Who I Am

I am a civil structural engineer for United Space Alliance at the Kennedy Space Center. I have over 21 years of varied engineering, construction, operations, and management experience. Projects have included facilities and ground support structures for both manned and unmanned space programs; submarine bases; nuclear and fossil fueled power plants; gassification, chemical, and petroleum plants; and bridges and highways.

My areas of expertise are system design integration, failure inspection and resolution (steel & concrete), and project management. That is why I am working in project management and also still matrixed back to design for my technical knowledge for failure analysis.

What I Do

As a project manager, I oversee a project from its conception to implementation. This includes the feasibility of the idea in the first place. It also includes cost and schedule. When someone here at KSC has an idea to make things better, they write their idea on an Engineering Support Request (ESR). This ESR/idea starts the project. The project manager investigates this idea and sees who the idea affects and obtains their collective ideas for this project and defines them as project requirements. The project manager then makes sure that the design satisfies the idea and that it is constructable. During the construction of the project, the project manager ensures that the constructor follows the design, and if there is confusion or an error in the drawing, he/she ensures that all those affected by the need to change something are aware and concur with the change. Along the way the project manager tracks who is doing what, how long it takes them to do it, and what it costs.

To give you an idea how this works, let's say your best friend at school, who is the tallest person in the class, gets a bottom locker. They put in an ESR that says, eliminate bottom lockers, because the last time I got into my locker I cut my head on the upper locker door. The principal assigns you as project manager. The school board is concerned because this is a safety issue. During your investigation phase, you discover that not only is it a problem with the tall people using the bottom lockers, there is also a problem with shorter people using the upper locker. Your school is not large enough, nor has enough money to replace all the lockers to single-level lockers. So you ask the school board to use single-level lockers on all new schools, and you implement a classification according to height at your school. You get the preregistration forms changed to include height. This information is tabulated and lockers assigned according to whether you're above or below the average height--not the perfect solution, but a much better solution, with less risk of injury.

As a systems design engineer, I ensure that the different discipline engineers are talking to each other and don't mess up each other's designs. Let's say your best friend is an architectural engineer laying out one of those new schools for the school board with single-level lockers, and another friend is a mechanical engineer designing locations for drinking fountains. You, as system design engineer, ensure that your friends are talking and that the mechanical engineer doesn't put the water lines where they would interfere with the architectural engineers placement of the lockers. This is a rather simple instance, but if you think about coordinating electrical, piping, structural, architectural, and mechanical details for even the simplest building, you can see how it can get complicated.

Another part of my job, the one I find most physically and mentally challenging, is failure inspection and resolution. (See my field journal on crack inspection.) I inspect the MLPs, the Pads, and all structural components of the launch facilities at KSC. Some inspections occur regularly after each launch, and others occur when something cracks, breaks, or if performance is questioned. Let's use the lockers again: say your friend with the bottom locker leans on the locker door to get down to the locker and the hinges bend. You, as the failure inspector, would examine the hinges, recommend that the maintenance personnel bend the hinges back for school today, and ensure they buy and install new hinges before next week.

My Career Journey

When I started high school, my interest was in art as a career. After several disappointing art competitions, I wasn't so sure--not that I didn't have talent; it was that art is very subjective and personal. From these experiences, guidance from high school teachers, and a good math and science education, I learned that my artistic talent could be coupled with my love of tinkering to have a career in architecture or engineering. After first considering architecture and then turning to civil engineering, interrupted by four years in the United States Navy, I received a bachelor's of science in civil engineering from the University of Tennessee. While I worked on my BS, I worked for the university testing concrete anchorage devices, doing failure analysis, and bridge inspection. This consulting for the university brought in revenue for the university and helped bring home the need for good, well-thought-out designs.

After I earned my BS, I went to work for the State of Tennessee Department of Transportation (DOT), but continued to go to school to get a master's. While working for the Tennessee DOT, I worked as a field engineer and project manager in the construction department, an engineer in the Bridge Inspection Department, and as a surveyor and professional engineering witness in the Right-of-Way Department. After three years of graduate school, I earned my master's of engineering in civil engineering. I then went to work in Houston, Texas, for Brown and Root. I was a level III quality assurance engineer in the Power Division. There, I trained and certified level I & II quality control inspectors, vendor surveillance inspectors, and interfaced with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for South Texas Nuclear Project and several fossil fueled projects.

After tiring of an unrelenting 60 to 70 hour work week, I went to work for Bechtel, in the Petro-chemical Division. I wore many different hats, that is, I was a chief field engineer, quality assurance engineer, senior construction engineer, superintendent, project manager, and more--sometimes, many at the same time. I worked on the Coal Gassification Project for Eastman Chemicals in Kingsport, Tennessee; next, the QASIM Refinery in Saudi Arabia, then Mobile Launcher 3 modification, from Saturn to Shuttle configuration at KSC. I then worked on the modification of Launch Complex 41 for the Titan 4 program; after that, the Radiographic inspection facility at the Kingsbay Submarine base in Georgia, and then back to Launch Complex 41. That is when I decided to go to work for Lockheed, which later became United Space Alliance.

Influences

My parents influenced me, especially my father, who could fix anything, but also my high school advanced math teacher, Alberta Cohen, who made math, the language of the sciences, fun and interesting.

Personal Information

My wife Anne-Marie and I got married while I was in the Navy onboard the aircraft carrier USS Wasp CVS 18. We have been married 26 years and have 5 boys. The oldest, Christopher, is working on his master's in music performance at Juliard School of Music in New York City. David is studying computer engineering at the University of Central Florida. Michael and Joe are sophomore and freshman, respectively, at Astronaut High School here in Titusville. Matthew is at Oak Park Elementary School. I have been the Scout Master for Troop 481 for the last twelve years and an assistant Cub Master for Pack 712 for nearly six. Besides Scouting, I am active in the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization that supports charities such as BETA, Hospice and North Brevard Cooperative Charities; as well as Scouting and other civic organizations.

Archived Chats

• December 3, 1997