happeningsvolume 28 // october 2012

cleveland office celebrates 10 years!

The recent merger between CHA and RW Armstrong is now at the 90-day mile-stone. During the past three months there has been a great deal of interaction among all teams. Ideas are being shared. Best practices are being adopted. Friend-ships are being developed. Two employees focusing the majority of their time on the inner workings of the operations of the two companies as the merger moves forward are John Sobiech and Roger Kelso. I had a chance to interview both John and Roger and find out a bit more about each.

Both gentlemen have a number of things in common. One thing both did say was that they were very much appreciative of the camaraderie with their colleagues at both RW Armstrong and CHA. John mentioned that everyone at RW Armstrong had made him feel comfortable when he is in the Indianapolis office. Roger said that he enjoys the friendship he has developed with CHA employees. They both agreed that they are looking forward to a very positive future.

inside

cleveland office celebrates 10 years!

get to know john sobiech and roger kelso

RW Armstrong honored with sheikh khalifa excellence award

qr code reader

app of the month

RW Armstrong without borders

have you checked out redvector yet?

project highlight: halat amar port

2012 university of evansville concrete canoe team, the aces

get questions answered fast, with askme

congratluations, mike devoy!

fedex plane pull challenge

get to know john and roger

(story continued on page 7)

(story continued on page 6)

By Jennifer Voreis

This month the Cleveland office will celebrate its 10-year anniver-sary. Looking back over the past de-cade, RW Armstrong has much to be proud of when it comes to meeting the needs of our clients in North-east Ohio. When RW Armstrong first landed in Cleveland in October 2002, we were a one-man team run out of Bill Barley’s dining room, and we were considered predominately an aviation services company. Since then, RW Armstrong has grown the Cleveland team to thirteen total employees and provides services to clients in the aviation, military, mu-nicipal, and transportation markets.

By Brittany Smith

Roger KelsoJohn Sobiech

Pictured (left to right): back row – Tyler Bicknell, Dan Kever, Rose Hornbeck, Matt Groznik, Bill Barley, Dan Ford,

Mark Heckroth, Mark Vilem; front row – Mary Ann Driscoll, Eva Vargas, Brittany Smith, Jesenia Medina-Salkowitz

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RW Armstrong honored with sheikh khalifa excellence award

By Annemarie Franssen

qr code reader

A QR Code (short for “Quick Re-sponse”) is a barcode that contains data that can be read by a phone’s camera. In order to scan a QR code, a QR code reader must first be down-loaded onto your smartphone. Once you download a reader, the phone’s camera acts like a scanner, allowing it to “read” the barcode.

RedLaser (www.RedLaser.com) is a great free QR code reader app. Use the reader to scan the QR codes in happenings for quick acces to information. In each newsletter, an app of the month will be featured. You can use the QR code reader to add the app of the month to your smartphone. Some QR codes might require in-ternet connection.

On September 24, 2012, RW Armstrong received one of Abu Dhabi’s prestigious Sheikh Khalifa Excellence Awards (SKEAs). The award acknowledges the firm’s quality standards and will serve as a competitive differentiator in the UAE market with regard to international standards and specifications.

Now in its eleventh year, the program is organized by the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The awards were presented by His Highness Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs. Since the program was launched, more than 5,000 organizations have participated in this quality benchmark program.

Said Shaikh noted that the awards embody “an incentive and driving force for UAE organizations so that they reach the highest degree of excellence in performance and achieve the best results.” The pro-gram was launched in 1999 to recognize businesses that have achieved organizational excellence. A total of 500 organizations participated in this year’s pro-gram for which the slogan was “eleven years of sus-tained excellence”. Fifteen companies were honored with Diamond, Gold, Silver, and Appreciation awards. RW Armstrong was the only international firm and the only architectural engineering firm among the honorees.

Mark Soliman, RW Armstrong’s QA/QC manager, led the submission process. SKEA appointed a team of four to six assessors to review the submission and conduct site visits and interviews. They agreed on the office’s strengths and areas for improvement, culminating in the appreciation certificate.

By Gabe Peters app of the month

CardMunch iPhone App—A new way to store business cards.

CardMunch is a free iPhone app that allows you to take a picture of a busi-ness card and a real person will transcribe the informa-tion and connect the details to that person’s LinkedIn pro-file. You can go back into the application later, tap the per-son’s name then simply hit Connect.

Scan the QR code above to download CardMunch from iTunes.

Recipients of the 2012 Sheikh Khalifa Excellence Awards, with RW Armstrong’s Mona Salem on the left.

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RW Armstrong without bordersBy Jonathan Mirgeaux

welcome!The following new hires have joined RW Armstrong since August 2012. Say hel-lo if you see them around!

Jeff Duncan, P.E.,Nashville

Matt Renner,Indianapolis

Katherine Steinmetz,Indianapolis

Jay Gibson, P.E.,Indianapolis

Chris Garretson,Indianapolis

Scott Lord, E.I.,Indianapolis

Bill Slike, P.E.,Indianapolis

Two days before a remarkably mild India-napolis winter wrapped its arms around Su-perbowl XLVI, I found myself taking off my hat and wiping sweat off my brow.

“What do you think about this heat?” a local asked.

“You know,” I responded, “it’s not as hot as I expected.”

While most Indianapolis residents were taking part in the revelry around Georgia Street, I found myself near the Ugandan bor-der—an eight-hour minivan ride from Nai-robi, Kenya—staring at a watery hole in the earth. Erase any images you may have of a beautiful, natural spring-well. This drinking water supply for hundreds of nearby resi-dents and an orphanage was a mud pit in a cattle field and was shared with resident tad-poles, insects, and algae.

That mud pit was the reason that 12 Midwesterners with Engineers Without Bor-ders (EWB) Indianapolis Professional Chap-ter planned and designed a solution, raised funds, and traveled to East Africa. Our plan was to transform the easily contaminated watering hole into a springbox, a gravel filter box with a raised pipe outlet allowing resi-dents to fill a container with safer groundwater. The team also retrofitted four spring-boxes that had fallen into disrepair.

Our idealistic, albeit naïve, intention was to teach the peo-ple how to build and repair these simple devices. We learned that lack of knowledge was not the is-sue; rather it was the sheer scale of poverty. The price of materials (food being the exception) was not commensurate with their meager incomes. The cost of materials to build a springbox, a mere $300, was out of reach. It cost less to send a child to a year of private school with full room and board.

This trip was the second year of a five-year commitment to the project. If you are interested in learning more about this project, EWB, or how you can get involved go to www.ewb-indianapolis.org.

If you have team, project, or individual

news or successes you’d like to share with the entire

company in a future newsletter issue, please let us know! Send your ideas to Jennifer Voreis

(JVoreis@rwa.com). We look forward to hearing

what’s new!

got news?

Hanging out with some local children

The springbox before (top) and completed (bottom)

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have you checked out redvector yet?By Jennifer Voreis

The first of June we announced the addition of RedVec-tor, a new online education program that is available to all employees. RedVector.com was founded in 1999 to fulfill a growing need for online continuing education in the design and construction industry. Since its inception, it has grown into a multinational venture that attracts more than one mil-lion unique visitors annually from 50 states and 22 countries.

RW Armstrong employees have ac-cess to over 1,200 training courses 24/7. RedVector continues to add new content on a daily basis. It is also upgrading courses to be available on smart devices. A link to the RedVector site, a demo of how to access the courses and links to two catalogs of courses that are currently avail-able has been placed on our intranet site.

There are two features on RedVector that are of interest to licensed employees who need professional development hours to maintain their licenses. One, they can maintain a re-cord of all their training hours on the site Two, many of the courses are approved for credit in almost all 50 states and parts of Canada.

project highlight: halat amar portBy Annemarie Franssen

RW Armstrong’s Abu Dhabi team recently completed the concept design for a border crossing facility on the Saudi Arabian-Jordan border. The scope of work for this prestigious project includes preparation of studies and designs plus con-struction supervision of the Halat Amar Port for Passengers. This border crossing counts the largest number of pilgrims because of its strategic location in connection with many Arab countries and Turkey.

The total development area, which is located about 110 km from Tabuk City, is 433,970 m² and has an estimated con-struction cost from $106 to $133 million.

Key features include sunshade for passengers’ arrival and departure, 24 registry custom and passport cabins, new of-fice buildings to accommodate entities including passports, customs, and the Food and Drug Administration, and facili-ties such as VIP halls, mosques, animal quarantine, police, and more. It includes landscape, parking, roadways, pave-ments, utilities, and desalination facilities.

For this project, RW Armstrong provided three designs within a six-week period. The concept designs were named Falcon, Oasis, and Dune and derived from the understanding of the Saudi Arabian culture. A priority was placed on pro-viding the most-efficient shading possible for passenger ar-rival and departure zones to protect passengers from direct sunlight and harsh desert weather. The client chose the arch concept design in August 2012 which RW Armstrong’s design team is in the process of finalizing.

(story continued on page 5)

Saudi Jordan border project, Falcon concept

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� Architecture, Interiors & Design

� Bridge & Roadway � Business, Professional De-

velopment & Soft Skills � Chemical, Petroleum &

Nuclear � Civil & Structural � Code, ADA, Board Laws &

Rules � Construction & Trades � Electrical

� Environmental, Landscape & Flood

� LEED � Legal, Insurance & Risk � Mechanical & HVAC � Project Management � Safety � Surveying & Geomatics � Sustainable/Green Design � Water, Wastewater &

Stormwater

Course Headings on the RedVector Site

RW Armstrong was a proud sponsor of the Aces, the University of Evansville’s 2012 concrete canoe team. Through this sponsorship students were able to research ways to build a concrete canoe, develop a design, construct the canoe, and compete with little out-of-pocket cost.

The Aces were awarded first place for their technical paper and were named one of the top three schools in the oral pre-sentation, final product judging, and race categories! The team finished second overall at regionals behind the University of Wisconsin-Madison, qualifying them to join 21 other teams at the 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers’ National Concrete Canoe Competition which took place in June at the University of Nevada-Reno. On the national level, the Aces finished twelfth among top engineering schools—including three-time national champions San Louis Obispo—placing in the top ten in oral presentation and technical paper categories.

The Aces have been participating in the Concrete Ca-noe Competition since 2001. They have placed in the top three in their region since 2003 and have gone to the na-tional competition five times since 2005.

RW Armstrong has been sponsoring the team since 2008 and contributed to the 2008 ASCE regional and 2011 national competitions hosted by the Aces. Several RW Armstrong alumni had the privilege of participating in the regional and national competitions and played fundamental roles when the University of Evansville was selected to host these competitions. During his senior year, RW Armstrong employee Jamin Heldt led a team to organize and successfully carry out the duties of the 2011 ASCE National Concrete Canoe Competition in Evansville.

Other RW Armstrong employees who’ve participated in the University of Evansville’s concrete canoe teams and events include: Scott Lecher, Andy Scales, Jody Chapman, Brittany Vrzina, Mary Dial, and Brady Blessinger.

2012 aces concrete canoe teamBy Mary Dial and Brady Blessinger

have you checked out redvector yet? (story continued from page 4)

If you are looking for a course on writing proposals, a certificate in business management, a series on project management or OSHA certification, you will find it on RedVector. There are live webinars of-fered each month and recordings of past webinars are accessible on the site.

Kelly Brooker Scocco has been

named the Central Ohio Section Director of the American Planning

Association’s Ohio Chapter. Congratulations, Kelly!

way to go!

University of Evansville Concrete Canoe Team, the 2012 Aces

66

This spring, the AskMe collaboration tool launched to RW Armstrong’s U.S.-based staff. The tool enables 24/7 infor-mation sharing among all service groups and offices. In Oc-tober, our international locations will also be brought online, facilitating real-time communication across continents and time zones. CHA’s offices will also use the tool in the future, accelerating collaboration and dissemination of information between our combined offices.

AskMe helps us capture and share intellectual capital—the knowledge, on-the-job experiences, technical approach-es, and innovative solutions that are the core of our business and which often give us a strategic advantage over our com-petitors. To access the tool click the AskMe link in the up-per right corner of the RW Armstrong intranet home page. (Note: This link will only be visible to U.S. staff until AskMe is rolled out to our global offices in October.)

If you’re new to AskMe you can get started by watching our brief tutorials on GeoLearning. These videos cover basic

use and navigation and demonstrate how to get the most out of this resource. You can watch all seven tutorials in less than 20 minutes.

Thanks to user feedback, AskMe has evolved since it was launched and will continue to do so over time. The first en-hancements came in the form of revised e-mail and notifica-tion settings. Later, new communities of practice (CoPs) were created, one of which is the Human Resources community where you can ask questions about benefits, RW Armstrong University, and other HR topics. Also new is the applications CoP where you can ask questions about the software tools we use day to day. “Favorite” these communities (or join them as a member) to keep up to date with their conversations.

get questions answered fast, with askmeBy Nick Wade

congratulations, mike!Mike DeVoy was recently elected to the Airports Coun-

cil International-North America (ACI-NA) World Business Partners/Associates Board of Directors. There are currently more than 330 participating companies among the ACI-NA

world business partners and asso-ciate members. These companies represent a wide variety of private industry businesses that provides products, equipment, and services to ACI-NA member airports and the aviation industry. Mike’s term begins January 1st, 2013, and con-tinues through 2015. This is great exposure for our firm and continues to demonstrate that we are leaders in the aviation industry. Please join us in congratulating Mike on this ex-citing opportunity!

cleveland office celebrates 10 years! (story continued from page 1)

Our Cleveland Team offers a broad scope of services and takes pride in the fact that our employees, housed in multiple service groups, collaborate to perform work. At the heart of RW Armstrong’s success in Cleveland is the understanding and determination to provide each client with the best cus-tomer service possible, which is evident given the number of clients that keep coming back.

Some of the clients managed through our Cleveland office include:

� The City of Cleveland

� Cleveland Hopkins and Burke Lakefront Airports

� Cuyahoga County

� The Ohio Department of Transportation

� Ohio University

Our success in Cleveland has been a company-wide effort with many contributions coming from staff in other offices. In ten years we successfully brought our global capabilities to the local Cleveland market.

tips

• Keep a mug at work for coffee rather than using disposable cups.

• Set your computer to sleep if you are away from your desk for more than 10 minutes, which reduces power consumption to about 5 percent of full operating power.

• Remove your phone charger from the power point when not in use, as it continues to consume up to 40 percent of the current used to charge your phones.

• Turn off lights in your area or office when you leave for the night.

Mike Devoy

askme.rwa.comAskMe Enterprise

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get to know john and roger (story continued from page 1)

What is your hometown?Waterford, New YorkNashville, Indiana

Where did you go to college and what are your degrees?John attended the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art located in the East Village in NYC. He received both a bachelor of science and a master of science in civil engineering.Roger started out at Indiana University majoring in chemistry then transferred to IUPUI and graduated with a bachelor of science in interdisciplinary engineering from Purdue University. He is also a certified drinking water operator in Indiana.

What sports did you play growing up?John played baseball, basketball and soccer in high school. Indiana is known for basketball. Being from the Hoosier state, Roger played basketball in high school.

Do you have any musical talents?If you know of a good karaoke spot, invite John. He is known for picking up the mic and singing. Also a musician, Roger plays the saxophone and guitar. A few years ago he played sax in a community band in Nashville.

What is your current title?Senior Vice President – Interim Regional Director.Regional Chief Operations Officer.

How many years have you worked for CHA/RW Armstrong?John started at CHA on June 27, 1988. (24 years)Roger started at RW Armstrong on May 6, 2002. (10 years)

What had been your career path?John started his career with CHA’s environmental group, designing water and wastewater facilities. He migrated to the geotechnical group working on landfill closures. In the late 90s he was also part of a startup group that permitted and designed wireless communications facilities. After the telecom bubble he was appointed operations manager for CHA’s sports market. John became a partner at CHA in 2000. In the last five years he has been involved with CHA’s reorganization and was appointed director of engineering in January of 2010. Roger brings experience from both the public and private sectors. He has extensive experience in the day-to-day operation of utilities as well as the engineering and development of utility projects, treatment systems, and hydraulic analyses. Roger started his career working for the Town of Nashville, Ind., wastewater treatment facility while he was going to college. He then left the public sector and joined a design team at HNTB.

Eventually, Roger returned to Nashville and became the town manager where he oversaw all the town’s services. He returned to the private sector when he joined RW Armstrong’s water services group in 2002. In 2010 he was appointed the firm’s country manager for Libyan projects and became an RW Armstrong shareholder. He was named COO in 2011.

What are your hobbies?If you are looking for a golf partner, call John. His hobbies include golf, reading, crossword puzzles and more golf.If you know the area where Roger grew up and lives you might guess his hobbies. A picturesque scene from Nashville would be a log cabin home nestled in a wooded hillside with a stream running through a ravine behind the cabin. With that as the backdrop, Roger loves to both fly fish and bait fish. He enjoys fishing in fresh water and salt water. He has dogs, tropical fish, and parakeets as pets. Roger said he is a computer enthusiast. He likes to build them and write programs. I think he might be working on some smart phone apps.

Do you have favorite college and pro team(s)? We all know that New Yorkers like their sports teams. John

is no exception. He is a NY Yankees and NY Giants fan. As far as college sports, as a kid he followed Notre Dame football and now follows Syracuse basketball.

Nashville is just a few miles from Indiana University so of course Roger is an IU basketball fan. Being a Purdue grad, he likes Purdue football as well. As far as professional sports, go Colts! Roger is an Indianapolis Colts fan. He also follows the Cincinnati Reds baseball team.

Anything on your “bucket list” you would like to share?John has been checking some things off his bucket list. A few years ago the retired CEO of CHA, Ray Kinley, said to him, “Johnny, you only walk down the fairway of life once!” This rang a bell in his head. As John put it, he is now on the fifth hole. One hole included sitting with a good friend in row one, seats one and two, directly behind home plate at Yankee Stadium. Another was playing a round of golf at Pebble Beach. When you see John, you might want to ask him if he has come up with the fifth item yet.Roger said he has been very fortunate to be able to do a lot of things in his life. He mentioned he has a wonderful wife and really great children and grandchildren. He has had a chance to travel and see other countries and has friendships around the world. But when it came down to what’s still on the bucket list he said it would be to retire to Belize or the south of France. I would guess there would be some great fishing at both of these locations.

John Roger

8www.rwArmstrong.com

plane pull challengeBy Beth Corbett

For the eighth year in a row, RW Armstrong participated in the FedEx Plane Pull Challenge to Benefit Special Olympics Indiana. Congratu-lations to all! This year we pulled a bigger plane—a Boeing 757—across the tarmac at the old Indianapolis In-ternational Airport. We showed up in force that Saturday and, yes, we were a force to be reckoned with!

The Plane Pull Challenge is a gi-ant tug-of-war between 20 people and a FedEx Boeing 757 plane weigh-ing more than 164,000 pounds. That’s right—the plane weighs more than 82 tons! All three teams pulled the aircraft 12 feet the fastest in each of their divisions.

All three teams walked away with a first place with the following times:

� RW Army Renegades (Corporate I Division): 6.387 seconds

� RW Army Rebels (Corporate II Division): 6.530 seconds

� RW Army Camo Cuties (All-Women’s Division): 7.691 seconds

For the seventh year, RW Armstrong captured the Best Team Spirit Award.

Most importantly, this event is held to raise money for Special Olym-pics Indiana and between all three teams we raised more than $13,000!

Plus, RW Armstrong received spe-cial recognition from Special Olympics

Indiana for our involvement as a sponsor. Thank you to everyone who participated,

came out to cheer us on, and/or donated. Great job everyone!

RW Army Camo Cuties: Beth Corbett (Team Captain), Alana DeVoy, Alyssa Preddie-Allen, Amanda Todd, Ashley Starling, Brittany Vrzina, Christina Snow, Christy White, Denise Doyle, Jennifer Voreis, Kara Hounam, Kathy Davis, Lauren Finney, Leilani Sebolboro, Mary Jo Toler, Sharon Kitchens, Summer O’Brien, and Tammy Schroeder.

RW Army Rebels: Charlie Starling (Team Captain), Art Littlepage, Bob Gentry, Brian Powers, Chris Schultz, Dale Davis, Daniel Mullaney, Jeff Brown, Jim Davis, Jonathan Mooney, Keegan Shreve, Mark Dummett, Mike DeVoy, Nathan Lienhart, Robert Wease, and Todd Schultheis.

RW Army Renegades: Simon Davies (Team Captain), Billy Scott,

Craig Twibell, John Rhorer, Jordan Rozzi, Kevin Marqua, Kevin Toler, Lourenzo Giple, Mark Woodard, Nic Corbett, and Ryan Bell.

RW Army Rebels captain, Charlie Starling, warming up the troops. Behind him,

Kara Hounam and Jennifer Voreis follow along.

RW Army Renegades

Camo Cuties pulling for their win