News

The ASNE Tidewater Section kicked off their Sept 2021—May 2022 dinner schedule with ASNE President Mark Hugel as guest speaker. Mark provided an update on Society priorities and challenges in light of the pandemic impacts over the past 18 months. Dinner/meetings are now in-person with a virtual option available. 

It was also exciting to see Chief Warrant Officer 3, Travis Otte, accept ASNE Tidewater’s Engineer of the Quarter award for 3rd quarter 2021!  The CWO’s Commanding Officer, Joseph P. Thompson, USS Mesa Verde, provided the Letter of Recommendation. He acknowledged the Warrant Officer's knowledge and professionalism along with his "tireless devotion to duty" as the ship's Main Propulsion Assistant and Ship Maintenance Management Officer. Congratulations!

Welcome Back!  The Tidewater Section is so pleased to announce that we were able to host live and in-person dinner events in April and May. After a year of cancellations and virtual forums, yes it felt as fresh and welcoming as Spring.

On April 20^th, Captain Steve Sarar (CO, SURFMEPP) addressed an audience that was limited by CDC and State guidelines to just 25 in-person attendees, plus we had another 30 guests on-line. Capt. Sarar was terrific, and even with limited capacity, this gathering felt like we had finally turned a corner. In early May restrictions were relaxed again to a maximum of 100 indoors, and on May 19^th VADM Bill Galinis (NAVSEA) spoke to an audience of 60 in-person plus 38 virtual guests from as far away as Bahrain.

Thank you ASNE members for your patience and flexibility during this pandemic, and to Admiral Galinis for helping us close out our Fall – Spring program year in high style. 

Many thanks to those who were able to join us in-person at our dinner/meeting program on April 21.  It is wonderful to be able to meet face-to-face once again after so many months.  We also greatly appreciate those members and guests who joined us virtually! 

ASNE Chairman Andy Vasquez recognized Guy Zanti and Kathleen Murray who served numerous positions within the ASNE Tidewater Section over the last several years.  Guy, Kathleen and family will be leaving the Hampton Roads area and we wish them all the best.  We are very grateful for their service and support of ASNE.  Thank you Guy and Kathleen!

Captain Stephen Sarar, Commanding Officer, Surface Maintenance Engineering Planning Program (SURFMEPP), was our guest speaker for the evening.  The Captain presented SURFMEPP’s mission and vision (what they do), footprint (where they are), Product Value Stream (how they do it), Directive Maintenance (what they’re focused on), and Life Cycle Investment Trends: Surface Ship Engineered Operating Cycle (SSEOC) & Life Cycle Health Assessment (LCHA) (how they grade their work). 

 Here is a link to CAPT Sarar's presentation.

Students Neil St. Clair and Daniel Erdogan with ASNE TW's Old Dominion University Chapter provided a recap of their recent tour of VMASC:

“On March 23, the ASNE Tidewater Old Dominion University Student chapter had the privilege to tour the Virginia Modeling Analysis & Simulation Center (VMASC) in Suffolk. The tour began with a brief history lesson of VMASC, which transitioned into a conversation about their various projects. Some of these projects include providing assistance on building the highway that leads into Busch Gardens and STEM fairs for children on the autism spectrum to stimulate development and cognitive function.

Students had an opportunity to experience some of the simulations hands-on. First, the students got to fly a Cessna plane around a virtual Hampton Roads with a flight simulator. Second, the students were introduced to a virtual reality simulation that simulated a bat's life and how echolocation works. Students were tasked with using echolocation to find and eat mosquitoes while avoiding obstacles such as trees and mountains. It was a fascinating look into the technology being developed by the simulation and  modeling industry.

The final stop was a look into the digital shipbuilding lab; the students were presented a boat that VMASC had previously brought to competition. The students also got an insight into how AR (Augmented Reality) was used in the shipbuilding industry to place and fit pipes, doors, and other various components a ship would have. Overall it was a very enlightening experience. We hope to continue our work on the ASNE Promoting Electric Propulsion (PEP) competition at this facility and  other projects.

A special thank you to Mr. Mike Barkan and Mr. Joe Kosteczko for giving us the opportunity to tour this extraordinary facility.” 

We had 71 members and guests join us for our March virtual program!  

Very special thanks to our guest speaker RDML Jason Lloyd, Chief Engineer and Deputy Commander for Ship Design, Integration and Naval Engineering, SEA-05, Naval Sea Systems Command.  

 Here is a link to the Admiral's presentation.

Students with ASNE Tidewater's ODU Student Chapter toured Fairlead February 22, 2021 at their Portsmouth manufacturing and waterfront facilities.  The students were quite taken by the diversity of the company’s strong capabilities, particularly their engineering-driven programs.  They witnessed firsthand some of Fairlead’s products at various stages of production and/or testing.  The students asked many engaging questions and our Fairlead hosts were very accommodating. 

At the end of the tour, Mr. Keith Hubble, Fairlead Senior Engineer and Director of Strategic Product  Development, graciously agreed to become a mentor to Neil St. Clair, ODU Student Chapter President.  The student mentor process is an important goal of the ODU Chapter this year.  We look forward to matching all ODU Chapter students with ASNE mentors before the year is over.  

Mr. Joe Kosteczko, Assistant Director of Digital Shipbuilding for ODU’s Virginia Modeling, Analysis & Simulation Center (VMASC) and Ms. Jessica Zimmerman (VMASC Communications Coordinator) were also in attendance for the tour.  Joe extended an invitation to Fairlead and the ODU students to tour ODU’s VMASC facility.  Special thanks to Jessica for capturing many of the photos you see below.

Many thanks to Captain Tim Barney, Commander, Mid-Atlantic Regional Maintenance Center (MARMC), the guest speaker at ASNE Tidewater's first all-virtual "Dinner"/Meeting program!  We had many members and friends attend the Microsoft Teams event the evening of February 17, and we greatly appreciated their patience as we navigated our way through the virtual platform. 

As promised, here is a link to CAPT Barney's presentation.  

The ASNE Tidewater Section held its first live event since last February!  Typically our Section holds monthly dinner/meeting programs featuring guest speakers from the naval industry from October through May, but due to the virus we had to cancel several of the events this year.  The Section considered holding a virtual meeting for the kickoff of our first dinner/meeting of the 2020/2021 season, but instead decided to hold a virtual AND live program.  The Section conferred with the hotel on all safety precautions.  The event was attended by 24 members/guests in person, and by 17 virtually.  Not a bad turn-out, and hopefully the shape of things to come!

We greatly appreciate our guest speaker, Mr. Mark Hugel, the President of ASNE National who provided us the pulse of the Society.  Mark also gave much praise and recognition to ASNE staff for their ability to quickly and proficiently learn how to coordinate and conduct virtual events!

VADM Dave Lewis, Director of the Defense Contract Management Agency, was the guest speaker at the ASNE Tidewater section dinner/meeting program February 19th.  VADM Lewis is one of the longest (if not the longest) serving EDOs in the community today and has been an ED Flag since 2009.  In addition to DCMA, he served in fleet maintenance (CNSF N43), fleet modernization (SPAWAR), and ship construction (NAVSEA/PEO Ships) roles.

Very passionate about his position at DCMA, Adm. Lewis provided a thorough explanation of DCMA’s role and mission in his presentation.  He highlighted DCMA’s alignment with the Secretary of Defense’s priorities, DCMA’s scope of work, span of control, product deliveries breakdown by platform, and unit cost by platform.  He also underscored the posture of cyber security for a majority of companies, noting that small businesses have a ways to go to meet good cyber hygiene.  Adm. Lewis was gracious in taking a number of questions and was very engaging with the group. 

Linked here is a copy of the Admiral’s brief.

From flight simulation, digital senses immersion, a look into the deep past, diving into a bulkhead on an aircraft carrier, and experiencing the echolocation of a bat in a first-person view, ASNE Tidewater members and friends visited multiple simulation labs at ODU’s Virginia Modeling Analysis and Simulation Center in Suffolk. Guests learned about various research projects happening throughout ODU-VMASC and were able to experience first-hand some of the virtual reality simulations! As an entity of ODU’s modeling and simulation pipeline, VMASC is grounded in the utilitarian principle of improving the human condition and mankind’s understanding of the word through innovation and transdisciplinary research and development. Senior Project Scientist and Lab Director Hector Garcia explained various ways researchers at VMASC use models, simulations, and visualizations to help create/formulate answers to complex problems, design experiments, analyze data, and interpret results. Guests also visited and learned about ODU-VMASC’s Digital Shipbuilding program from Program Manager, Joe Kosteczko, and Curriculum Coordinator, Jessica Johnson. In the Digital Shipbuilding Lab, guests learned about innovative practices to enhance workforce development, STEM curriculum K-12, and research/development within the maritime industry through an engineering design challenge with virtual reality, augmented reality, and 3D modeling. ODU-VMASC’s Digital Shipbuilding team are proud members of the ASNE Tidewater chapter.