Engineering Inc. - September/October 2007 - 13

Forrest MacCorMaCk Lt. Gen. Van Antwerp meets with ACEC Chairman Mac MacMurray (center) and President Dave Raymond at U.S. Army Corps of Engineers headquarters in Washington, D.C. I have two acronyms I like to use, SIS— for Steal Ideas Shamelessly, and SIW—for Share Ideas Willingly. I cannot encourage enough the use of these concepts, and we won’t limit the sharing and stealing to ideas from Iraq, Afghanistan and New Orleans. If someone in New York, for example, has an idea that works well, we should be sharing that information across the Corps, because we all can benefit from each other’s great ideas. Raymond: A major issue affecting the engineering industry today is the shortage of qualified engineers. Is this an issue affecting the Corps as well, and what potential solutions do you see? minorities and women, [including] the Hispanic scientific and technology organization HENAAC, the Black Engineer of the Year Conference, the Advancing Minorities’ Interest in Engineering Conference, the Society of Women in Engineering National Conference and the National Women of Color in Technology Awards Conference. At all levels, USACE is partnering with academic institutions and professional organizations to promote student interest in careers in science, technology, engineering and math and to recognize excellence in professional achievements. I see this as an obligation for those currently in the profession: to invest both in the future of the profession and the nation we serve. MacMurray: Last year we were pleased to renew an ongoing partnering agreement between the Corps and ACEC. How do you see the working relationship between the Corps and the industry? just a partner at arm’s length; we’ve got to be a team. Industry is a part of our team—and it’s an essential part. It’s our force multiplier. But it’s more than that, even; we learn so much from our contractor teammates. Often industry has innovative solutions to problems that we might never have thought of. Teaming with them also brings us together in a forum where problems are identified early and, as a result, we’re able to resolve issues early. It also serves to let the partners know the constraints the government and industry work under. I’ve been in the Corps when many of our relationships with contractors were adversarial. We have more than 300,000 contractor employees on the team. They even do some of our quality assurance and quality control, things they never did before. So what we do is truly a team effort with industry. n Van Antwerp Profile Notable Assignments n Former Commanding general, U.s. Army Accessions Command and deputy Commanding general for Initial military Training, Fort monroe, Va. n Commander of the U.s. Army Corps of engineers los Angeles district during northridge earthquake of 1994. n Commander of the 326th engineer Battalion, 101st Airborne division, during operations desert shield and desert storm in saudi Arabia and Iraq. Education A 1972 graduate of the U.s. military Academy, he holds a master of science degree in mechanical engineering from the University of michigan and a master of Business Administration degree from long Island University, newYork. Source: U.s. Army Corps of engineers Van Antwerp: The Corps generally has been able to recruit, train and retain sufficient engineers and scientists to meet current mission requirements. I expect that the Corps, along with the rest of the public and private sector, will share in the future challenge of having sufficient engineers and scientists enter the workforce to meet the nation’s long-term needs. In order to proactively address this challenge, USACE has a very active Corporate Outreach Recruitment Program, managed at the national level and executed through our divisions, districts, centers and laboratories. In addition, USACE partners with five national organizations representing Van Antwerp: Teaming with industry is one of the tenets that I believe will make us a better organization. Notice that I used the word “team” rather than “partner.” That’s deliberate. Teaming is a higher level of joining together than partnering. If you think about whether one of our projects gets done on time or not, a huge portion of that is up to the contractor. So, they aren’t sEptEmbER / oCtobER 2007 ENGINEERING INC. 13

Engineering Inc. - September/October 2007

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