2024 Conference Abstracts – The Final Week’s Countdown

Have you dreamed of enhancing your career, advancing within your company, being admired by your peers and supervisors? A well-proven way of doing this and more is by writing and presenting a paper at an International Conference.  Even better is receiving recognition at a conference for your work.  And how do you do that?  Be sure that your paper is judged, because if it misses the judging, it will miss out on consideration for Best Paper or Special Recognition.  

One final question, is this a big deal?  The answer to that is definitely YES!, as I can tell you from experience. The fact that my paper garnered a Best Paper award led directly to promotion and plum assignments at work and to a satisfying series of leadership positions within the SAWE.

The Society of Allied Weight Engineers 2024 Conference on Mass Properties Engineering is coming in May.  Abstracts for Professional (not Student) papers to be presented at the conference are due to be received by the SAWE by midnight on January 19, 2024 for the paper to be eligible for judging for the Mike Hackney Best Paper Award.  Similarly, the paper itself is due by midnight on April 15, 2024 to meet the criteria for Best Paper judging.  Both milestones must be met to ensure the paper is included in the judging.  Abstracts (and papers can be submitted via the web at https://www.sawe.org/technical/papers/submittal or by sending them by email to technical@sawe.org. Papers that miss the deadlines may still be submitted and presented, however they will not be considered for Best Paper.  

So, I ask you again – Have you dreamed of enhancing your career?  Act on your dreams and reap the rewards.

Calling All Authors

The SAWE’s 3rd Virtual Conference (83rd Annual International Conference on Mass Properties) is coming in May 20 – 24, 2024.  Submit your abstracts for a Paper or Presentation for this conference by sending your abstract to technical@sawe.org or by using the SAWE’s Abstract and Paper submittal form at https://www.sawe.org/technical/papers/submittal.

Abstracts are received by the 15th of December, 2023 will have your name and Paper or Presentation title included in the initial Conference Announcement.  Student authors should submit their abstracts by the 11th of March 2024 to ensure that your paper is assigned to the correct technical track.

The SAWE thanks each author for the time and effort to create and present their work on the International (virtual) stage and we look forward to seeing your abstracts.

Major New SAWE Member Benefit Coming

Let’s say you are a mass properties engineer faced with solving a problem you have not seen before.  Chances are that this has been something that someone else has already seen.  Wouldn’t it be splendid if you could consult with a person with experience, who could support you in finding a solution to your problem?

Or let’s turn this around.  An engineer has a problem.  You’ve seen and handled this problem in the past.  You could help the other engineer – IF you were aware that they could use your help.

How do these two hypothetical engineers discover each other – the one with the problem and the one with solutions?  It is highly unlikely that pure chance will put the two together.  In fact, they might not know each other.

Enter The SAWE Mentoring Program.  This program, currently under development, will act to engage Mentors (those with knowledge) with Mentees (those who desire to obtain knowledge).  For this to work, the SAWE will be soliciting Mentors who are willing and able to aid in transferring knowledge to Mentees, via a Mentor/Mentee matching process that will bring those seeking solutions in contact with those who know solutions.  We will open a portal for mentees to describe their problem and solicit help.  The SAWE will then endeavor to match suitable Mentor/Mentee pairs.

The SAWE has set a goal of rolling the program out and be up and running by the opening of the Cocoa Beach Conference in May 2023.

More information will be forthcoming as the program development matures.

2019 Conference Awards

The SAWE is proud to be able to confer recognition to our members via the presentation of awards.  These awards are handed out at the conclusion of the International Conference at the Awards Banquet.  The basic categories are: Membership Awards; Paper Awards; President’s Awards; and Publication Awards.

MEMBERSHIP AWARDS

There are four categories of Membership Awards, which are determined by a multi-step process that begins with a person receiving a nomination for a award and continues with an assessment by the Awards Committee consisting of Honorary Fellows.  The Awards Committee presents the year’s prospective awardees to the Board of Directors, who vote on each nominee, and then those who receive the Board of Directors approval are revealed at the Awards Banquet and receive their Award.

This year, we honored three individuals for their continued and sustained service to the SAWE.  The Board of Directors approved the elevation of two members to Fellow and one to Honorary Fellow.

Fellow Awards

Fellows are those who have achieved Distinction in Mass Properties Engineering or who have Materially Contributed to the advancement of the Society.  .

The first member elevated to Fellow was Ms. Amanda Cutright.  Amanda was co-chair of the 78th Annual SAWE Conference, was an SAWE Outstanding Young Engineer in 2011, nominated for Outstanding Young Engineer of the Year by the Peninsula Engineering Council in 2012 and INCOSE in 2013.  Ms. Cutright was the mass properties lead for the Orion MPCV Pad Abort 1 Flight Test and has been lead system engineer on multiple programs.  She has authored 3 papers, including one SAWE paper, and starred in an SAWE podcast.

2019 SAWE Fellow Amanda Cutright

The Board of Directors also approved the elevation of Mr. Nicholas Marickovich to Fellow.  Nick works at Newport News Shipbuilding where he has received two Shipbuilding Excellence Awards (2011 and 2018), and in a feat of endurance has hiked over 2000 miles on the Appalachian Trail and written a paper describing the mass properties aspects of this endeavor.  Mr. Marickovich has served in the Hampton Roads Chapter as Secretary and Director.  More significantly, Mr. Marickovich served as Deputy Vice President of the SAWE for Publications, and has now taken over the role of Vice President – Publications.

2019 SAWE Fellow Nick Marickovich

Honorary Fellow Awards

Honorary Fellows are those who have achieved Eminence in Mass Properties Engineering or have made Outstanding Contributions to the advancement of the Society.

This year, Mr. Errol Oguzhan was raised to Honorary Fellow status.  Errol has chaired/co-chaired two SAWE International Conferences, in 2001 and 2017.  Mr. Oguzhan was instrumental in integrating Training into the International Conference curriculum and is a major reason for many mass properties practitioners to come to conferences.  Mr. Oguzhan chaired a committee that is looking at ways to increase technical interchange while lowering costs to members who attend or would like to attend conferences.  Mr. Oguzhan is our incoming SAWE Senior Vice President.

2019 SAWE Honorary Fellow Errol Oguzhan

PAPER AWARDS

The SAWE evaluates every paper submitted, and assigns a numerical rating to each paper.  This numerical rating is used to determine which paper or papers deserve special commendations.  For Student Papers, the top three papers receive a cash prize along with their certificates.  Other paper submissions vie for the Best Paper Award, named for founding member Mike Hackney.  In special cases, a Special Merit Award may be given for an outstanding paper.  This year, in Norfolk, two papers were granted Special Merit Awards.

Student Papers

First Prize – $1,000

University of Colorado Team – Marcos Mejia, Alexander Sandoval, Alexis Sotomayor, Ashley Montalvo, Brandon Santori, Brindan Adhikari, Colin Chen,Junzhe He, Michely Tenardi, and Quinter Nyland – Paper S3725 HERMES: Hazard Examination Reconnaissance Messenger for Extended Surveillance

Second Prize – $750

NASA Space Habitat Intern Team  – Maxwell Devoe (University of Albany), Ariel Tokarz (Georgia Institute of Technology), and Samuel Park (University of California San Diego) – Paper S3726 Toolchain Integration for Space Habitat Design

Third Prize – $500

NASA Intern – Brittany Johnston (Old Dominion University) – Paper S3730 Path To Be An Engineer

3rd Place Student Paper – Brittany Johnston

Mike Hackney – Best Paper Award

Anjie Emmett – Paper 3710 Application of The Law of Propagation of Uncertainties To A Weight And CG Measurement System


Special Merit Award

Colin MacFarlane and Manuela Bucci – Paper 3719 Modernising Ship Stability: Lightship Evolution Diagnostics With In- Service Stability Measurements

Special Merit – Manuela Bucci

Special Merit Award

Giorgio Previati and Federico Ballo – Paper 3727 Trifilar Pendulum: Non-Smalloscillations And Calibration

Special Merit – Giorgio Previati

PRESIDENT’S AWARDS

2019 President’s Awards (L-R: Damian Yanez, Robert Zimmerman, Yi-Ling Tam, John Hargrave)

Zimmerman – VP Technical

The VP-TD authored several blog and journal entries with the expressed intent on encouraging the SAWE membership to continue to excel and inculcate the Mass Properties message within their communities and companies.  A new, easy-to-use PowerPoint Template was issued to bring uniformity and readability to our visual presentations – for this I would particularly like to thank Mr, Doug Fisher of the San Diego Chapter for his excellent aid in developing this template.  Other authoring duties were shared with Honorary Fellow Alan Titcomb in distilling the results of the Mass Properties Survey into a concise presentation that can be used by our members to help receive backing for mass properties activities within their organizations.  Also assisted me with writing the letter to the over 200 leaders of industry and government organizations informing them of what SAWE was doing to address the risks and opportunities in mass properties discipline. In appreciation, SAWE  President would like to recognize his service to the organization and mass properties community.

Damian Yañez

SAWE as the Director of the Southeast Chapter.  As one of the original authors of the 2000 revision to the SAWE Engineering Handbook, Damian saw the need to once again step up and upgrade this key document.  By converting the decades-old handbook text and tables to the current Standards and Practices’ MS Word Template, he improved the accuracy, legibility and consistency of the Handbook, and made it much more conducive to future upgrades.  His efforts also provided a mentoring opportunity to get new members involved with SAWE, and to familiarize them with our SAWE technical resources.  Damian acted as the project leader, chief editor of the entire document, and conversion author for several sections.  This effort involved hundreds of hours of his personal time.  Damian also recruited other members to assist in this endevour:

  • Peter Stubbers
  • Ross Campbell
  • Dell Ruff
  • Thomas Tanner
  • Luis Alberto Lopez

We look forward to Damian and his expanding team’s final result planned for release next May of 2020, where we will fully acknowledge the completed efforts of this team’s two-year commitment.  In appreciation, SAWE President would like to recognize Damian’s leadership and service to the organization and mass properties community.

Yi-Ling Tam and John Hargrave

President Bill Boze appointed this special committee as a result of the 2018 Mass Properties Survey, with Yi-Ling Tam as the chair and John Hargrave as the co-chair. In December 2018, Yi-Ling and John attended a two-day American National Standards Institute (ANSI) seminar to learn what was required to achieve ANSI accredited personnel certification, in accordance with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 17024 standard. 

The committee was expanded in February to include: Clint Stephenson, Andy Schuster, Dan Rowley, John Nakai, Jeff Cerro, Robert Zimmerman, and Darren Gamble.   With Yi-Ling’s and John’s leadership, they and their committee

  • Reviewed and assessed the ANSI/ISO requirements.
  • Performed a gap analysis revealed that about 150 new policies/procedures would be required to be written
  • Created a certification scheme to ANSI/ISO requirements
  • Established sub committees
  • Conducted a 2019 marketing survey of our community of SAWE members & partners
  • And briefed us at this conference on Monday of their activity and plan going forward.

The SAWE President would like to recognize their service to the organization and mass properties community.


Publication Awards

Best Website award:  Los Angeles Chapter

The LA Chapter website had good aesthetics, had been updated recently, and all the links presented were functional.  A good example for any chapter getting ready to start or update their website.

2019 Best Website Award (Yi-Ling Tam, accepting)

Best Journal Article:  Making a Thriving Career in Mass Properties Engineering, by Robert Zimmerman

This article appeared in the Winter 2019 edition of Weight Engineering (Vol 78 Issue 2).  This very well written, highly recommended article contained advice for the Mass Properties Engineer at any stage of their professional life.

2019 Conference Vendor and Sponsor Presentations

Every year the SAWE conducts an International Conference on Mass Properties Engineering.  This is a major undertaking and requires support from our officers, the host committee, and from our Corporate Partners, Conference Sponsors, and Vendors.  Our Vendors and Sponsors host booths and give presentations during the conference.  These presentations allow conference attendees to experience the products and services our vendors and sponsors provide to the Aerospace, Marine, Offshore, Land and Allied industries.

However, only a small proportion of SAWE members are able to attend a conference.  Therefore, these presentations reach only a small portion of their potential audience.  Starting with the just concluded 78th International Conference on Mass Properties Engineering held in Norfolk Virginia in May, the SAWE will be making these presentations available to all who visit our website.  It is our sincere desire that these presentations will aid our members in making decisions as to what products and services they choose to enhance their company’s products and the members’ capabilities as mass properties practitioners.

The 2019 Vendor and Sponsor presentations are available on the SAWE website at:

https://www.sawe.org/2019conf_vendor_presentations

Please visit this page and learn what resources are available for your own use as an engineer and for your projects which require mass properties control.

Standards and Practices – A Call to Action

At the kickoff of Standards and Practices Day at the 2019 International conference in Virginia, I talked about donuts.

An internationally known chain of donut shops noticed their sales dropping. To find out why, they asked their customers if there was a problem with the donuts. The answer was no – the donuts were as good as ever. But sales kept dropping. Then the donut shop asked a different question: what do the customers think of their donut shop experience? The response surprised them: the donuts were great, but the coffee was bad. That’s something the owners had not considered: get better coffee, sell more donuts. And it was only learned because the donut shop asked an open-ended question, allowing the customers to communicate what was important to them.

SAWE Recommended Practices (RPs) are a vital resource available to a wide range of customers. Mass Properties Engineers refer to them. Companies and government agencies require their use. But there are significant gaps in what our RPs cover. As the new Vice President of Standards and Practices, my role is to shepherd the development of new RPs and the revision of existing ones to ensure they stay relevant to our customers.

But what to do first?

At the International conference I asked all of the Industry Committees to emulate the donut shop and  ask their customers what is important to them. Understanding their customer priorities will allow the Industry Committees to know which RPs to focus on and will motivate them to complete their tasks on time.

My call to action is this:

By the end of 2019, each Industry Committee should document their customers’ needs, the Committee’s priorities, and the time-based plans to create Recommended Practices which support their customers’ needs.

This does not mean that all current work should stop. A small number of RPs, such as those being converted to ANSI standards, have been identified by the SAWE  executive as high priorities and should continue to be worked. I have asked the Industry Committees to review and update the development schedule for each of these to ensure they will be published on time to meet the customer needs.

Developing and updating Recommended Practices is a vital part of ensuring the SAWE remains a professional society relevant to our industry needs. The Industry Committees need volunteers to help with this important work. If you wish to help out, please contact me at standards@sawe.org.

Welcome to the SAWE – Presentation

Have you ever wanted more information to take to your management to support your Weight Engineering endeavors? Would you like to learn more about our society as it stands today?

Well Thanks to Mr. Damian Yanez of Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation, your wishes are now at your fingertips.

Navigate to

https://www.sawe.org/system/files/Welcome_to_SAWE_Company.pdf

and learn more. Use it to further your career, make a case for training, conference attendance, developing technical content, and even securing your company as a SAWE Corporate Partner.

SAWE 2018 Awards

Early every calendar year, the SAWE Awards Committee emails chapter Directors in search of nominations for the Richard Boynton Lifetime Achievement, Honorary Fellow, Fellow, and Ed Payne Outstanding Young Engineer awards. The awards recognize exceptional young engineers as well as those who have contributed to the advancement of the society. The Awards Committee announces the winners at the yearly Awards Banquet held at the end of the International Conference. The winners announced at the Irving, Texas conference that just concluded include : Robert W. Ridenour (Saint Louis) – Richard Boynton Lifetime Achievement award, Clint Bower (United Kingdom) – Honorary Fellow award, Robert Hundl (Houston) – Honorary Fellow award, Ian David Bennett (Canada) – Fellow award, Claudia Rosenberger (Central European) – Fellow award, Dan Rowley (Los Angeles) – Fellow award, Clint Stephenson (Houston) – Fellow award, Brian Huber (Texas) – Ed Payne Outstanding Young Engineer award, Lori Sandberg (Houston) – Ed Payne Outstanding Young Engineer award, and Simone Umbach (Central European) – Ed Payne Outstanding Young Engineer award. Congratulations!