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Vol. 36 No. 4 A monthly publication of the Los Angeles District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers October 2006
Chief Extends Reach to Young Hispanics
Written by Mike Tharp
 Lt. Gen. Strock with Humberto Gallegos at last year's Career Fair “We can expand on that,” said Strock, citing the Los Angeles District’s sponsorship last year of the Viva Technology program at Roosevelt High School which, he said, the District “executed and embraced,” the first District in the nation to do so. Using student “engineering” teams coached by Hispanic engineering students, Viva Technology fosters teamwork and collaboration in completing engineering projects under competitive conditions. This year’s Viva program is in New York, next year’s in Jacksonville, and Strock suggested that the Corps “should really do more of a network approach to these things. We can take advantage of those kinds of structured programs in a better way.”
At the HENAAC event, Strock and Ray Mellado, chairman and CEO of HENAAC, reaffirmed a partnering agreement committing their organizations to “a mutual vision and a coordinated effort to embrace opportunities in the fields of engineering, science, mathematics and technology.”
The agreement declares that both leaders “recognize that a workforce comprised of diverse, high-performing individuals, with valuable talents and strengths, is critical to providing excellent services to all our customers, especially Soldiers and their families.”
“We should expand existing outreach,” Strock said in the interview. “We should make a special effort during Engineer Week, for example. We can do a better job of reaching Hispanic people.”
The main way to do so, he added, is “command emphasis and visibility. We can improve on that. From the command level there has to better understanding of demographics and increasing diversity. Each of us needs to know the various population groups within our command.”
If Corps leaders don’t understand such facts, he said, the solution is “to increase our offensive strategy and awareness to show that our workforce is representative of the American population.”
An afternoon workshop Strock was attending was based “on the philosophy that there is a huge demand for technologically capable people and the supply is limited.” Noting that the Hispanic community is the fastest growing community in the U.S., he said the Corps must “gain access to this community. If we don’t target them, we will miss out on an opportunity.”
Corps strategy and policy for this mission comes from its role as “a public agency whose responsibility is to act in the public interest.” But, he also said, “From self-interest, we will only be as successful as we are in balancing this supply and demand. It’s about both public interest and self-interest.” |
 Competition Benefits College Bowl Players
Written by Greg Fuderer
 Team HENAAC The competition took place at HENAAC’s 2006 conference in Anaheim, Calif., in October. It resembled an amalgam of the NFL Draft, GE College Bowl and American Idol. Thirty agencies, businesses and corporations each provided a coach, an assistant coach and a judge for the competition. The coaching staffs interviewed students, then used two rounds to draft those they felt most met the qualifications they sought.
“We looked for students who showed the potential for leadership, teamwork and creativity,” said Corps team coach Cynthia Perez, a project manager with the Jacksonville District. After Perez and assistant coach David Van Dorpe made their draft choices, they rounded out their team of 10 players through an assignment process.
The competition consisted of five rounds. Teams received their assignments, then met with coaches for five minutes to discuss goals and strategies. Teams had 25 minutes to develop their presentation, skit or model, ensuring that each student participated in the presentation of each task. “Our team bonded very quickly,” said Van Dorpe, a project manager with the Los Angeles District. “We wanted them to learn how to come together as a team and overcome a difficult obstacle. There is never enough time, never enough resources. You have to work together to leverage your talents and achieve your ultimate goal.” The four women and seven men who comprised the Corps team represented the Air Force Academy and colleges and universities from Puerto Rico, Arkansas, California, New Mexico and Texas. Although the Corps team didn’t win the competition, the coaches were pleased with the teamwork they displayed. “I was taken by surprise by their preparation,” Perez said. “They were extremely smart; knew what they wanted and how to get there. They didn’t need much coaching at all.”  HENAAC Team members jumping at the opportunity to apply lessons learned
According to Van Dorpe, students and coaches quickly applied their skill sets, employing project management tools of the trade. “We used lessons learned after each round to discuss how we did, how we functioned as a team and what we could do better in the next round,” he said. “They become your kids,” said bowl coordinator Gonzalo Martinez. “You take an interest in them.” Van Dorpe agreed with that sentiment. “I hope that they went away with a sense of accomplishment,” he said. “My main goal was to teach them to think, work and act as a team. I wanted them to learn that collaboration at times means leading, but many other times it may mean following another good leader. Every good leader knows when to follow.” “It’s a different way of doing it. You get to observe their reactions under stress situations,” Martinez said. “It breaks down barriers and it’s a great recruiting tool. But I also learned that it is a great exposure tool as well. There are many folks out there that have no idea who the Corps is, what it does and how it operates.” Perez agreed. “The Corps has a lot to gain,” she said. “It gives us a great feel for the market out there as far as who our future ‘replacements’ could be.” The “future replacements” don’t take long to arrive, according to Martinez. Several of the coaches for companies at this year’s bowl had participated as students in earlier years. For the Corps, Van Dorpe had served as a College Bowl coach during HENAAC’s 2005 conference. “I jumped at the opportunity to coach again,’ he said. Noting the chance to introduce some of the top graduating students from across the nation to the Corps, he continued, “It’s a great recruiting tool for the Corps and a great opportunity to share a little of my knowledge with the students.” Like members of the Corps team, Perez was herself drafted. “I was actually volunteered for this task by College Bowl Corps Manager, Alberto Gonzalez,” she said. “His experience as assistant coach last year taught him that the coach needed to be energetic, possess leadership skills and most of all care about and enjoy working with our youth.” Would she do it again? “I can’t wait to participate again next year, whether as coach or in any other capacity,” Perez said. “Mama Hen already misses her chicks.”
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Tucson Resident Engineer Wins HENAAC Luminary Award
Written by Mike Tharp
 Maj. Gen. Johnson presents Julie Martinez, Los Angeles District Tucson Resident Engineer, with a certificate marking her selection as a 2006 HENAAC Luminary Award honoree
Martinez, Tucson Resident Engineer—the first woman ever to hold such a position in the Los Angeles District—recalls watching the television show as a girl in San Pedro, Calif. “The whole reason I wanted to be an engineer was Uncle Bill in ‘A Family Affair,’” she explains. “He built dams all over the world, and it was so exotic to me.”
Like Uncle Bill, Martinez trained as a civil engineer. After receiving her degree from San Diego State University, she joined the Corps and literally has never looked back. “I’m a tomorrow thinker,” she says. “You’re only as good as your last failure.”
The failures have been few during Martinez’ 20-year career with the District, and the successes plentiful. Calling her “a superb leader, engineer, manager and role model,” Col. Alex Dornstauder, Los Angeles District Engineer, cited her work in Tucson “as the most productive field office in the region.”
John Keever, Area Engineer for the Arizona/Nevada Area Office, and someone Martinez credits as being one of her role models, said she “dedicated herself to project delivery for customers, stakeholders and the public at large. At the same time, she has been the foundation for her family—dependable, assertive and trustworthy.”
Maj. Brad Endres of the Arizona/Nevada Area Office, said Martinez “leads our largest resident office with over $75 million in construction placement scheduled for fiscal year 2006 with a staff of 14 personnel. Some of the District’s most highly visible projects are under her domain: the Nogales Wash flood drainage reduction project, the Global Information Center at Fort Huachuca and the Tucson Drainage flood damage reduction project in downtown Tucson.”
Receiving the HENAAC award from Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, Chief of Engineers, South Pacific Division Commander Col. John McMahon and Dornstauder, Martinez was praised for “being responsible for all Corps of Engineers construction activities and engineering responsibilities in southern Arizona.” That includes the particularly important collaboration with the Dept. of Homeland Security for customs and border protection, as well as Davis-Monthan Air Force Base’s Air Combat Command.
She was also publicly applauded for her work on the high-profile Pier 400 project at the Port of Los Angeles and for volunteering after destructive Hurricane Hugo struck Puerto Rico, where Martinez helped repair public utilities.
Other Luminary honorees included women and men from the Air Force Research Laboratory, the U.S. Coast Guard, the SPAWAR Systems Center, NASA’s Ames Research Center, as well as engineers and managers from such blue-chip corporations as Dow Chemical, Boeing, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, Raytheon and General Motors.
“I’m very humbled,” says Martinez. “To be in that company—I’m a little surprised.”
If you looked only at her early upbringing, you might be surprised too. Martinez was born in San Pedro, a blue-collar seaport town at the tip of the Palos Verdes Peninsula, some 25 miles south of downtown LA. She was the second of six children to a first-generation American father and a Mexican national mother. “In my world…the men ruled the roost and women were there to serve. Anything I learned about mechanics or construction was by looking over my brothers’ shoulders,” she wrote in an autobiographical essay.
But Martinez realized early on she was different from the other women in her family, and after they moved to San Diego, she breezed through high school, graduating at age 16. Two years later, her parents moved back to Mexico to start a business, basically handing her the house and car keys and telling her to take care of her siblings while running the U.S. side of the business.
That’s why it took her eight years to struggle through San Diego State, after which she immediately joined the Corps. “I could see the diversity and the opportunity to learn and to try a variety of things and in this I have never been disappointed,” she wrote. “There could have been no better choice for a girl who knew she didn’t know so many things but couldn’t wait to learn.”
Coincidentally, one of the biggest projects she has worked on for the District was Pier 400 in the Los Angeles Harbor, a short walk for many of her family members. “It was very special to me,” she recalls, “and there were a lot of questions at pretty much every family gathering in San Pedro.”
For that she was given the Corps’ 2000 Construction Management Excellence Award for supervising $180 million in large dredging, landfill and deep-draft navigation projects in and around the Ports of LA and Long Beach. She maintained “an aggressive safety program and exceptional partnering programs,” the award read. “Her coordination skills with the sponsors earned her high marks in the District and exceptional performance ratings for the past three years.”
Besides Pier 400, other mega-projects Martinez was heavily involved with included the San Luis Rey River, Los Angeles River and Prado Dam.
Besides Keever, other positive influences on her career have included Terry King and Lt. Gen. Robert Van Antwerp, former Los Angeles District Engineer.
Martinez is at once proud and clear-eyed about the cultural influences of her Hispanic heritage. “I come from a culture that didn’t encourage education, even among men,” she explains. “It was work. But getting this award and hearing a lot of the people (at the convention) speaking Spanish, I’m impressed and a little surprised that we’ve achieved the levels we have as a group in science and technology. I’m encouraged to help keep this going.”
Many of her family members still live in Mexico. “They range from the top 2 percent of the economy to the normal bottom—farmers, ranchers, those who live off the land,” she says. “They all have a lot of richness in that culture. It’s so much about family.”
And so it is with Martinez herself. Her mother, who is ill, lives with her in Tucson, and Martinez has buried her father and a sister in recent years. “In the struggle between family and job, family wins,” she says, “but I have a boss, John Keever, who is so understanding.”
Moving from a county of 10 million and a hyper-profile project list has caused her to make some adjustments. “It has been interesting,” she says, quickly praising “the stunning quality and work ethic” of her fellow team members in Arizona. The desert around Tucson “sometimes has its own quiet beauty,” she allows, “and you re-think things in a place like Tucson.”
And, says the lifelong gardener, accustomed to the balmy climate of San Pedro and San Diego, “I had to re-learn how to grow things.”
In an April 4, 1966, segment of “A Family Affair,” the wealthy bachelor consulting engineer Uncle Bill finally decides to forego globetrotting and become a full-time father to the three children who moved in with him after the death of their parents. Her mother and family, the Corps, the District and future Hispanic engineers are all fortunate that Julie Martinez doesn’t have to make that decision.
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3rd Hispanic USACE Training Workshop
Written by Jay Field
In conjunction with the annual Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Corporation (HENAAC) Conference, USACE hosted the 2006 Hispanic Training Workshop Oct. 4 at the Marriott Hotel in Anaheim. This year’s theme was “Communicating Trust in a Global Environment.” Richard Alvarez, Chief of Engineering and Construction, New York District, led the presentations with an overview of the Viva Technology high school engineering academic and career awareness program. Following a cultural quiz, in which participants learned the Spanish translation for “Crazier than a goat!” Wilbert Berrios, Chief of Corporate Information, presented information on diversity in the Corps. Of particular note, he stressed, is how the Corps’ Hispanic workforce is not reflective of the American population. Berrios outlined ways in which the Corps is working to increase opportunities for Hispanics within the organization. Keynote speaker, Patricia Rivers, Chief of the Environmental Community of Practice, gave an address on Trust in the Workplace. Rivers covered the four types of trust necessary in the workplace (contractual, communication, competence and rebuilding), as outlined in the book by Dennis and Michelle Reina, “Trust and Betrayal in the Workplace.” Following a brief awards ceremony where the USACE nominees for 2006 HENAAC awards were recognized, along with those who supported the workshop, Maj. Gen. Ronald Johnson, Deputy Chief of Engineers, presided over a Town Hall meeting with participants. Maj. Gen. Johnson gave a brief “state of the Corps” presentation that included the chief’s future vision on where the Corps is headed. |
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