Engineering Edge: January 2013

EdgeWood Chemical Biological Center

Volume 5, Issue 1

January 2013

ECBC Engineering Uses Strategic Planning to Position Directorate for Future DoD Changes

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enior leaders within the Department of Defense (DoD) find themselves in one of the most challenging times our nation has ever seen. As the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center (ECBC) and DoD prepare for the changes and new challenges of FY13, it is clear that the Center cannot assume ‘business as usual.’

In this fiscal environment, executing against the Engineering Directorate’s organizational mission to provide necessary chemical biological (CB) defenses for the Warfighter will require the Directorate to solve increasingly complex problems in shorten time frames with fewer dollars. While the nation’s fiscal future is unpredictable, Engineering’s leadership remains focused on the organization’s strategy development as a means to plan for the current and imminent, unforeseen challenges facing DoD. Since Engineering’s strategy development process began in 2005, the Directorate’s staff has remained engaged because the strategy itself is relevant and accessible. The structure of the strategy calls for continuous efforts to educate individuals about strategic initiatives, and these initiatives seek to improve daily operations for the workforce — including specific initiatives to improve internal communications and to develop a process for business development. Some of the most recent efforts the Directorate’s leadership has supported to execute against those initiatives include the Engineering Division Chief Roundtables and Engineering Division and Branch Chief Offsites. These forums are opportunities for the Directorate’s leadership – Front Office, Division Chiefs and Branch Chiefs – to discuss the Directorate’s strategy and to collaboratively lay out a path forward for accomplishing the organization’s vision to be the first stop for CB defense solutions, despite economic uncertainties.

“Working through these solutions should be a team effort that is everybody’s responsibility, not just the person with a senior leadership title,” said Bill Klein, Associate Director of ECBC Engineering. “We want to partner with our broader leadership team across the Directorate because our strategy is everybody’s business.”

The first Division Chief Roundtable took place in April 2012, and the first Division and Branch Chief Offsite took place in July 2012. Topics that have been discussed include creating a Directorate-level SWOT analysis to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats; prioritizing and modifying some of the Directorate’s Balanced Scorecard Initiatives; and analyzing Engineering’s current and potential customers.

“The Roundtables and Offsites have fostered partnerships between the Directorate’s supervisory staff and with Front Office senior leadership to contribute to long-term strategic planning and internal communications solutions,” Randy Laye, Associate Director of ECBC Engineering said.

Additionally, the new forums serve as a key component in the Directorate’s business development efforts, providing oversight and management of the business development process. One attendee of the November Offsite noted on a post-Offsite survey, “I appreciate the Engineering Directorate making a collaborative effort to bring both Division and Branch chiefs together to work and improve business for the organization and to enhance our collective customer base.”

Additional information and outputs from these forums will be briefed at the Directorate’s next Strategic Management Meeting on 19 February 2013. All members of the ECBC workforce are invited and encouraged to attend.

To access the electronic version of this newsletter, visit: http://www.ecbc.army.mil/news/ENG/ APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE

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The First Stop for Chemical Biological Defense

The Engineering Edge

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Inside This Month’s Issue: pg.1,8|ECBC Engineering Uses Strategic Planning to Position Directorate for Future DoD Changes pg.3,7|ECBC Engineer Applies Skills, Transitions Life to Australia for ESEP Program pg.4-5|Building for the Future: ECBC Facilities Manager Leverages Engineering and Financial Savviness to Position Directorate for Success pg.6-7|ECBC Engineering Hosts Army Research Laboratory Human Integration Testing pg.8|ECBC Engineering in 2013: Ahead of the Curve

Awareness: Martin Luther King Jr. Day Martin Luther King Jr. day (MLK day) is celebrated the third Monday in January to commemorate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., an American civil rights and nonviolence activist. Here are some facts about the history of the holiday.

1. U.S. Representative John Conyers (D-Mich.) and Senator Edward Brooke (R-Mass.) first introduced a bill in Congress to make Dr. King’s birthday a national holiday in 1979.

2. Musician Stevie Wonder released the single “Happy Birthday” in 1980 to popularize the King Center’s campaign to make MLK Day, a federal holiday.

3. In 1983 Congress passed legislation creating MLK Day, which went into effect in 1986, though some states resisted observing the holiday through combining

it with other holidays or celebrating under a different name.

4. In 2000, all 50 U.S. states officially observed “Martin Luther King Jr. Day” holiday.

5. MLK Day is celebrated in Hiroshima, Japan under Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, who holds a special banquet at the mayor’s office as an act of unifying his city’s call for peace with King’s message of human rights.

Safety Tip: Do’s and Don’ts of Carbon Monoxide Exposure

• Do have your heating system, water heater • Don’t use a generator, and any other gas, oil, or coal burning charcoal grill, camp appliances serviced by a qualified technician stove or other gasoline every year. or charcoal-burning device inside your home, basement, or garage or near a • Do install a battery-operated or battery window. back-up CO detector in your home and check or replace the battery when you change the time on your clocks each spring and fall. If the detector sounds leave your home immediately and call 911.

• Do seek prompt medical attention if you suspect CO poisoning and are feeling dizzy, light-headed or nauseous.

• Don’t run a car or truck inside a garage attached to your house, even if you leave the garage door open.

• Don’t burn anything in a stove or fireplace that isn’t vented.

• Don’t heat your house with a gas oven.

Courtesy of cdc.gov.

This newsletter was published through the Balanced Scorecard.

For article suggestions, questions or comments please contact Ed Bowen at edward.c.bowen8.civ@mail.mil

Ask a Tech Tip: Cold Weather Tip Mike Kauzlarich, of the Pyrotechnics and Explosives Branch, reveals how the techniques and lessons learned in labs can help you solve your household problems. Submit a question to him at usarmy.APG.ecbc.mbx.engineering-directorate@mail.mil.

Proper foot care is essential for all Warfighters in order to maintain their optimal health and physical fitness. The scientists and engineers within the U.S. Army have spent countless hours and a great deal of money taking care of the feet of its Warfighters. One of the greatest challenges it faced was how to keep feet warm during cold weather. Thanks to sweat, once socks and boots even get slightly damp it’s almost impossible to keep them warm. Here is a method for keeping feet dry right out of the Army’s Military Mountaineering TC-90-6-1.

First make sure your feet are healthy. Then use an Aluminum Chlorohydrate antiperspirant spray on your feet. Spray your feet 2-3 times a day for one week, then once a day the rest of the winter. This can reduce feet sweat by 70 percent. Remember, dry feet are warm feet!

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The Engineering Edge |January 2013| 3

ECBC Engineer Applies Skills, Transitions Life to Australia for ESEP Program

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teve Carrig, former ECBC-matrixed engineer to the Joint Program Manager for Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Contamination Avoidance (JPM NBC CA), said he initially hesitated applying to the Engineer and Scientist Exchange Program (ESEP) in Australia.

“I had been working with JPM NBC CA for several years and wanted a change. I didn’t think my wife wanted to move to another country, so I held off on applying to the program.

When I did talk to her about it, she told me I was silly for thinking that, so I quickly got an application together,” said Carrig.

After several months of contemplating the opportunity to go abroad, Carrig was able to submit the application in less than 24 hours.

ESEP is a professional development program that promotes international cooperation in military research, development, testing and evaluation through the exchange of defense engineers and scientists. Applicants can choose from 17 countries that have an active ESEP memorandum of understanding with the United States. Popular countries include: the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and Australia.

The Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army, Defense Exports and Cooperation manages the Engineer and Scientist Exchange Program and selects top-performing, mid-career level engineers and scientists from across the Army every year for assignment to an allied military establishment abroad.

Each assignment is for one year, with the option of extension an opportunity Carrig took advantage of.

Six months into the program, Carrig – with his wife Erin Maloney’s, eager backing – submitted for an extension to stay past ESEP’s typical one-year assignment abroad.

“I did not take advantage of moving far away for college or studying abroad because I was too nervous to be away from my family,” Maloney said. “By coming to Australia with my husband, I have had the opportunity to live in a new place and still be in a bit of a comfort zone. I’ve had the chance to ditch U.S. suburbs for Melbourne, Australia which is truly a wonderful place to live.”

“Who knows whether or not it actually will be an once-ina-lifetime opportunity, but it certainly feels like one now, and we are not ready to close this chapter too soon.”

– Steve Carrig, Engineer and Scientist Exchange Program Secondee (US)

“As the only engineer on my team here, I tend to tackle problems a bit differently than the chemists. “It’s certainly been a great challenge that keeps me on my toes,” Carrig said. Carrig’s job in Australia also requires him to utilize some aspects of engineering that he has not visited in years.

“I’ve had to dig deep into the recesses of my engineering background a time or two to remember things like types of pumps and fluid dynamics. Meanwhile, my background in testing and evaluation has been put to good use, developing and helping with various projects here.”

Carrig said he came to Australia at an opportune time as DSTO was in the process of standing up a walk-in-sized chamber to do full individual protective ensemble testing via an articulated manikin. “I am responsible for verifying the operation of the chamber as well as for providing test results on the vapor-generation system that’s been developed for the chamber,” Carrig said. His responsibilities involved supporting a cold-weather test using the chamber’s environmental controls, and using the chamber’s sub-freezing temperature data as a means to verify the chamber’s operational conditions.

Continues on Page 7 Continued From Page 3 In Carrig’s time under ESEP he has also supported the design and testing of a newly acquired wind generation system.

Looking ahead, Carrig will be performing verification activities, as well as developing some procedures for individual protection ensemble testing with the manikin.

Carrig said the networks he is building in the Australian

Carrig and Maloney’s decision to stay was easier than their initial decision to leave the U.S. However, choosing to stay abroad brought with it new challenges and decision points.

“Weighing things like employment options, career choices and personal preferences was a difficult task that involved both of us and wasn’t an instant decision. It was only after we made the decision and let the mental dust settle that we were fairly confident it was the right one,” Carrig said. Carrig was successfully able to continue his time working in Australia as an engineer at Australia’s Defense Science and Technology Office (DSTO) in Melbourne.

Carrig’s tour now extends through 2013. As an ESEP secondyear, his understanding of engineering and his worldview has expanded. He recommends that all engineers take the plunge to grow their engineering experience through an abroad program.

US ESEP secondee Steve Carrig places Manikin Optical Sensor System (MOSS) sensors on CartMAN at Fishermans Bend’s Environmental Test Facility in preparation for testing.

Photo courtesy of Defense Science Technology Office (DSTO), taken by Brian Crowley at DSTO Fishermans Bend.

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Building for 4 | Edgewood Chemical Biological Center

ECBC Facilities Manager Leverages Engineering and

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oug Celmer, ECBC Engineering Facilities Manager, has had a passion for building things his entire life. A deep scar on his left forearm is a constant reminder of one of the first structures he ever built. At 15, he built a log cabin that he and his friends used as a hangout after school. It was the third structure he’d built – following a tree fort at age 12, and a three sided fort.

“I got an ax through my arm to the point where I could see the bone,” Celmer said.

This injury didn’t stop him and he went on to build a bridge, the home he now lives in, soccer fields for his daughter and many homes and buildings within his own contracting business. Midway through his career, Celmer took a position as the facilities manager with ECBC’s Engineering Directorate, performing maintenance on the buildings.

Given the current fiscal climate, performing maintenance on ECBC’s buildings and keeping them in top shape often requires some creativity, which Celmer proved he had the acumen for this past fall when he was able to obligate nearly $10 M of Office of the Secretary of Defense’s (OSD) expiring funds, within three months. This amount is five times what ECBC may get in any given year, and Celmer was nine months short of the usual year he has to obligate the funds.

He called this year’s unexpected windfall his “Manna from Heaven.” Blessing aside, the ‘manna’ required a lot of quick and stressful planning in order to receive the funds and put them to good use. OSD funds are generally put towards facilities use when allocated to ECBC. “It doesn’t do any good to have money if you can’t spend it,” Celmer said. “Being a support function, you have three goals – No. 1, pay your people; No. 2, perform your mission; and No. 3, get money at the tail end of the year for your facilities.”

Celmer’s team manages 82 buildings and approximately 819,000 square feet of space.

“ECBC’s major test facilities and labs are some of the oldest buildings at ECBC. Therefore, the need for repair and upgrades are greater than average within ECBC. My team plans and writes scopes of work, internal government construction estimates and oversees design and construction for building repairs and improvements,” Celmer said.

He has a two man team – himself, and Troy Neville, an intern. He also had Brandon DeWeese on his team,

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The Engineering Edge |January 201| 5

Financial Savviness to Position Directorate for Success

who also started out as an intern with a finance degree.

DeWeese moved into the budget office to support facilities and other funding programs last June, around the same time the money and assignment list for the available funds arrived for ECBC. With a short staff and a higher budget to allocate than usual, Celmer and Neville scrambled to prioritize their most dire facilities needs and present them to the Research Development and Engineering Command (RDECOM) for approval to use the OSD funds. He credits COL Raymond Compton and Justin Johnson with most of the work to obtain the OSD funding, as well as others within ECBC who put forward unfunded requirements requests including Ron Pojunas, ECBC Engineering Associate Director; Eugene Vickers, Engineering Test Division Chief; Do Nguyen, Engineering Test Reliability and Evaluation Branch Chief; and members of the Center’s Research and Technology Directorate and Directorate of Program Integration.

“In the end, having Brandon working in the budget office was a stroke of genius, but I did not see it that way in June,” Celmer said. He added that the stress level was high with the need to compress a year’s worth of planning into three months.

Celmer and Neville worked hard along with the budget office and were able to justify and allocate nearly all of the $10 million, which will be put into various facility improvements at ECBC. Those improvements include upgrading labs in E3510 for critical agent work; upgrades to control humidity and temperature in some labs and space in both E5165 and E3549; lighting, electrical and HVAC upgrades in E4301; as well as designs for future projects.

“When you have laboratories, there’s always design and construction issues and you need someone on the ground for that. At the time, we didn’t have anyone to do this,” Pojunas said.

ECBC opened up a position and held a competitive process to hire someone to fill that need. Celmer, who owned his own construction business for 17 years, and was with ACE for 15 years, was hired and has been overseeing ECBC’s buildings ever since. The pride he has for the campus is evident in his hyperawareness of his surroundings.

“I need to check on that,” Celmer said, pointing to the ceiling in conference room C501 of the Berger building during an interview. Celmer was tuned into a distant rattling noise and knew what the problem was and where to go to fix it. He intimately knows the hidden maze of duct work and HVAC controls that confuse many others. This was one of the first projects he gave to a summer intern he mentored – to draw a map of the Air Handling Units and their outputs, so that others could navigate Berger’s HVAC system.

Celmer has mentored two individuals at ECBC, something that both Pojunas and Bill Klein, Associate Director, Business Management, have noted as one of Celmer’s greatest strengths.

“He’s very good at mentoring young people. He mentored Brandon DeWeese, who went on to do projects above him. And he’s mentoring Troy Neville, who also may rise above Celmer, but he continues to mentor them anyway,” Klein said.

Celmer understands the need to mentor young employees and interns right out of college. He mentioned the number of people An E4301 consolidation project that was expected to take approximately 10 years to complete may be shortened to three retiring that will need to transfer that knowledge to the younger years with the same or more OSD funding next year. This project generations in order to carry out their legacy at ECBC. involves moving Engineering employees out of 15 buildings “When you mentor young people, give them productive work around Edgewood to consolidate operations into one modern to do. They will rise to the occasion and the organization will renovated facility. be more productive,” Celmer said. He added that he does not like seeing an intern with nothing to do, or unchallenging work.

Investing in People Celmer used his own philosophy and work ethic to mentor Celmer joined the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) in 1992. interns.

In 1997 Celmer was with the Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG) “When I worked for the Army Corps of Engineers, I learned to resident office of ACE and was responsible for inspections of do others’ jobs. That in turn, is going to make me feel better,” the McNamara building on the ECBC campus, when Pojunas Celmer said. “As I work with them I learn their job and ask first noticed his drive to get a job done right. what they need. The easier you make someone else’s job that “Doug is always an individual who steps forward and rolls up his supports you, the more likely you are to succeed.” sleeves to get the right answers for the right reasons,” Pojunas Celmer is committed to planning for the future so that if OSD said. has more funding at the end of this fiscal year, he will be In 2004, ECBC was in the process of building the Advanced prepared with his top priorities.

Chemistry Lab E3400.

“He really is extraordinary,” Pojunas said. “Without him, the advances we made in facilities would not be anywhere near where we are today.”

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ECBC Engineering Hosts Army Research Laboratory Human Integration Testing

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ponsored by the ECBC Engineering’s Acquisition Logistics Division (ALD), two engineers from the Army Research Laboratory (ARL) are working to ensure that acquisition programs within the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense (JPEO-CBD) and other organizations are developing plans to apply Human System Integration (HSI) into their acquisition strategy.

HSI applies an interactive approach to integrate human considerations into system design to improve total system performance and reduce costs of ownership.

Lamar Garrett and Rhoda Wilson, both employees of ARL’s Human Research and Engineering Directorate (ARL HRED) are housed within the Engineering Directorate to provide human factors engineering support that could minimize total ownership costs.

They play a critical role, identifying obstacles in design and safety-related issues that could be mitigated prior to fielding using a method called Manpower in Personnel Integration (MANPRINT).

Lamar Garrett (pictured above) from ARL HRED provide human factor support to ECBC and PMs.

“It’s especially important right now to save money with war efforts ending and DoD budgets shrinking. By involving Human Factor testing initially, we can identify changes that need to be made early on because it becomes too expensive to change the design either when it’s too far gone or already in theater.”

–Lamar Garrett, Engineer, Army Research Laboratory Human Research Engineering Directorate ARL-HRED ECBC Field Element was reestablished at Edgewood in 2007 with one ARL employee, Alan Dorney.

Garrett took over for Dorney in 2010, and since then the program has expanded to three personnel including Wilson and a summer intern student in 2012. The three supported 16 Project Managers in 2012 within and outside of JPEOCBD as well as some ECBC projects. The ECBC sponsorship provides Garrett and Wilson with workspace in the Berger Building, access to any needed equipment, but most importantly co-locates them with their primary customers.

“It’s important to be co-located with the projects here at Edgewood. We can establish relationships, be involved with the teams and they know where to find us,” Wilson said.

“Access is critical when it comes to this kind of mission so it’s great that sometimes they’re only a few steps away.”

MANPRINT is the U.S. Army’s implementation of a Department of Defense (DoD) Directive to include a plan for HSI in all military programs and acquisition lifecycle programs.

MANPRINT uses a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach to ensure that proper focus is given to the integration of human considerations into the system acquisition process.

Inclusion of MANPRINT can result in enhanced Soldier-system designs, reduced lifecycle ownership costs and optimized system performance.

MANPRINT integrates and facilitates trade-offs among the seven domains but does not replace individual domain activities, responsibilities or reporting channels.

MANPRINT seven domains that pertain to HSI: manpower, personnel training, human factor engineering, soldier survivability, systems safety and health hazards in every acquisition lifecycle program.

When system developers utilize Garrett and Wilson’s skills, they ensure that the “human” is fully and continuously considered as part of the total system in the development and/or acquisition of all systems. Garrett said, attention to the seven primary HSI domains [see information box] ensure that the project will optimize total system performance, reduce the total ownership costs of the program and ensure that the user community is considered throughout the process from an operator, maintainer and support perspective.

“It’s especially important right now to save money with war efforts ending and DoD budgets shrinking,” Garrett said. “By involving Human Factors, we can identify changes that need to be made early on to prevent costly design changes later on.”

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ECBC Engineering Hosts Army Research Laboratory Human Integration Testing Continued From Page 6 Ideally, Garrett said MANPRINT should be involved prior to Milestone B in system development to ensure that the documentation developed with the system is in compliance with the requirement to integrate HSI as well.

One project that Garrett currently supports includes the Hazard Mitigation, Materiel and Equipment Restoration Advanced Technology Demonstration, and he serves as the DoD HSI lead for the Product Director for Integration Base Defense and Program Manager Night Vision/Reconnaissance, Surveillance Target Acquisition, Base Expeditionary Target Surveillance System-Combined as well as other projects.

Wilson has worked with MANPRINT for the Joint Battle Command Platform. In addition to MANPRINT work, Garrett and Wilson also support the PMs through the Joint Independent Logistical Assessment (JILA) process. JILA is a detailed cross-walk of the Services Independent Logistics Assessment processes and can be tailored by any Joint Project Manager based upon the uniqueness and complexity of his programs.

“Having Rhoda and Lamar co-located with the ALD brings increased visibility and focus to MANPRINT for the JPM projects, and allows us to tap into their expertise as

Lamar Garrett (pictured above) has been sponsored by ECBC Engineering Directorate since 2010 to support MANPRINT and other initiatives. participants in Joint Independent Logistics Assessments,” said Mike McKenna, ALD Chief.

ECBC Engineer Applies Skills, Transitions Life to Australia for ESEP Program ChemBio community are invaluable. “I’ve made a set of great contacts within Australia’s chemical-biological community,” he said. “While I may be a fairly low man on the totem pole, I feel confident that the bridge building done via my time here with DSTO can only help big-picture workings like The Technical Cooperation Program,” Carrig said.

While Carrig is not entirely sure where his career will go after ESEP, he looks forward to putting some of his individual protection knowledge to use and continuing work with test and evaluation.

“I’m definitely grateful for the opportunity that ESEP has provided.

I would do it all again if I had the chance,” Carrig said. “Who knows whether or not it actually will be an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, but it certainly feels like one now, and we are not ready to close this chapter too soon.”

Carrig and wife, Erin Maloney, take a picture during their visit to The Grampians National Park in Victoria, Australia APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE

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CBC Engineering is a strategy-focused organization. As we enter 2013, a year that is due to see a decrease in funding as well as other fiscal unknowns, ECBC Engineering’s strategy management builds processes, products and staff within the organization to effectively meet the challenges of our customer base. Our strategy helps us continue to design, build, test and support chemical and biological defense solutions for the Warfighter and Homeland. Our varied skill sets and unique capabilities transition technology from research to engineering development, production, testing, fielding and sustainment – all under the same roof, cutting costs and improving our tangible solutions.

Join us in 2013 as we continue to use our forward thinking and subject matte expertise to shape the success of our future and to stay ahead of the curve.

To submit a story or obtain additional copies of newsletters please contact Edward.c.bowen8.civ@mail.mil.

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