Winner in Washington! (Impressions of the SMTC&E September 28-October 1, 2004)

It’s 6:45 am on Saturday morning and the sun is just peaking over the horizon from my window at the Hilton Washington Hotel. We have just concluded the 2004 SNAME Maritime Technology Conference and Expo and Ship Production Symposium (SMTC&E and SPS), a newly adopted and updated name for SNAME’s ‘annual meeting.’ As I recall the events of the past four days, I realize that we had a clear winner of a conference, albeit overshadowed by the specter of a hotel strike and the incorrigible remnants of Hurricane Jeanne. We also managed to coincide yet again with SMM in Hamburg, which no doubt affected our attendance, but even so, we exceeded our original projections with 640 registrants, or eight percent of our membership, and 365 visitors to the Expo, to happily top 1000 – a number exceeding any of the last four years except the 2003 WMTC in San Francisco!

With the Council and Executive Committee meetings occurring on Tuesday, and Standing Committee and T&R meetings and technical courses held during the day on Wednesday, that evening the Hilton’s Grand Ballroom was both an elegant and fitting venue for the President’s Reception. We had a sell-out crowd, and a sumptuous setting of international food stations, topped off by the now famous “chocolate fountain,” a treat thoroughly enjoyed by all. It was the perfect atmosphere for socializing and networking with old friends and business associates and to enjoy the presentations of the 50-year Golden Membership Certificates to five of the 31 recipients, a Distinguished Service Award, Certificates of Appreciation and an Honorary Member Certificate to President Rosenblatt.

Click here for Mr. Kimball's full article.

 

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“Passenger Vessels for the New Millennium”
May 12 – 15, 2005
California Maritime Academy
Vallejo, CA

The Northern California Section of the Society of Naval Architects & Marine Engineers is seeking papers on cruise ships, ferries, and the environmental impacts of these vessels.

Submit Abstracts by November 1, 2004, to:
Gerald Bellows
phone/fax 510-644-8086 or
e-mail to smoothsailinginc@aol.com.

First Draft due January 31, 2005, and Final Draft March 31, 2005.

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Now is the time to get ready for the April 2005 P.E. Exam in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering (NAME). Some states have deadlines as early as six months before the exam date for submitting applications with all documentation due as much as 4-months before the exam date. To determine the deadlines for your state, go to www.ncees.org and click on Licensing Boards. Clicking on Principles and Practice exams and then to register for an exam, contact your licensing board or go to ELS-EXAMREG.org. These should take you to the appropriate site for your state. There are also responses to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) that will be helpful. This NCEES site also has answers to questions about the exam coverage, its format and what calculators and materials are permitted in the exam rooms, etc.

The SNAMeLearning.org site is being prepared for the 2005 PERC that will commence on January 10, 2005 and conclude on March 30, two weeks before the exam date. Tuition for the PERC is $500 for SNAME members and $650 for non-members. For those wishing to get a head start, they can contact Richard Mouk at SNAME Headquarters, rmouk@sname.org or (201) 798-4800. He can make arrangements for early registration and access to the 2004 PERC that will also let registrants have access to the 2005 PERC as soon as it is up and running.

For those wishing to satisfy Continuing Professional Competence requirements, the PERC is considered to be worth 3 Continuing Education Units or 30 Professional Development Hours. Although this has not yet been officially accredited as such, for those preparing for license renewal it would likely satisfy as a refresher course.

The draft 2005 NAME exam has been sent to NCEES, so it is now time to start looking forward to 2006 and beyond. Starting in January, a committee will be formed to identify the Practices, Abilities, Knowledges and Skills (PAKS) required of a minimally qualified prefessional engineer. This committee will be providing input for the P.E. Survey of the NAME field that will become the basis for the NAME exam specification to be used in 2007 and beyond. The SNAME database has about 900 P.E. members identified, yet it is beleived certain that some others are not included. It would be greatly appreciated if each member who is a P.E. would make sure that headquarters records are up to date, including state and field of registration. This can most easily be done when renewing membership with the annual dues submission where it is also requested that members indicate their undergraduate degree institution and field as well as graduate degree institution and field, if appropriate. If this is not done on dues renewal, please send a note to headquarters with the information so that the membership department can make the update on the record.

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