2014 Spring Newsletter

Dear Friends,

It’s been a busy year in CECMEE.  Student numbers are up in all programs AGAIN, we had an ABET visit, and faculty and students have been busy with projects of note – all described inside this year’s newsletter. Highlights of the past year include:

• CECMEE Spring 2014 enrollments are 311 in CE (from 270 a year ago), 162 in EnE (from 134), and 157 in CM (from 143). Growth is still manageable in CECMEE programs.
• Graduation numbers from spring & fall 2013 were 29 CM (40 last year), 24 EnE and 41 CE (66 CENE combined last year).
• CM Associate Professor John Tingerthal has done a great job of serving as the Interim Associate Department Chair this year while Professor Steve Mead has been on sabbatical.
• The CENE programs had an ABET accreditation visit in the fall; the final word regarding our accreditation status (a three or six year accreditation period) won’t come out until August. We are happy to report that we had no concerns with our assessment and continuous improvement programs, which are hot topics with ABET.
• CECMEE is hiring! This year we are searching for a temporary Instructor to cover sabbaticals (Odem, Baxter and Smaglik), a Lecturer in CECMEE who can teach courses in all three programs, and a Lab Instructor to teach lab classes and make sure our labs are in great shape.
• The CECMEE Field Station (aka “Trotta’s Farm”) is getting a major facelift this year with the help of the Provost’s Office – we are renovating the entire site, with better road access and enclosure of the pavilion building. This multi-purpose site will serve as the home for large CENE capstone projects such as concrete canoe and steel bridge, and provide additional student research and project space year round. We have big plans for the future of this site!
• We welcome Rob Bruner back this year as an Assistant Professor of Practice, and long-time part-time Instructor Mark Lamer as a full-time Instructor. Read about them in the Welcome New Faculty and Staff section inside.
• Save the date for this upcoming event!
  • May 9^th: CECMEE Commencement-1:00 p.m.

Visit our websites at: /CEFNS/Engineering/ and our LinkedIn groups to stay in touch year-round!

Bridget N. Bero, Ph.D., P.E.
Professor and Chair
Bridget.Bero@nau.edu

Robert Bruner, MAdmin, Assistant Professor of Practice, is an NAU CM and MAdmin alumnus.  Prior to coming to NAU, Rob worked in a variety of residential, heavy highway, and commercial projects as a superintendent, structural inspector, field testing technician, and a division manager. Rob has specialized in the management of both Construction Manager at Risk (CMAR) and Design Build projects in both the commercial building and heavy civil sectors for many projects on campus, such as The W.A. Franke College of Business, the High Country Conference Center, multiple pedestrian walkway reconfigurations, and campus beautification projects including the Historic NAU North Quad. Rob is an active faculty member in the program as a faculty coach for the Heavy Civil and Commercial ASC Reno teams and the faculty advisor for the Construction Management Organization (CMO). In addition, he is a member of the Construction Management Association of America (CMAA) and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). Outside of teaching, Rob enjoys spending as much time possible in the outdoors with his wife and two children, ages seven and 10.

Mark Lamer, PE, the newest full time Instructor for CENE, is also an NAU alumnus, receiving his BS and MEng degrees in civil engineering. Though he has been teaching courses part-time at NAU for five years, Mark has most recently worked at Natural Channel Design in Flagstaff as a professional, gaining expertise on a variety of site designs, hydrology, and hydraulics projects. One of his past projects was the Shultz Fire Shed Emergency Response.  While Mark is the practitioner advisor for the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and an active member in the organization, he is also involved in Engineers without Borders (EWB), the Arizona Hydraulic Society (AHS), and the Arizona Floodplain Management Association (AFMA). Mark spends any of his free time in the outdoors with his wife and two six year old children.

• NAU Transportation Fellowship Recipients and Annual Meeting of Transportation Research Board: NAU CE senior Alejandra Quesada and CM senior Leondo Benally were awarded the prestigious NAU Dwight D. Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship. They presented their research project at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board on January 14-16, 2014 in Washington D.C. Their projects were funded by the Federal Highway Administration. Alejandra’s research topic is “Deep Beam Web Reinforcement” while Leondo’s research project is entitled, “Rerouting Highway 89.” They both were recognized at the TRB Eisenhower Reception.

• Student Teams place 2^nd in Two National Competitions:  CE seniors Junyi Shan and Darius Ishaku and their faculty advisor, Dr. Jun Ho, participated in the 2013 Student Pervious Concrete Cylinder Competition sponsored by the American Concrete Institute (ACI) in Phoenix.  They won 2^nd place in the Load-to-Cost Ratio category where teams were asked to submit their mix design formula to the ACI for review, produce pervious concrete specimens, and bring their specimens to the competition. Junyi and Darius were recognized at the ACI Student Lunch and will each receive a $500 award.
• At the 2013 Arizona Pavements/Materials Conference in Tempe, three NAU CE seniors (Mengxi Du, Junyi Shan, and Darius Ishaku) won 2^nd place in the Student Poster Competition.  All other student participants were graduate students (MS’s and PhD’s) from ASU except for our three NAU seniors. They received a $200 prize on their project entitled, “Experimental Study of Snow Melting System in Concrete Pavements in Northern Arizona.”

CENE Senior Capstone Projects 2014 are underway. For full project details, check out: http://www.cefns.nau.edu/capstone/d4p/. If you have a Capstone project, contact Bridget Bero (bridget.bero@nau.edu). We love to tackle new projects!

Fall 2013 / spring 2014 projects completing this spring:

• ASCE Pacific Southwest Regional Conference – Concrete Canoe
• ASCE Pacific Southwest Regional Conference – Steel Bridge
• WERC Environmental Competition – Bottled Drinking Water Stabilization
• Cinder Lakes Landfill – Mining and Excavation of Cell D
• Cinder Lakes Landfill – Design of the Residential Drop-off Center
• PCI Big Beam Contest
• Reinforced Deep Beam Design
• Stabilization of Headcut at Tsegi Wash
• Design of a Low-cost Water Filtration Unit to Remove Arsenic, Uranium and Coliforms
• Design of a Low-water Crossing on Oak Creek

Spring 2014 / fall 2014 projects to be completed next fall:

• Dam stabilization (two teams, two different dams)
• Pervious Pavement Design
• Water/Wastewater System Design for Mainpat, India Tibetan Refugee Camp
• Design of an Outdoor Basketball Court Complex for Residential Area
  

Capstone Team Receives National Award: The National Council of Examiners for Engineering and Surveying (NCEES) awarded $7,500 to CECMEE, in recognition of last year’s Capstone project “Paper Pulp Sludge Characteristics and Applications.” The award recognizes engineering programs that encourage collaboration between students and professional engineers. Students (now alumni) Amy Anderson, John Jowers, Daniel Hamill, Gabe Murray, Nathaniel Lail and Annalise O’Toole worked with faculty mentor Wilbert Odem to determine whether it is feasible for Cinder Lakes Landfill in Flagstaff to generate cost savings by using paper pulp sludge in new ways instead of burying it with incoming waste. The team’s research, testing, and analysis projected the landfill could save more than $8 million on material costs alone.

Class Trips to Study Advance Traffic Signal Systems: Students in CENE 545: Advanced Traffic Signal Systems participated in a field trip to various traffic management centers and facilities in Arizona and Nevada to aid in the completion of their semester long project of designing a signalized arterial. The class visited the City of Mesa’s Traffic Management Center, the ADOT Freeway Traffic Management Center, the ADOT Traffic Signal and Sign Shop, and the Regional Transportation Commission of southern Nevada.

Annual Roads and Streets Conference Presentation: Three Civil Engineering undergraduate students, Logan Couch, Jason Luque, and Chris Sobie, working with Dr. Smaglik and in conjunction with the City of Flagstaff, will present on a research project involving bicycle and motor vehicle conflicts at the 63^rd Annual Roads and Streets Conference in Tucson, Arizona, April 16^th-18^th, 2014. Since the fall of 2013, the City of Flagstaff has applied green paint to conflict zones within the bicycle lane on south Beaver Street with the goal of highlighting that conflict zone to all road users, cyclists and driver.  Smaglik’s team has recorded video of operations at the locations prior to and after the paint installation, and is investigating the change in user behavior.

Results of the ASCE PSW Conference: The NAU-ASCE club represented NAU well at the 2014 Pacific Southwest Regional Conference in San Diego, Apr 2-5, 2014.  34 students attended and all participated in one or more events. NAU took 6^th place overall and was the first non-California team – we definitely had the depth this year in all areas! We took 3^rd in Steel Bridge Display, Steel Bridge Construction Efficiency and Surveying, with a first in Concrete Bowling Ball. Our Geotech and Concrete Canoe teams met all standards. Check out the website for more details and photos: /CEFNS/Engineering/Civil-Environmental/News/

• Paul Gremillion visits International Atomic Energy Laboratories
  • Paul Gremillion, Associate Professor of Environmental Engineering, visited the International Atomic Energy laboratories in Monte Carlo, Monaco and Seibersdorf, Austria as one of two evaluators tasked with assessing the Environment Programme at the IAEA. Dr. Gremillion made a site visit to both labs in October 2013 and returned in December 2013 to provide laboratory directors with a briefing of the evaluation results. Activities in the labs include research in marine ecology and building the capacity of member countries in methods of understanding ecosystem changes through the use of nuclear techniques.
• Jun Ho and Robin Tuchscherer travel to Japan
  • In the spring semester of 2014, Robin Tuchscherer (Assistant Professor, CE) and Dr. Jun Ho (Assistant Professor, CM) were invited to teach a short course in Project Management at Kyushu University in Japan. Students who took the course came from a variety of backgrounds, including Japan, China, Mongolia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Uzbekistan. Their trip to Japan was a part of CEFNS’s Global Science and Engineering Program (GSEP) initiative in connection with Kyushu University to establish a partnership between the two institutions.
• Alan Francis defends thesis
  • CM Assistant Professor of Practice Alan Francis successfully defended his Masters of Science of the Built Environment (MSBE) thesis on March 6^th down at ASU! The title of his thesis, “The net zero-energy home: Precedent and catalyst for realizing local performance-based architecture,” describes the process of designing a net zero-energy buildings (ZEB).
• Terry Baxter works with UA and ASU to remediate wastewater
  • Terry Baxter (Associate Professor, EnE) leads the NAU effort in this tri-university project, using algae to turn Arizona’s wastewater into renewable fuel. Visit the link for the full story: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/03/prweb11648769.htm
• Congratulations to Dr. John Tingerthal on his promotion to Associate Professor with Tenure this year in the CM program!
• Next year, three of our faculty members will be going on sabbatical:
  • Dr. Terry Baxter will be learning Chinese, and will continue his work on algae to reclaim high salinity waters. In the spring, he will head to China where he will mentor new faculty at XUST (Xi’an university of Science and Technology) in teaching and research. He will also give lectures in undergraduate and graduate courses, and will co-teach an engineering drawing class using a bilingual book that was co-written and edited with one of the XUST faculty. He will also explore opportunities for undergraduate research at XUST, XUAT (Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology) Chongqing University, Hefei University and the Kunming Lake Monitoring Station.
  • Dr. Edward Smaglik will be working with Kittelson and Associates, Inc., a transportation engineering consulting company, to improve his skills in the area of traffic signals and systems, urban planning, and multimodal design and operations.
  • Dr. Wilbert Odem will be working on several projects: 1) Measurements at river and stream sites in the southwest to evaluate geomorphologic changes due to drought; 2) Alternative closure cap testing at the City of Flagstaff Landfill; and 3) Developing a database on river/stream crossings, including bridges, low water, and dams, capitalizing on department expertise in bridges, rivers and streams in the southwest, and geotechnical engineering to evaluate possible research opportunities.

Alumni-CM: Dan Pignatari

Dan Pignatari, a 2011 graduate from the CM program, had a great start to his career. Our alumnus from Highwood, IL, was very involved in the Construction Management Organization (CMO) at NAU and was part of the first VDC team that attended the ASC Reno Student Competition. Dan started working with E&K of Phoenix after graduation as an Acoustical Ceiling Estimator. Eventually, he created and implemented two major programs for E&K- a Building Information Modeling (BIM) program and a mobile device program, along with working as a Project Manager on top of his exiting estimating duties. Dan said that one of the major highlights at NAU was the Reno Competition which gave him the experience to develop programs that hadn’t existed at E&K before, and now BIM and mobile devices are being used by E&K field workers across the country.

Alumni-CM: Andres Rossini

Andres Rossini, a 2012 graduate from Cordoba, Argentina, has also paved the way to success for future CM graduates. During his time at NAU, Andres was involved in CMO as a treasurer and competed in the Reno Competition on the Commercial Team. When he started his career at E&K of Phoenix, he started on the Project Management track by managing projects under $100,000.  He is now managing a variety of projects, many of them worth over $1 million. Aside from gaining experience on making bigger decisions in regards to money and time sensitivity issues, Andres has also been involved as a part of E&K’s Education Committee which creates and updates documentation and has face-to-face meetings with other employees from across the country to identify ideas to help advance the company. Andres believes that the one class that related most to a day in industry was CM481: Construction Operations. He said that it dealt with solving problems the correct way to protect impact on the job’s schedule and budget. Andres was recently promoted to Senior Project Manager and is looking forward to the new challenges that will come!

If you’d like to be featured in a future newsletter, please contact Bridget.Bero@nau.edu.

Directing a donation to the CECMEE Department is a great way to make sure your dollars help the programs you care about. You can specify which program you want to support (CM Students and Program – Fund #4847; CENE programs – Fund #4482; CENE students – #4740).

Contact Bridget Bero (bridget.bero@nau.edu) or online at /CEFNS/Partner/Giving/Opportunities/ (scroll to CENE and CM for fund numbers and descriptions).

If your company is interested in supporting the Construction Management Program, contact John Tingerthal (John.Tingerthal@nau.edu) to join our Generation Next campaign. Each sponsorship level gives companies priority to fundraising events and our Construction Industry Seminar presentations.

• Supporting CECMEE: the following groups have been very generous with supporting our programs!
• CM’s “Generation Next” fundraising campaign has raised over $60,000 so far this year thanks to our newest sponsors: CEMEX, PENTA Building Group, Wilson Electric (moving from a Silver to Gold Sponsor), SKANSKA USA, and FCI Constructors
• Thanks to the following Capstone sponsors:
  • $2,000 Cemex: concrete canoe team
  • USDA-Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station: Use of their greenhouse facility for the concrete canoe fabrication
  • $400 Speedie & Associates: geowall team
  • $1400 Northern Arizona  Branch, ASCE
  • $400 American Institute of Steel Construction: steel bridge team
  • Agate, Inc.; Norfab Steel and Fabrication: Schuff Steel: steel for steel bridge team
  • Copper State: Bolts/Nuts for steel bridge team
  • NAU Welding Shop, NAU Engineering Fabrication Shop: steel bridge team
  • Eagar Welding: steel bridge team
  • The 2^nd Annual NAU IAB Sporting Clays Tournament for the CM Program was a success, raising over $10,000 for the program.  Congratulations to the winning teams: 1^st Place – Sundt Construction, 2^nd Place – PENTA Building Group, 3^rd Place – KCS

It’s easy – don’t forget to sign up for either our NAU-CM or NAU-CENE LinkedIn pages – or both! This is a great way to stay connected with former classmates, post job openings and connect with other industry leaders and professionals. Contact Bridget.Bero@nau.edu or John.Tingerthal@nau.edu for more information.