oil Company.
The national sponsors of MATHCOUNTS are Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Company, Texas Instruments Incorporated, Northrop Grumman Foundation, National Society of Professional Engineers, 3M Foundation, General Motors Foundation, CNA Foundation and National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The National Society of Professional Engineers, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and CNA Foundation founded MATHCOUNTS.
LES appreciates the generosity of all state MATHCOUNTS sponsors and volunteers who made this year's state competition a success. Additional information on MATHCOUNTS is available at www.les-state.org and www.mathcounts.org.
Local Engineers Celebrate E-Week
The Baton Rouge Chapter would like to thank the engineering community for their support and strong attendance at the 2007 E-Week Banquet. Over 130 engineers and guest attended the banquet at the Baton Rouge Country Club. We especially would like to thank Wilfred Barry, P.E. for serving as our host, and Robbie Lear, P.E., LSI for planning the event.
The Baton Rouge Chapter paid tribute to Glasgow Middle School for winning the regional MathCOUNTS competition, and to St. Thomas More Catholic School for winning the Statewide Future City Competition. We were honored to have the Glasgow team in attendance at the banquet: Coach Ms. Claudia Allums, students Zeshum Ahmed, David Zhang, Bob Liang and Ajay Menon. The St. Thomas More team could not attend as they were competing and winning the national Future City competition in Washington DC.
All of the Baton Rouge nominees for state awards were honored at the banquet. Our nominees were Richard Savoie, P.E. for the A.B. Patterson Medal for an Engineer in Management, Roy Waggenspack, P.E. for the Andrew M. Lockett Medal for Civic Activities, Mike Bruce, P.E. for the Charles M. Kerr Public Relations Award, Robbie Lear, P.E., LSI, for the F. Hugh Coughlin Young Engineer Award, Brian Wolshon, Ph.D., P.E. for the James M. Todd Technological Accomplishment Medal, and Alan Krouse, P.E. for the Leo M. Odom Award for Services to the Profession. Each nominee was awarded a plaque at the banquet in honor of their nominations.
The Baton Rouge Chapter also awarded the William A. Wintz, Jr. Scholarship to four undergraduate engineering students. This year’s recipients are Michael Gavion (Electrical Engineering) and Miles Torregano (Mechanical Engineering) from Southern University, and Blaise Paul (Mechanical Engineering) and Andrew Frilot (Civil Engineering) from LSU. Each student was presented a $1000 scholarship by Mrs. Myra Wintz and members of the Wintz family. The Baton Rouge Chapter is proud to continue to honor Mr. Wintz with this scholarship. The scholarship is made possible by contributions made by the engineering community at the Golf Tournament and LSU/Southern Student Functions, both held in the fall.
The Baton Rouge Chapter would especially like to thank our corporate sponsors for helping make the E-Week banquet a success.
Bart Kemper Nominated for Federal Engineer of the Year Award
Past Baton Rouge Chapter President Bart Kemper, P.E., was nominated by the U.S. Army for the Federal Engineer of the Year Award. Sponsored by the NSPE Professional Engineers in Government, this honor is to be awarded to an engineer employed by a federal agency that employs at least 50 engineers worldwide. Candidates are nominated by their employing federal agency.
The Federal Engineer of the Year is selected by a panel of judges established by NSPE-PEG who consider engineering achievements, education, continuing education, professional/technical society activities, NSPE membership, awards or honors, and civic and humanitarian activities.
Garrett Polhamus, Ph.D., P.E., was named Federal Engineer of the Year for 2007 during the 28th annual Federal Engineer of the Year ceremony at the National Press Club on February 22. Polhamus and 25 other agency winners were nominated for this prestigious award by their federal agencies. Ten were chosen by the NPSE-PEG judges for consideration for the top honor.
Kemper works for the U.S. Army’s 412th Engineering Command and is a leader in engineering design, management, and ethics. In his first engineering position, he helped develop key failure analysis techniques for petrochemical equipment. Mobilized in 2003, Kemper helped resolve a multimillion dollar waster management problem using Computational Fluid Dynamics and in 2004 developed design and procedures for a strategic military pipeline system that has been incorporated into doctrine in Korea. Mobilized again in 2005, Kemper was the lead mechanical, structural, and security engineer for the only corps-level engineer brigade in Iraq, working with both coalition forces and Iraq ministries. His work included schools, civilian water treatment plants, military-civilian water supply systems, equipment troubleshooting, and infrastructure assessment. Despite repeated enemy engagements, Kemper was able to gather the data needed for assessments and construction estimates resulting in a multimillion dollar military construction project approved by Congress.
The Baton Rouge Chapter is proud of Maj. Kemper for his service both to the Louisiana Engineering Society as well as to this country. We congratulate him for being nominated for this prestigious award. To be recognized as one of the top ten federal engineers in the country and the nominee of the US Army is a tremendous honor and achievement. Congratulations Bart.