The Pikes Peak Post (PPP) of the Society of American Military Engineers has established a SAME PPP Annual Awards and Recognition Program. This program is designed to present medals and awards to individuals and organizations from the uniformed services and the private sector to recognize achievements in support of local post activities, The Society's Strategic Plan, the engineering profession and the nation's national security objectives. To read a brief description of each award, click here. To nominate someone for a particular award, click here.

The winners for 2012 are as follows:

REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT MEDAL TO DOCTOR RUBEN D CRUZ
Doctor Ruben D. Cruz has distinguished himself through his higher research in the field of structural and geotechnical engineering, and in practical engineering applications. While successfully managing over 50 military and civilian facility and infrastructure design projects, Dr Cruz has served as the SAME Pikes Peak Post Secretary since 2006. Dr. Cruz is a member of the distinguished SAME Academy of Fellows.

Over the past five years, he has organized and attended the Post's Board of Directors monthly meetings and other activities, he has prepared agendas, has documented decisions made by the Pikes Peak Board of Directors, and shown outstanding leadership and support of SAME and its mission. He participated on the planning committee for the 2010 Rocky Mountain Regional Conference and now for the Energy Symposium scheduled in January 2012. Dr. Cruz also organized the Pikes Peak Post's yearly golf tournament which generated over $15,000 in proceeds every year for the Post's scholarship fund.

Dr. Cruz has and continues to make significant contributions to the Pikes Peak Post.

REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT MEDAL TO MIKKI ANDERSEN
Over the past six years, the PPP has had the honor of having Mikki Andersen serve as the Sustaining Member Chairperson. Under Mikki's leadership our Post grew in membership over 20%. She has continued to promote SAME, its mission, and our Post with great passion. If you were unsure about the value that SAME brings to you and your firm, you only needed to visit with Mikki for five minutes.
Mikki participated on the planning committee for the 2010 Rocky Mountain Regional Conference and always volunteered to support other events throughout the years.

Mikki stepped down from the Board this year, but certainly left the Post with the foundation to continue to focus on the value that we bring our membership.

STURGIS MEDAL AWARD (Equivalent) - PIKES PEAK POST TO Sergeant First Class TONY COLLINS, Platoon Sergeant,
2nd Platoon, 497th Engineer Company, 52nd Engineer Battalion.
SFC Collins is recognized for his accomplishments and contributions to military troop construction and/or base maintenance by demonstrated technical and leadership ability. SFC Collins was project NCOIC of a 5,280 foot short takeoff and landing airfield; he supervised over 120 heavy equipment operators during 17 concurrent construction activities. His experience and technical knowledge led to the emplacement of over 250,000 cubic yards of topsoil, sub-grade material and W-Base aggregate during 47 days of construction. His direct leadership and excellence exceeded the C-130 design standard on compaction by 50% which led to the successful mission accomplishment seven days ahead of schedule.

STURGIS MEDAL AWARD (Equivalent) - PIKES PEAK POST TO Staff Sergeant ANDERSON JIMENEZ, 4th Engineer Battalion.
SSG Anderson Jimenez is recognized for his accomplishments and contributions to military troop construction and/or base maintenance by demonstrated technical and leadership ability. SSG Jimenez is presently deployed as a Squad Leader with the 576th Engineer Company in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. He has consistently provided positive leadership, benefiting the Engineer Regiment as a whole. SSG Jimenez has devoted countless hours of his personal time to his Soldiers, developing them into competent and capable leaders. He has also invested in himself, participating in Fort Carson's FAST Class program and completing the Sapper Leaders Course this past May. SSG Jimenez is the embodiment of what an Engineer should be: dependable, competent, and loyal; he is a true asset to the Regiment.

WHEELER MEDAL AWARD (Equivalent) - PIKES PEAK POST TO SPC BRIAN SHEEHAN, 4th Engineer Battalion, 4th Engineer Battalion.
SPC BRIAN SHEEHAN is recognized for outstanding military contribution to engineering, design, and construction. SPC Brian Sheehan is presently deployed with the 576th Engineer Company in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. He is a testament to the power of determination. SPC Sheehan joined the Vanguard Family in September 2010 nearly 60 pounds overweight; a year later he was awarded the Army Physical Fitness Badge. He has competed in and won the 4th Engineer Battalion's Soldier of the Month, Soldier of the Quarter and Soldier of the Year competitions. He is a true asset to the Engineer Regiment and future Army leader.
Accepting on behalf of SPC Sheehan, SFC McClyment, Rear-detachment Commander of 576

PRESIDENTS MEDAL For OUTSTANDING LEADERSHIP AND ACCOMPLISHMENT in SUPPORT OF THE POST'S STRATEGIC PLAN goes to the following recipents:
Bill Beary - I had the pleasure of serving under Bill in 2006 while he was our Post President. He instilled a commitment to the growth and value to our membership. Bill has continued to support and remain on the Board of Directors throughout the years. Bill has worked closely with our Young Members to organize the Fellow/YM events, supported the 2010 RM Regional Conference, and facilitated our success with the National Security requirements, working closely with Brian Kelly in organizing the Front Range Readiness Workshop.
Bill is a member of SAME Academy of Fellows and has stood tall in maintaining a presence with the Post.

Bob Fant - Bob served for the past two years as our Programs Chairperson prior to relinquishing the position this year. Under Bob's leadership, our Programs have had a better focus. However, Bob has always reminded Col Hafeli and I about the importance of having a clearly defined (and approved) PDH process. This year, many of you see Bob at our registration desk to provide PDH certification as needed. During the transition to the new Board and Chairpersons, Bob remained engaged to ensure that our Programs were still focused on what our membership is interested in - and working closely with Michelle to get us on Peterson AFB as the EALs weren't readily available. Thank you Bob for keeping us on track with the SAME Mission.

Dave Brewer - Dave is our silent champion. He has been supporting SAME since 1984. Mr. Brewer has offered leadership and guidance throughout the years as we continue to find ways to bring greater value to you (our members). Dave has been working closely with the Committee Chairpersons throughout the year to ensure that our programs, activities and focus support SAME's Strategic Plan. He is facilitating the submission of the Streamers as we pursue remaining a Distinguished Post. I have called on Dave throughout my tenure to advice on areas to improve our path.

BLISS MEDAL AWARD to CAPTAIN ADAM STRECKER, P.E., UNITED STATES AIR FORCE
Capt Adam Strecker has devoted remarkable energy and dedication to educating, mentoring, and motivating students in engineering through various USAF Academy and SAME programs and initiatives. His leadership has led to great advancements in our local SAME Post. During his time as faculty advisor to the student chapter, Adam successfully enrolled 80+ new student members.
He currently serves as the Faculty Advisor for the USAF Academy SAME Student Chapter. In addition to his impact on cadets, he has educated, mentored, and motivated over 100 high school students as the 2011 SAME USAFA Engineering and Construction Camp.
Because of his stellar organizational and leadership abilities, Adam was also in charge of the 2011 SAME National award banquet at the USAF Academy for cadets joining the Air Force as civil engineering officers. I look forward to working with him on the 2012 Engineer Dinner.

Capt Adam Strecker is the consummate Engineer-Educator and consistently supports SAME goals both inside and outside the classroom. Capt Strecker is extremely deserving of this recognition and we look forward to submitting his nomination to SAME National.

GOETHALS MEDAL AWARD TO WILLIAM BAYLES
Mr. Bayles is recogned for "preeminence in engineering, design or construction". William Bayles has distinguished himself through his application of engineering analysis and project management of a variety design and construction projects for the Departments of Defense and Energy. As a principal of a small business design-build firm, the variety of projects he has led has been astounding. These range from the seemingly simple designs for laboratory renovations at the National Renewable Energy Lab to the complexities of LEED Gold projects for the Corps of Engineers. In two major projects (Dining Facility at Ft. Riley, KS and Child Care Center at Ft. Wood, MO), he performed the design-build contractor's initial LEED feasibility study, developed the initial scheme of compliance and oversaw those portions of the design pertaining to achieving the LEED credits required for Gold certification. He applied engineering analysis to a variety of problems including the business development function of his firm. His efforts were rewarded by increasing his firm's annual revenues from $3MM to over $10MM in a period of four years and developing two new major clients.

In addition to this work, Mr. Bayles has been Project Manager for over twenty military and civilian facility and infrastructure design projects since 2006, has served as the Pikes Peak Post Programs Chair for 18 months, chaired the Readiness Committee for three years and was programs chair for the 2010 Regional Training Conference. He is also a past post president and was inducted into the Academy of Fellows in 2007.

SVERDRUP MEDAL AWARD TO CAPTAIN TIMOTHY E. FRANK, P.E., UNITED STATES AIR FORCE
Captain Timothy E. Frank distinguished himself through outstanding engineering and leadership as an Air Force Civil Engineer officer and member of the SAME Pike's Peak Post. Captain Frank led a 400 million dollar design and construction program and was appointed squadron commander of 184 airmen while deployed to Southwest Asia. He planned and designed a 13 million dollar program to expand two fabric hangars, construct two new hangars, and upgrade power distribution to provide climate control increasing the number of unmanned aerial vehicles in theater and fulfilling the Chief of Staff of the Air Force's number one joint urgent operational need.

Additionally, Captain Frank upgraded the primary and backup power systems for all Patriot Missile Systems in the United Arab Emirates valued at 108 million dollars and created the benchmark for all missile batteries in US Army Central Command. Further, he led an 82 person team that used innovative technologies and collaborative efforts across multiple agencies to produce groundbreaking results restoring 1197 acres of land formerly used as a bombing range, driving the program to become number one of all 65 programs in the Air Force and earning the 2008 Chief of Air Force Safety Ground Safety Award. The dedicated work and valuable contributions of Captain Frank reflect great credit upon himself and the Society of American Military Engineers.

GERALD C. BROWN MEDAL AWARD TO KURT UBBELOHDE

For outstanding mentoring efforts by a SAME Fellow. Kurt Ubbelohde, Vice President and Corporate Director of Federal Programs for Leo A Daly, has been a Fellow in SAME since 2006. Mr. Ubbelohde is recognized for outstanding mentoring efforts by an SAME Fellow.

As Commander of the Omaha District, he served as a mentor in the USACE Omaha District Leadership Development Program and during his tenure as the President of the SAME Omaha Post, Kurt supported the Post's Student Initiative Mentoring Program (SIMP), twice as a judge during the competition phase and as the keynote speaker at the event's award ceremony in 2002.

Kurt has been a long time supporter of the SAME/USAFA Engineering and Construction (E&C) Camp for high school students. Kurt began his continuous support to the E&C Camp program serving as the Head Mentor at the SAME/USAFA. In that capacity, he has been the primary recruiter of young member mentors to the camp and then works with those young mentors leading up to and through successful completion of the camp each year. Kurt has also participated in numerous SAME Mentoring events around the country. He represented the SAME E&C Camp Committee on the development of the Mentoring Continuum Initiative. Congratulations to Kurt for his well-deserved nomination.

YOUNG MEMBER MEDAL AWARD TO JON MEYERS, CALIBRE ENGINEERING
Jon was recognized for outstanding leadership and accomplishments in support of the SAME mission. Since becoming a SAME member in 2008, Jon has distinguished himself in the Post. Jon's achievements are making our Society, significantly better today. Jon has served as the YM Representative for the past two years - developing new programs and growing the future of the Post. Jon has willingly served as the Volunteer Coordinator for Regional conferences and other activities, including the upcoming Energy Training Symposium. Jon promotes SAME during his continued support and attendance at the SAME Small Business Conference, JETC Conference, and other DoD or Regional Conferences.

URBAHN MEDAL TO CAROL COOVER-CLARK
Carol Coover-Clark is recognized by the Post for the Urbahn Medal for distinguished performance in the field of architecture. Her career as an architect and interior designer extend more than 30 years of professional service to both public and private sector clients. She has led more than 300 design and construction management projects with individual construction costs of up to $600 million.
Within the past 5 years, Carol and her firm have been on the cutting edge of sustainability and technological development and have designed mission, recruitment and retention-focused facilities for our men and women in uniform across the country, including the Army Corps of Engineers, Air Force, Air Force Academy, Army National Guard and the Air National Guard.
Following through on her firm founding philosophy, Carol actively participates in every project CooverClark undertakes to honor our troops with extraordinary design, performed on time and budget. The significant number of repeat clients CooverClark maintains best illustrates her commitment to client focused sustainable projects.

SEYMOUR S. GREENFIELD SUSTAINING MEMBER AWARD - MEDIUM COMPANY TO MERRICK AND COMPANY

PUBLIC AGENCY AWARD TO US NORTHERN COMMAND
Since its establishment on 1 October 2002, the United States Northern Command has been an integral partner with SAME. NORTHCOM recognizes that their primary missions of Homeland Defense, Defense Support of Civil Authorities, and Theater Security Cooperation, all require strong and enduring partnerships with the private sector. The relationship between NORTHCOM and SAME is a natural expression of the SAME mission: "To promote and facilitate engineering support for national security by developing and enhancing relationships and competencies among uniformed services, public- and private-sector engineers and related professionals, and by developing future engineers through outreach and mentoring."

Since establishment of NORTHCOM, each Command Engineer has served as the President of the Pikes Peak Post, and has frequently served on National level committees, such as Emergency Preparedness and Homeland Security. NORTHCOM has also continued to support The Infrastructure Security Partnership (TISP) in building a network of engineering and architecture professionals for critical infrastructure security and resiliency. NORTHCOM engineers organized the 2011 Front Range Readiness Workshop, bringing together nationally known speakers for a dynamic discussion forum focused on disaster response and recovery. NORTHCOM continues to be a leader in building a community of public and private sector engineering cooperation and collaboration in partnership with the Society of American Military Engineers.

J.W. MORRIS SUSTAINING MEMBER AWARD - LARGE COMPANY TO TETRA TECH
Since becoming a Sustaining Member in 1985, Tetra Tech supports 62 SAME posts across the nation providing active members, young motivated engineers and leaders assigned in positions ranging from the National Board of Director, RVP and post board members. Additionally, they serve and help manage committees, counsels and have over 8 Academy of Fellows members. The energy of their employees have been responsible for planning numerous conferences and training events including: JETC, three Regionals and over 8 Industry Days and Small Business events.

Specifically for the Pike's Peak Post, Tetra Tech continues to provide leadership and planning for the Air Force Engineering Camp, coordination for mentoring, Outreach to high schools and the Wounded Warrior program. They have also sponsored all of our events throughout the year, sponsored scholarship events and served on the board for over 10 years. Currently, Tetra Tech is directly engaged in the planning of our Energy Symposium in 2012.

SEYMOUR S. GREENFIELD SUSTAINING MEMBER AWARD - SMALL COMPANY TO COOVER-CLARK AND ASSOCIATES
We at the PPP understand the demands on our Small Business Sustaining Members. CooverClark has remained sustaining members of SAME with membership at three posts including the Pikes Peak Post, Denver Post and the Frontier Post. CooverClark encourages staff participation in all SAME events, meetings and conferences and maintains a great attendance record by trying to send someone in the company to nearly every meeting and event. Amanda Clark represents CooverClark by sitting on the board for the Pikes Peak Post where she currently serves as the community outreach chair.

CooverClark has attended teSAME Small Business Conference the past two years in a row and in 2010 CooverClark also attended and exhibited at the SAME Regional Conference in Colorado Springs. CooverClark also attended the 2010 SAME Joint Engineer Training Conference in Atlanta. In 2011 Amanda Clark represented the Pikes Peak Post as the young member representative at the Post Leaders Workshop in Las Vegas. Most recently, Coover Clark matched the SAME blanket drive for the Marion House and generously adopted over 6 Angels.