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LATEST SECTION ACTIVITIES

 

April 2008 - Section Meeting

April was a busy month in Houston.  The Shell Houston Open concluded the day before.  It was the Astros home opener and it was the Greater Houston Section’s Annual Golf Outing on Monday April 7, 2008.  We had a record turnout of 140 members and guests for the event at Deerwood Golf Club in Kingwood, TX.

 All players received gym bags, tee bags, golf balls, umbrellas and flash drives monogrammed with the Section’s logo.  Olympus NDT was the gold sponsor.  TechCorr USA was our beverage cart sponsor.  North Star Imaging sponsored the putting contest and each green had a corporate sponsor.

 It was a picture perfect day on the shores of Lake Houston and as the golfers returned to the club house for hot hors d’oeuvres and drinks you could tell the event was a big success.  Conam Inspection hosted the first and second place teams.  North Star Imaging and Magnaflux hosted the third place team and CAN USA received their trophies for most strokes accumulated.

 

North Star Imaging & Magaflux Team (from left) – Brian Halata, Kim Hayes, Kent Varner and Jett Miller

Greg Hudkins won an iPod from Carestream Health for closest to the pin on #2.  AIP presented $250 gift certificates to James Vinson and David Dahl for closest to the pin on #4.  Jesse Fox and Steve Steen each won $100 gift certificates for closest to the pin and longest drive.  Jack Long, Kent Varner and Jim Mattson each won gift certificates for first, second and third place at the putting contest.  Door prizes included 2 foursomes of golf at Deerwood and club golf shirts.  Nobody left empty handed.  Congratulations to Bob Dunn for assembling another great golf event.

Two days later the Greater Houston Section hosted 180 members and guests at our annual Vendors Night and Job Fair at Brady’s Landing on April 9.  We had 32 sponsors staffing 42 exhibit and interview tables.  Section Chair Deal Moore welcomed everyone and thanked our event sponsors – DTM Enterprisess and Iris Inspection Services.  The room included a full dinner buffet and bar, a projector and screen with a slide show of photos from the golf outing and a microphone from which Ron Hayden called winning door prize numbers throughout the evening.

Golfer & Exhibitor – Roche Faucheux of Ely Chemical

This is our Section’s biggest event of the year and this one was no exception.  The free food and beer are draws but it’s the fellowship and networking that make it a success.

The next day was the ASME Plant Engineering, Inspection and Maintenance trade show at the Pasadena Convention Center.  There were over 100 exhibitors, many who exhibited with us the night before, and 500+ attendees from the surrounding plant facilities.  Barbeque and beer were provided free of charge.  The event raises approximately $30,000 for ASME South Texas Section’s scholarship fund.

Submitted By:   Deal Moore

March 2008 - Section Meeting

It was Awards Night on March 12 and the Greater Houston Section welcomed 80 members and guests to the big event.  We were gathered to recognize our Technician of the Year and scholarship winners.  Over $4,000 would change hands this evening and the excitement level was high.

Section Chair Deal Moore opened the meeting by thanking our Awards Night sponsors – Fugro Consultants, NDT Seals and The Ocean Corporation – all 3 long time supporters of the event.  Ron Hayden and John Iman presided over the door prize drawing to distribute Section logo mugs, CAN USA tee shirts, decks of playing cards, calendars and caps.  Ron Jiron introduced our 13 new student members from San Jacinto College and The Ocean Corporation.  Each received a Section gym bag after they gathered for a photo at Bob Dunn’s impromptu photo studio by the bar.

 Newest student members of the Greater Houston Section

David McGrath hosted a special drawing for those with 3 to 5 years experience in the industry to attend a free CWI or API course from DTM Enterprises.  Jim Halley from Advanced Inspection Technologies introduced his Employee of the Year and our Technician of the Year – Jason Landers.  Jason had a brief presentation on phased array inspection of dissimilar metals on LNG tanks.  His talk prompted several questions from the membership including what experience Jason had to prepare him for phased array inspection.  His presentation confirmed him as our Technician of the Year.  Deal presented him with a plaque and check on behalf of the Section.

Our 2008 Technician of the Year – Jason Landers (center) and wife Callie

Next up was the awarding of scholarships to 5 students at San Jacinto College, 5 students at The Ocean Corporation and 1 at Texas A&M University.  We awarded $4,000 in scholarships.  Seven scholars were able to join us this evening.

 

Greater Houston Section Scholarship Winners – 2008

Vice Chair John Iman presented Deal with an Extra Mile Service Award plaque on behalf of the executive committee and past Section officers.  No check accompanied this award however.

 

Vice Chair John Iman (left) presents Deal Moore’s Extra Mile Service Award

Ron Hayden and Deal Moore were judges for the 49th Annual Science & Engineering Fair of Houston on Friday March 14 at the George R. Brown convention center and presented a check for $300 on behalf of the Section.

Submitted By:   Deal Moore

February 2008 - Section Meeting

The Greater Houston Section hosted 84 members and guests at our annual Past Chairs Night at the restaurant on Brady’s Island in the scenic Houston Ship Channel on February 13, 2008.  Doug Knode and Doug Lutz from GE Inspection Technologies were on hand to demo GE’s new phasor during the social hour.  Janet Hudkins made her first appearance at our meeting since her motorcycle accident in Galveston in November and she looked great.  She plans to start back to work in March.  And true to form she and Greg won prizes during the opening door prize drawing.

Section Chair Deal Moore welcomed everyone and thanked our sponsors for the evening – Ashtead Technology Rentals, CAN USA, DTM Enterprises and Weldsonix.  Seven past chairs of the Section were introduced and gathered for a photo.

Left to right – Jerry Fulin, Jim Turner, David McGrath, Syl Viaclovski, Don Childers, Bill Arnoult and Greg Hudkins

Moore thanked them for joining us as many of our past chairs were attending the NDTMA conference this week.  Moore also recognized that Bill Arnoult (1978-1979) was our Section’s Chair nearly 30 years ago and was directly succeeded by Jim Turner and Don Childers.  We had a lot of NDT experience in the room which meshed well with the 29 new NDT students from San Jacinto College and The Ocean Corporation in attendance.  Moore thanked Steve Rowland and Brian Staley for bringing students to this Past Chairs Night.

Business announcements included the finalized slate of officers for the 2008 – 2009 year.  We have over 60 applications for scholarships and Technician of the Year.  A meeting on February 20 will determine the winners and the awards will be presented at our March 12 meeting.  The Spring Educational Seminar will be conducted on Ultrasonic Phased Array on May 3 at Advanced Inspection Technologies in Spring, TX.  Applications will be in our March newsletter and at www.asnthouston.com.  The Golf Outing on April 7 is filling up fast with golfers and corporate sponsors.  Our annual Vendors Night & Job Fair will be April 9.  The Section will support the 49th Houston Science & Engineering Fair on March 14 with a donation and four volunteers to act as judges at the event.

Jerry Fulin from Weldsonix and a past Section Chair was our speaker for the evening with “A Look Back at the Section’s Accomplishments”.  The presentation included a look at our Charter and the officers, technician of the year, science fair and scholarship winners for each year since our founding.  Fulin noted we have awarded over $40,000 in scholarships over the years.  His presentation also included the conferences we have supported including the 1997 ASNT Spring Conference and 10 ICPIIT conferences which contribute to our scholarship fund.  He had photos of former ASNT President David Culbertson riding a horse in a rodeo and had filled a side table with the proceedings from those conferences for members to thumb through.

Fulin concluded his presentation by awarding silver ICPIIT-X coins to two members who answered historical questions correctly.  Each of the Past Chairs received a silver coin to thank them for being part of this month’s meeting and for their part in our Section’s history.  It was another great evening.  One for the books.

Submitted By:   Deal Moore

January 2008 - Section Meeting

The Greater Houston Section hosted 77 members and guests at our dinner meeting at Brady’s Landing on January 9, 2008.  Section Chair Deal Moore welcomed everyone and recognized our sponsors – NDT Seals and North Star Imaging.  The round of introductions highlighted the large number of students attending from The Ocean Corporation.  The Section received 23 membership applications this evening.

Dan Carnavale had an exhibit table set up to demonstrate the latest trends in UT gages with color waveform from Danatronics.  His hands on display was well attended during the social hour and dinner.

Greg Hudkins reported that his wife Janet was doing much better since her motorcycle accident in Galveston in November and that they appreciated all the cards and flowers received from Section members.  Greg presided over the door prize drawing which included an assortment of calendars, ball caps, tee shirts, flash lights, key chains, a leather portfolio and cameras donated by CAN USA, North Star Imaging, Fuji, Hocker, Inc. and the 4th Middle East Conference on NDT.

The business portion of the meeting included announcements that scholarship and Technician of the Year applications are due at the end of the month as are nominations for ASNT directors and SOC Lou DiValerio Technician of the Year and Mentoring awards.  Dave Bajula has agreed to apply for our Regional Director’s position.  David Culbertson and Greg Hudkins will co-chair ICPIIT-XI in June 2009.  Bill Cotter is reported to be recovering well from heart surgery last month and appreciated the gift basket sent by the Section.

Vice Chair John Iman introduced our second annual “Captains of Industry” speaker panel.

API

Chip Evans

APIP

Bill Hatler

ASME

Clint Britt

ASNT

Joe Mackin

AWS

John Husfeld

NACE

Mike Moss

NDTMA

David Culbertson

The forum was titled “The Ties That Bind Us – Who we are and what we do.”  The intent was to introduce the various national organizations that impact our Section and our industry and to initiate discussion through a question and answer session.  Each panel member had a short presentation about their organization that included responses to advance questions such as “If you could pick an organization to partner with in the inspection industry, which would that be?”  It was informative and bold to have so many organizations in the same room together.  Iman asked questions provided by the members at the end of the panel presentation and Moore presented each with a silver ICPIIT-X coin to thank them for their participation.

Seated left to right – David Culbertson, Clint Britt, John Husfeld, Mike Moss and Chip Evans.  Standing left to right – John Iman, Joe Mackin and Deal Moore

Submitted By:   Deal Moore

December 2007 - Section Meeting

The Greater Houston Section hosted 82 members and guests for our annual Christmas Party at Brady’s Landing restaurant on a warm, Gulf Coast December 12th evening.  The price of a meal was waived for a donated toy and the Section delivered about 40 gifts to the Toys for Tots program the next day.

Section Chair Deal Moore welcomed everyone and recognized our meeting sponsors – DTM Enterprises, Fugro Consultants, Olympus NDT, PetroChem Inspection Services and Stroud Systems.  The traditional round of introductions was our way to say hello again to the spouses we get to see but once a year, including Connie Bajula, Rita Hayden, Sheila McGrath, Marilyn Fulin, Bonnie Blanchard, Nancy Dunn, Claudia Stanford and Norma Schultz.  We also managed to rope in Charlie Pattillo and Al Baker for their first meeting of the year.

                                              

                                            

                                                                 Dwayne Witter and Bonnie Blanchard                                                    Bob and Nancy Dunn

Section business announcements included a review by Ron Hayden of the OSHA meeting conducted earlier in the day to compile member recommendations to update the 29 CFR 1910.1096 regulations.  Applications for Technician of the Year and for our scholarships are due by the end of January.  Olympus NDT will be our golf outing sponsor and we are starting to sign up teams for the event.

Our speaker for the evening was Stephen Anderson from Aptech Engineering Services’ Petrochemical Group here in Houston.  His topic was one aspect of the Total Asset Integrity Management services his firm provides – Forensic Engineering.  With graphic photos and videos – some seen before in episodes aired on the History Channel – Steve illustrated some of the catastrophic consequences of not performing nondestructive testing.  With scenes from aircraft, offshore platform, refining and processing plants, Steve demonstrated to a hushed audience the critical role of nondestructive testing in a variety of industries.  His message was clear and well received by everyone.  Moore presented Anderson with a plaque on behalf of the Section and thanked him for joining us this evening.

Ron Hayden entered the room with a white beard, red hat and coveralls as Santa Claus and pulled winning gift numbers for all the good boys and girls in the room.  Nancy Dunn was Santa’s helper this year.  She bought and wrapped dozens of gifts including power drills, chocolate assortments, gift certificates, bubble bath sets, and other surprises.  Fuji donated single use cameras that were instantly put to use and Fugro donated two huge gift assortment packages that were big hits.  Winning ticket owners got to select their gift and the trading and swapping of gifts continued late into the night.  It was a great evening and a wonderful way to celebrate the season.

                         

                

                                 Richard Roth draws a gift ticket                                                                                 Ron and Rita Hayden

Submitted By:   Deal Moore

November 2007 - Section Meeting

While many of our members were attending the ASNT Fall Conference in Las Vegas, the Greater Houston Section managed to attract 63 members and guests to our November 14, 2007 meeting at Brady’s Landing on a beautiful fall evening.  Section Chair Deal Moore welcomed everyone and acknowledged the tremendous support of The Ocean Corporation whose new students represented half of the meeting attendance.

November meeting sponsors included Ashtead Technology Rentals, CAN USA, GE Inspection Technologies, Hocker, Inc. and Weldsonix.  Moore recognized their support and noted that their participation helps to defray the increased meal costs absorbed by the Section this year.  The round of introductions re-emphasized the number of Ocean Corp students in the room and they were able to snare a good percentage of the door prizes.  Nancy Dunn donated her door prize winning to one of the female Ocean Corp students to welcome her to the industry.

The business portion of the meeting included announcements of the fast approaching deadline for Technician of the Year and scholarship applications – both available on line at www.asnthouston.com.  The Section has 100 of the silver commemorative coins left over from the ICPIIT-X conference and we need to decide what to do with them.  Forward your suggestions to Deal Moore.  Director Steve Stanford sent an email to all members requesting Technician of the Year submissions.  Moore noted too that past Section Chair Greg Hudkins’ wife Janet was injured in a motorcycle accident in Galveston last weekend and has been released from the hospital.  Jerry Fulin shared news about the death of a technician caused by carbon monoxide from a dark room generator.  That incident highlighted the critical safety issues faced by many in our industry.

We had two speakers for our technical presentation.  Both were last minute substitutes but they couldn’t have been better suited to this evening with all of our student members.  Dwayne Witter spoke about key criteria for success in this business including leadership, mentoring and safety.  He reflected on his own management style and what he looked for when interviewing new technicians.  Bob Dunn shared his life experiences and lessons learned.  He encouraged our new members to appreciate the wide scope of industries and applications for nondestructive testing methods.  Consider forging or aerospace testing if pipe line weld testing becomes too routine for you.  Dunn shared his experiences assisting the federal government in detecting listening devices uncovered in the construction of a new US embassy in Moscow.  There is no limit to where your knowledge of NDT can take you.  His comments were sincere and heart felt.  He received a standing ovation.

Dwayne Witter, CAN USA, shares his criteria for a successful career in NDT.

Submitted By:   Deal Moore

October 2007 - Section Meeting

The Greater Houston Section’s Fall Educational Seminar on ultrasonic phased arrays was held on Saturday October 6, 2007 with a record attendance of 41 students.  Jim Halley was the primary instructor and the seminar was conducted at his business Advanced Inspection Technologies (AIT) in Spring, TX.  It is a great facility with lots of room for both classroom and hands-on training.  The seminar was rated a success by everyone.  CEU’s will be awarded by ASNT and each attendee will receive a certificate of completion.

The Greater Houston Section’s Fall Educational Seminar at AIT

Section Chair and Treasurer, Deal Moore and Dwayne Witter, attended the quarterly meeting of The Association of Plant Inspection Professionals (APIP) on October 9, 2007.  The event was to mark the expansion of the APIP Texas Training Consortium participating in the $3,000,000 grant from the Texas Workforce Commission to train technicians and inspectors in the Houston area.  Over 120 people attended.  There were presentations by Bill Hatler, APIP Chair, and Jan Lawler, CEO of the Economic Alliance Houston Port Region, concerning the history and impact of the grant.  Over $5,000 in scholarships donated by local companies and organizations were presented in a drawing to about 15 lucky attendees.  The Greater Houston Section contributed two scholarships to attend our Spring Educational Seminar on May 3, 2008.  They were presented as the John Dunlop McMillan Memorial Scholarships.

Our regular monthly meeting was held on October 10, 2007 at Brady’s Landing restaurant where we welcomed 63 members and guests.  The round of introductions identified two transplants from other ASNT sections – Richard Schram from northern California and Jeff Wagner from the DC area.  The Ocean Corporation introduced 19 new student members.  Deal Moore opened by recognizing our sponsors – Conam Inspection, Physical Acoustics Corp., Scan Systems and Tuboscope NOV.  He recognized the support of General Manager Randy Sweet to encourage Conam technicians to join us for the meeting and to see what ASNT Houston is all about.

New and transplanted members of the Greater Houston Section – Welcome!

The door prize drawing was the prelude to the evening’s presentation and included ball caps, golf shirts and Academy Sports gift certificates all contributed by Conam and Physical Acoustics Corp.  Our speaker was Steve Mango of Carestream Health (formerly Kodak NDT).  The topic was the Leonardo fossil project that incorporated digital X-ray technology to unlock the secrets of a mummified dinosaur.  The same presentation was included in the ASNT Fall Conference in Houston last year and tonight’s presentation was equally well received.  The presentation generated lots of thoughtful questions and comments.  Steve included a trailer of the project that was filmed for a Discovery Channel special set to air in 2008.  It was great.  Following the presentation, Carestream Health held a second drawing and awarded an iPod to one lucky technician from Conam.  Deal presented Steve a plaque on behalf of the Section thanking him for making the trip from Rochester, NY to join us.

From left – Mike Holloway, Steve Mango, Deal Moore and Ray Linn (All from Carestream Health, except Deal)

Submitted By:   Deal Moore

September 2007 - Section Meeting

The Greater Houston Section hosted 49 brave souls at our meeting on September 12, 2007 as Hurricane Humberto approached the Texas Gulf Coast.  Section Chair Deal Moore welcomed everyone and recognized our sponsors for the evening – Acuren Inspection, GCT Inspection, NDS Products and North Star Imaging.

Upcoming events of note to our Section include the “Meet and Eat” open house and job fair at The Ocean Corporation on September 26; the Section’s Fall Educational Seminar on “Ultrasonic Phased Array” on October 6 and the Association of Plant Inspection Professionals (APIP) scholarship award drawing at their general meeting on October 9.

Board Chair Dave Bajula shared a short eulogy for John McMillan who died suddenly last week and lead the Section through a few moments of silence in his memory.

Membership Chair Ron Jiron conducted the door prize drawing with the usual baseball caps, mugs and T-shirts and introduced the newest 20 student members from The Ocean Corporation – many of whom will be graduating in this month.  Photos of the newest members were taken by Section Director Bob Dunn and Mike Oden, from The Ocean Corporation.

Welcome the newest student members of the Greater Houston Section from The Ocean Corporation

One big reason we attracted as many members and new members as we did in the face of a pending hurricane was our topic and speaker for the evening.  ASNT President Marvin Trimm was here to address the Section on the future of the NDT work force.  His presentation included the challenges of getting the word out as to what NDT is and how it affects the world around us.  He gave us a progress report on efforts at National to address this.  Attracting, educating and mentoring technicians are critical activities world wide and responsibility is shared between national organizations such as ASNT, NDTMA and AWS.  All of these organization’s web sites have job postings.  Attendance at section meetings is an excellent way to network and to create and nurture mentoring relationships.

Marvin’s presentation encouraged a lot of discussion both from the oldest and newest members.  It was very well received and timely.  Deal thanked Marvin for making his way to Houston to join us this evening and presented him with a plaque on behalf of the Section.

(From left)  ASNT President Marvin Trimm and Section Chair Deal Moore

Submitted By:   Deal Moore

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Last modified: April 14, 2008                                                                               
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