Corpstruction

February 20-26 is Engineers Week and we interviewed some of our engineers to find out why they decided to come work for the Corps of Engineers.

Justin Cox of the Tulsa District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers worked as an engineer in the commercial sector fo years before coming to the district.

Justin is from Haskell, Oklahoma. He is a graduate of Oklahoma State University.

We spoke with Justin about his work at the Tulsa District.

He also owns 15 head of cattle and explained to us the finer points of ranching.

Engineers Week is Feb. 20-26 and for the Corpstruction Podcast we are sharing our interviews with USACE engineers to learn more about who they are.

Jeff Rickfelder is a cost engineer for the Tulsa District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Rickfelder grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan and attended Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo.

Rickfelder worked for the Nashville District before moving to Tulsa.

As a cost engineer, Rickfelder identifies components and material costs for USACE construction projects.

Ean Bonjour is an engineer assigned to the Tulsa District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Ean conducts inspeactions of Tulsa District's dams throughout the year so the district can address and remediate any discrepancies. Ean is a graduate of Oklahoma State University.

Russell Wyckoff talks about working as an engineer in the USACE. He works in the Dam Safety Production Center of Southwestern Division.

Wyckoff grew up in Oklahoma, attended Oklahoma State University, and has been an engineer with USACE nearly 35 years.

Unless you live on a mountain top, you’re probably within a few miles of a levee. Communities in every state and the District of Columbia rely on levees for flood prevention and mitigation.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans live in a county with at least one levee.

Because flood risk reduction is in the federal interest, many miles of those levees are inspected and monitored by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and flood risk reduction is the primordial mission of many USACE districts.

In this episode of the Corpstruction podcast, Tammy Conforti, special assistant for levee safety at USACE Headquarters, talks to us about the National Levee Safety Program initiative, and how the USACE and FEMA are working together to activate communities so that they understand their flood risk and get involved in the initiative.

To learn more about the National Levee Safety Program, visit www.leveesafety.org and provide comments or feedback by March 31, 2022.

To help ensure comments are related to the scope of the initiative, please review the five associated fact sheets on the website before submitting comments or suggestions.

Since its beginning at the Tulsa District in 2016, the Innovations Team has attracted employees who want to improve the business processes and experience with the Corps of Engineers. The program has grown from a Tulsa District initiative to a nationwide program with 22 Districts represented by more than 50 employees.

Innovations Teams have partnerships with Southwestern Oklahoma State University in Weatherford, University of California – Davis and the Corps Foundation.

Jason Knight spoke with Corpstruction about the partnerships and the great work the teams are doing to improve processes and the overall visitor experience with the USACE.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently updated its National Inventory of Dams database and website.

The updated site features user-friendly tools and search capabilities as well as flood maps to enable communities to be prepared for emergencies.

Rebecca Ragon, manages the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers’ National Inventory of Dams program. She joined us to talk about the updates and the NID program.

There are more than 92,000 dams accounted for in the NID, which equates to one dam every 40 square miles. About 70 percent of dams are managed or regulated by states while six percent of dams are regulated by federal agencies.

Two Tulsa District civilians are supporting the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ newest district from Kuwait.

Ron Goodeyon is serving as the Chief of Counsel and Eddie Mattioda is serving as the Chief of Resource Management at the Transatlantic Expeditionary District.

The TED was established May 15 from Task Force Essayons Command and the Transatlantic Afghanistan District.

Goodeyon provides legal advice to the commander related to construction management, and Mattioda provides financial and resource management advice to assist the commander with policy implementation.

Both men volunteered for the assignment and have deployments under their belt. Goodeyon was in Kuwait two decades ago serving as a Staff Judge Advocate with the U.S. Air Force and Mattioda has deployed in support of multiple Federal Emergency Management Agency Missions with Tulsa District’s Power team as an action officer and mission manager.

October 26 is National Day of the Deployed and Eddie and Ron took time to talk about their experiences, the reasons they deployed and interview for the Tulsa District’s Corpstruction Podcast.

The Corpstruction Podcast is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

The US Army Corps if Engineers is supporting states and local communities under a Federal Emergency Management Agency emergency response tasking.

An interview with Dr. Paul J. Tikalsky of Oklahoma State University. Dean of the College of Engineering Architecture and Technology.