Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering

News From You, Fall 2004

1960s

Terry J. McGiverin (BS ’63 Construction Ops)

This note is long overdue, but timeliness has never been a virtue of mine. I retired from the United States Army Corps of Engineers in March 2003 after 34 years of service. The majority of this time was spent being a project manager for the design and construction for military projects overseas. The main area was the Middle East with occasional interludes in Korea, Malaysia, and Europe. This has all been construction related to provide support facilities to our forces and those that are friendly to the United States. This has included hospitals, aircraft shelters, material tramways, Marine railways, barracks, housing communities, TV broadcasting, and many other structures.

My prime area was the programming, design management, and contracting aspects related to in-house designers or A-E firms. This has been surprising since engineering was never my long suit. The most important aspect has been the wide variety of clients that I have had the pleasure of working with. While my education at ISU didn't cover this area, it is the ability to work with people that I found to be the most challenging and also rewarding. We need more folks that can have the ability to understand the other person.

After my retirement, I tried to learn golf, fishing, and other related time consuming/retired activities, but failed. So I returned to the Middle East and construction management with the Perini construction firm of Framingham, Massachusetts. They were pre-selected to be one of three firms to design/build the power plants for Iraq. Basically they built four power plants, 200 mgw, with gas turbine engines, from Oct 2003 to June 2004, plus 400 KM of transmission line north from Basra.

While this was occurring they also built two 25,000 man brigade facilities in Afghanistan. This makes a total value of $450 million in one year. My role has been to serve as liaison manager between them and my old Corps office in Winchester, Virginia.

All of my involvement has been within the U.S.A.; I traveled enough previously in that area. These activities have been rewarding also in that so much was able to be accomplished in a short period of time and for a worthwhile cause. I don't personally support all the war actions but have strived to see that it gets done quickly, economically, and provides better facilities for us and other supportive troops to get the action completed so that everyone can return to normal lives. I will try retirement again in about five years and see if I can make it this time.

Regards, Terry

1970s

W. Scott Cameron (BSCE 1970 and MSCE 1974 sanitary engineering)

Mr. Cameron has recently been recently named to be the global process owner of project management for the Procter & Gamble Company. Mr. Cameron has been employed with Procter & Gamble for 34 years since graduating from Iowa State. He is also on the NASA Project Management Training Board and a feature writer in NASA's Project Management ASK Magazine. Mr. Cameron is married and has triplet 13 year old daughters.