inside - the School of Engineering - The Catholic University of America

Risk-Based Decision-Making for Environmental Cleanups
Jeff Giangiuli, director of engineering management and
instructor of related courses at CUA.
To expedite cleanup of its contaminated training,
industrial and Base Realignment and Closure,
(BRAC), sites, the Department of Defense (DoD)
has instituted an array of risk-based decision principles
and management reforms that are saving
time and money.
DoD restoration efforts for active, BRAC and
excess bases began three decades ago to ensure
appropriate, cost-effective cleanup that makes
DoD property safe for human health and the
environment. The BRAC property, in particular,
had to be cleaned up quickly to support local
redevelopment and minimize potential
economic effects on the community.
While actual cleanup progress lagged in the
DoD program at its inception, recent performance
has been markedly improved due to the institutionalization
of new decision-making principles and
management reforms — namely performancebased
contracts (PBCs) and environmental services
cooperative agreements (ESCAs). PBCs are a
contracting mechanism that requires the contractor
to achieve specific remediation objectives,
for a fixed price, based on a performance work
statement. ESCAs transfer DoD property and
privatize the cleanup, giving more control to the
local re-use authorities.
From fiscal year 2002 to 2005, the implementation
of performance-based contracting with one
service — the Army — resulted in cost avoidances
of more than $215 million during the life
of the contracts. Based on the track record of
performance-based contracting so far, the U.S.
Army Environmental Center estimates that a
minimum of $45 million in costs will be eliminated
from the projected contract awards for fiscal year
2006. Because PBCs lock in the costs and completion
schedules, they ensure that the Army will
not continue to experience program cost escalation
and schedule slippages.
From fiscal year 2001 to 2005, ESCAs have
assisted one service — the Army — with transferring
thousands of acres of property and
privatizing over $100 million worth of environmental
cleanups. The use of the new cleanup
and transfer mechanisms have expedited the
completion of the BRAC mission and helped to
get thousands of difficult-to-transfer acres off
the DoD books.
The decision principles and management
reforms employed by the new thinkers within
the DoD are some of the topics that are studied
in the CUA Engineering Management Program.
These processes are discussed and dissected
to provide students with real-world examples of
how to aid decision-makers and manage the risk
of new initiatives within the courses CMGT 505
Decision Analysis and CMGT 562 Engineering
Risk Management, taught by Jeff Giangiuli,
director of the Engineering Management Program.
Judge, Regalia and Sun Receive 2006 Kaman Excellence Awards
Assistant Professor John Judge and Professor Phillip Regalia were
honored with the 2006 Kaman Award for Faculty Excellence in Teaching
and Associate Professor Lu Sun with the 2006 Kaman Award for Faculty
Excellence in Research. This is the fourth year the awards have been given.
Mechanical engineering professor
Judge received the 2006 Kaman Award
for Faculty Excellence in Teaching for
his outstanding contributions to engineering
education. He has revamped,
improved and developed the curriculum
for core mechanical engineering courses
such as Engineering Mechanics II,
System Dynamics, and Junior Design,
as well as for advanced courses in
vibration and structural dynamics. In
each of these courses, his students
cited his tireless efforts inside and outside of the classroom, in many cases
working one-on-one with students to ensure that they understand key
concepts. Frequently illustrating concepts with practical examples and
demonstrations, Judge has been praised by students for making difficult
material interesting and understandable. Judge also was a nominee for the
2006 Provost’s Award for Faculty Excellence in Teaching.
Regalia, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, was
selected as a co-recipient of the 2006 Kaman Award for Faculty Excellence
in Teaching in the area of electrical engineering. In courses such as Signals
& Systems, Analog & Digital Signal Processing, Linear System Theory and
Information Coding and Transmission, he has integrated principles and
applications from his research in advanced communications. He reinforces
their application through student projects that use contemporary engineering
tools. His courses generate high student interest and exceptional evaluations.
Regalia is an IEEE Fellow and editor-in-chief of EURSAIP J. Wireless
Communications and Networking.
Sun, associate professor of civil engineering, received the 2006 Kaman
Award for Faculty Excellence in Research for his productivity in research.
During 2005–2006, Sun had seven peer-reviewed papers either published
or in-press while guiding four doctoral
and two master’s-level students. He
also received funding from The Catholic
University of America, National Science
Foundation, Dongre Laboratory and the
American Chemical Society for his
research in traffic flow prediction and
simulation, human driving behavior and
response, and assessment of highway
condition and maintenance strategies.
The Kaman Awards for Faculty
Excellence are funded by a generous
endowment from Charles H. Kaman (B.A.E., 1940). Awardees for research
are nominated by faculty, while teaching awardees are nominated by
students and/or faculty. Award recipients are recognized at the annual
year-end school luncheon and at the school’s diploma distribution ceremony.
In addition, each award recipient receives a plaque and a
monetary gift.
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