Newsletter: March/April 2007 Newsletter

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A Message From the VSRA President

With this issue of the VSRA Newsletter, you will see a shift in months.  It will appear that we "skipped" March.  The Communications Committee decided to revise some of the regular content of the monthly newsletter (such as the events that will take place in the month of the newsletter).  The newsletter will continue to be published during the thrid week of the month - now the month in advance of the newsletter edition.  In this case we are publishing the April Newsletter in March.

The Strategic Planning Committee continues it work on revising our association's Strategic Plan.  With significant help from the Communications Committee and the Virginia Ship Repair Foundation, the committee is well on its way in developing a proposed Strategic Plan 2007-2009 for your association.  I expect the VSRA Board of Directors will be considering the plan at their May board meeting. 

One of the new capabilities that will soon be part of the VSRA website will be online registration for association events, including monthly membership meetings and training courses.  Once the capability has been turned on and has been tested for a few weeks, we anticipate that this will then be the only way to register for our events.  This will provide a significant savings to the association as the tracking of sign-ups will then be automated.  Today, Ann and Josephine spend considerable time managing registrations for the multitude of association events manually with spreadsheets.  David Mann, our website developer, has designed a great way to streamline the staff tracking through the website.  Stay tuned.

I look forward to seeing you at our March membership meeting next week.  Senator Frank Wagner will be our speaker.  As he has for the past many years, Frank will give us a insiders view of the legislative session just concluded in Richmond.  Of note, Frank was one of the members of the conference committee that developed the compromise Transportation Bill that is now being considered by the Governor.  As most of you know, Senator Wagner is the Executive Vice President of our VSRA member company Davis Boat Works.

Looking ahead to April, we will have Dr. Stephen Jones, Superintendent, Norfolk Public Schools, as our guest speaker at our membership meeting.  As the leader of the winner of the 2006 Broad Award for the best urban school district in the country, Steve will share with us his vision for taking Norfolk schools to world class level by 2010.

Keep your comments flowing on how we can improve your association.  It is through  your ideas that we can better serve you.

Sincerely yours,

Mal Branch

March VSRA General Membership Meeting

We are very pleased to welcome Senator Frank Wagner as our guest speaker for the March 20th General Membership meeting.  Senator Wagner will provide us an invaluable insight into this year's legislative session with his legislative update.  Senator Wagner is a member of the following committees: Commerce and Labor, General Laws and Technology, Rehabilitation and Social Services, and Transportation.  Senator Wagner’s Senate homepage is http://sov.state.va.us/SenatorDB.nsf/23b0c13df27a5ef585256fc7004febb2/0639e36ab9e1c06585256aa0007199a2?OpenDocument.
 

Featured Committee - Workers Compensation in the Spotlight

The original purpose of the Workers’ Compensation Committee was to bring together those individuals from member companies charged with the responsibility of administering the Workers’ Compensation programs for their employers. Each company may have a different approach or method of handling the administration of these claims but they are all governed by the requirements of the Longshore & Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act. Although each individual state has their own Workers’ Compensation laws, most of the member companies of the Virginia Ship Repair Association are subject to jurisdiction of the Federal Act. Virginia, however, is a “concurrent state” where the shipyard workers in most cases, are entitled to benefits under either one or both of the State and Federal Compensation Acts. 
 
The application of these Compensation Acts is primarily based on case law and as there are continuously decisions being made in contested cases, the application of the actual statute changes, or may change, with each new decision. There may also be statutory changes in the underlying laws themselves. 
 
The Workers’ Compensation Committee attempts to keep the membership up to date on any changes in the statutory language of the Compensation Acts, as well as any changes in the administration of claims due to case law decisions. 
 
The Committee also attempts to monitor trends in claims under both the Longshore and State Compensation Acts, changes in the personalities involved in the offices administering those Acts, which include the Virginia Workers’ Compensation Commission and the District Office for the Department of Labor Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs. 
 
The members of the committee are encouraged to bring what may be individual issues they have encountered to the committee as a whole for not only the information of the other members but also to discuss possible actions, remedies, or methods of dealing with the individual concern. The member companies, as well as associates bring a wealth of knowledge and experience in different areas to the Committee and frequently the issue of concern has been encountered by another member previously and various avenues of addressing that concern are brought forward during the Committee meetings. The attendees at the committee meetings vary from month to month but do include not only shipyard members with backgrounds in safety but medical professionals, vocational specialists, and insurance brokers and claims professionals.
 
There are a number of resources available on the internet providing information as to claims administration under both the State and Federal Compensation laws and there are frequent seminars and/or meetings of various organizations which may be of interest to the membership and the Committee attempts to provide information regarding those seminars and meetings for Committee personnel. 
 
The main mission of the Committee is a sharing of information among the attendees and the opportunity to discuss individual, as well as universal problems and trends. It provides a resource for individuals newly rotating into administrative positions within the member companies who may not have a depth of knowledge regarding the tasks before them. It also provides a resource for those individuals who are more well versed in their positions but simply wish to maintain their knowledge of the ever changing conditions and trends within the compensation claims arena. 
 

RADM Brooks CNO Brief Presentation, by Joe Yurso

On February 15, 2007, I attended RADM Brooks’ account of his brief to the Chief of Naval Operations in September 2006. He shared with over 100 people involved with the ship repair industry an excellent overview of the Fleet view of Ship Maintenance. Some of the attendees came from the Nation’s Capitol, but most were from this Hampton Roads area. RADM Brooks’s presentation took almost one and a half hours. The 26 slides covered a broad spectrum of Ship Maintenance. His opening slide gave the formula: Ao = Ao frp + Ao (Life Cycle Focus). This expression indicated that a ship’s overall availability can be viewed as the summation of the ship’s current readiness plus the ship’s ability to sustain current readiness over its life cycle. Current readiness always gets attention as mission-degrading areas are identified and corrected in the near term. However, life cycle readiness degradation is harder to identify, measure and correct. In the competition for resources, there are always more candidate items that can be associated with near term readiness than can be funded. Since degradation of a ship’s life cycle readiness in distributed systems occurs gradually, life cycle related maintenance must be embedded in engineered class maintenance plans, and then carried out with rigor and conviction if ship platforms are to remain ready for mission tasking for their entire planned service life.  RADM Brooks expressed the Navy’s intent to achieve the full service life of ship platforms in order to sustain force levels.
 
The desired outcome of the brief was to enhance the CNO understanding of maintenance governance, maintenance requirements process approach validity, maintenance communication thresholds and the FY07 execution plan. The presentation also gave supporting information of the entire process. He covered where the process is today and the vision for the future of maintaining all Navy Ships. The presentation was informative and professional. The United States Navy is and has been making major changes to their approach to accomplish ship maintenance. In this field of ship maintenance, I include all necessary repairs and all intended ship improvements known in this business as alterations. The extensive changes to the process of accomplishing ship maintenance can only be evaluated over time. The extensive changes have not had the advantage of sufficient time to insure these changes will truly accomplish ship maintenance in the manner the United States Navy intends. i.e. deliver efficiency and effectiveness aligned with the Fleet Response Plan. RADM Brooks advised the CNO was receptive to the information provided in the brief. In addition, he advised that the CNO had many questions and there was active discussion during the briefing.          
 
A copy of the presentation given to the VSRA on 15 February 2007 is available @ http://www.VirginiaShipRepair.org.  All that attended the briefing are urged to visit the web site and review the presentation. A great amount of valuable information is available in that presentation. In addition, for those that missed the opportunity to attend the brief, the entire presentation is available for review.
 

April VSRA General Membership Meeting

In June, 2006, Captain Richard Berkey became the Commander of Norfolk Naval Shipyard.  He took over the shipyard as the Navy was in its final 3 months of transitioning the yard to mission funding.  He also took over as the Navy was planning how to schedule public shipyard repair work with four Naval yards, instead of the three that had been anticipated if BRAC had acted as the Navy recommended.

Come join us to hear Captain Berkey in his first opportunity to address the Virginia Ship Repair Association at our monthly General Membership meeting on Tuesday, April 17th.

VSRA Committee Update

Communication Committee:
The committee reviewed January meeting minutes and the draft February newsletter and discussed the contents of the March newsletter. The Newsletter is easier to find, with its prominent place on menu tab. All agreed that easy access for members and possible future training on accessing the features of the site, is needed. All Committee Members are now required to log in the VSRA site in order to access the committee minutes. This has prompted more visibility of the site. The Communications Committee will review all recommendations for changes to the website and will work to get a counter on the website to track usage.
 
Contracts Committee:
There is an issue of interagency standardization for ship repair procedures. Agencies such as the Army and Coast Guard are not following NAVSEA standard procedures for welding nor are they accepting those procedures. Mal Branch stated that the VSRA was attempting to set up a meeting of all regional ship repair associations and that standardization could potentially be an issue for that meeting. The Committee discussed its 2007 training program and agreed that the training at Nauticus is very successful and that the seminar series has seen declining participation. As a result, the Committee is going to attempt to schedule three training seminars at Nauticus. One will be the annual Standards of Conduct. Others may be government contract training, potentially with a spring course on the basics and a fall course on advanced contract administration issues. Ron Ritter and Joe Yurso briefed the Committee on the current status on the Jinni initiatives. The next Jinni is scheduled for September 2007 in conjunction with the fleet maintenance symposium in Virginia Beach. Ron Ritter briefed the Committee on the Shipbuilders Council of America Meetings. The issues were Transportation Workers’ Identification Cards, Consent, and progress payments on fee. 
 
Human Resources Committee:
The committee discussed smoking in the workplace. The committee finalized its HR survey. The committee also discussed the security issues currently faced at Naval facilities. The Security Committee is currently addressing these issues and will have more information at a later date.
 
Quality Assurance Committee:  
The VSRA Subcontractor Audit Program has transitioned to VSRA website and is accessible by membership. There is also a link on the Quality Assurance page where you can request access to become an auditor or user. The Quality Assurance Committee minutes are now posted on the VSRA web site. The proposed changes for Standard Item submittals are not that far away. Everyone should take at look at the standards for possible changes. This is our only venue to make changes. Changes can be submitted to the QA committee for review. The cofferdam subcommittee will look at revising the standardized cofferdam procedure.
 
Safety and Environmental Committee:
The committee is planning its 12th Annual Safety & Health Seminar for the September time frame. The next OSHA partnership meeting will be held in March. The committee is working on a revision to the VSRA Employee Safety Handbook. The committee is working on getting a Safety Manager’s Certification class for VSRA members. The 4th quarter safety and 2006 Annual Safety Awards will be presented at the March general membership meeting. 
 
Security Committee:
The committee’s guest speaker discussed the requirements for gaining access to Naval facilities. The website is www.nnsy1.na

Earl Industries, LLC Earns Environmental Award

At the ninth annual Elizabeth River Project’s “River Star” Luncheon held on January 25, 2007, Earl Industries, LLC was recognized for the company’s efforts to preserve and protect the Elizabeth River and its tributaries.
 
The Elizabeth River Project is an independent, non-profit organization that is dedicated to restore the Elizabeth River to the highest practical level of environmental quality through government, business, and community partnerships.  The Project’s “River Star” Program is voluntary and recognizes environmentally responsible businesses that reduce toxic wastes, conserve wildlife habitat, or develop and implement other such projects. Earl Industries was recognized for achieving Model Level in the “River Star” Program, the highest of the Program’s three levels.
 
Earl Industries is an engineering and ship repair firm headquartered at the company’s shipyard located at the confluence of the Elizabeth River and Scotts Creek in Portsmouth, Virginia. The company understands its responsibilities to be a conscientious and active participant in restoring and preserving the environmental integrity of this historic and vital maritime waterway and its tributaries. In this regard, some of the initiatives that Earl Industries has accomplished that led to the company’s Model Level “River Star” designation are:
 
·       In coordination with the Elizabeth River Project and neighboring Civic Leagues, formed the Scotts Creek Steering Committee to advise the company on environmental initiatives.
·       Hundreds of native trees have been planted in the buffer along the north shore of Scotts Creek to minimize erosion and storm water runoff.
·       The use of pesticides and defoliants are prohibited from use on company property.
·       A total of approximately 200,000 pounds of scrap metal are recycled per year.
·       Ground water runoff has been stabilized in the shipyard’s Controlled Industrial Area.
·       All external sandblasting operations have been eliminated.
·       A waterless urinal has been installed in the shipyard’s headquarters building saving an estimated 40,000 gallons of water per year.
·       The company has a full time Environmental Coordinator on staff.
·       In coordination with the Elizabeth River Project and the Williamsburg Environmental Group, the company installed a comprehensive Low Impact Development (LID) Project around the headquarters building that prevents runoff pollution from reaching the Elizabeth River. This effort included the installation of biofilters, vegetated filter strips, and a rain barrel.
·       The company has designed and is poised to begin construction on a five story “green” office building on the north shore of Scotts Creek. This building will feature such environmentally-friendly innovations as a 9,100 square foot vegetated green roof, glazed double pane glass windows with integrated roller shades, the use of zero-/low-VOC paints, waterless urinals, bio-retention islands in parking lots, and wetlands plantings for storm water.
 
 
In conclusion, Earl Industries is proud to have earned the Model Level “River Star” designation from the Elizabeth River Project and will continue to implement results-oriented projects at the company’s shipyard location to fulfill its responsibilities to contribute to the preservation of the Elizabeth River and its tributaries.

Educational Opportunities in April

We are pleased to offer the following class in April.
 
NAVSEA Cableway Training and Certification Course
Sponsored by VSRA, AMSEC LLC, and Earl Industries
COST: $585.00 VSRA Members; $675.00 Non-VSRA Members
DATE: April 16-20, 2007 8:00am – 4:00pm
LOCATION: Earl Industries, 3128 Victory Blvd., Portsmouth, VA 23702
Upon successful completion of this course, the attendee will receive a NAVSEA Cableway Certification Card.
 
Emergency First Responder/First Aid/CPR/AED Responder Certification
Sponsored by VSRA and Earl Industries (UCC)
COST: $85.00 VSRA members; $105.00 Non VSRA members
DATE: April 26, 2007 7:30am - 4:30pm
LOCATION: United Coatings Corp., 650 Chautauqua Avenue, Portsmouth, VA 23707
Emergency First Responders ~ OSHA Approved/Internationally Accepted
*This certification is a step beyond the Red Cross certification and is more oriented to industrial environments*
 
 
If you would like to register or receive additional information on either training class, please contact Ann Howell via e-mail (ahowell@VirginiaShipRepair.org) or by phone at (757) 233-7034.

LEGO(tm) Shipbuilding Competition Update

As ship repair work becomes more complex, our industry is challenged to attract bright young minds and interest them in a career maintaining the strongest Naval fleet in the world. To help reach that goal, VSRA member companies partnered with Norfolk Public Schools to launch a LEGO competition that will interest Middle School students in the repair industry. The first two pilot teams are from Blair Middle School, and they are using the LEGO Digital Design Studio to create a ship, or a part of a ship. The teams then develop a written and oral presentation on the occupations that maintain that ship. Each team has an engineering and an occupational consultant to help them. This year, AMSEC LLC took the lead and is working with the teams.
 
Our goal is to have multiple Middle Schools involved each year.  This project is helping build relationships between our industry and the teachers who are so critical to the development of our future workforce.
 
The competition will be held at Nauticus on April 24, 2007 from 8:00 am to 10:00 am. We encourage VSRA members to attend, engage with the kids, and show them your support! Look for the results to be announced in a future VSRA Newsletter.
 
 

April VSRA Meetings

Human Resources Committee
4/4/07 at 11:00 A.M.
Troutman Sanders Office, conference room, 150 Main Street, 16th Floor, Norfolk, Va. 23510
 
Contracts Committee
4/5/07 at 9:30 A.M.
Troutman Sanders Office, conference room, 150 Main Street, 16th Floor, Norfolk, Va. 23510
 
Communications Committee
4/9/07 at 1:00 P.M.
Q.E.D. Systems Inc., conference room, 4646 North Witchduck Rd., Virginia Beach, Va. 23455
 
Quality Assurance Committee
4/10/07 at 10:15 A.M.
Q.E.D. Systems Inc., conference room, 4646 North Witchduck Rd., Virginia Beach, Va. 23455
 
VSRF Board Meeting
4/11/07 at 11:30 A.M.
TBA
 
Safety & Environmental Committee
4/12/07 at 9:00 A.M.
United Coatings Corp., conference room, 650 Chautauqua Ave., Portsmouth, Va. 23707
 
Worker’s Compensation Committee
4/12/07 at 10:00 A.M
United Coatings Corp., conference room, 650 Chautauqua Ave., Portsmouth, Va. 23707
 
Board of Directors Meeting
4/17/07 at 11:00 A.M.
Renaissance Portsmouth Hotel, 425 Water Street, Portsmouth, Va. 23704
 
General Membership Meeting
4/17/07 at 12:00 A.M.
Renaissance Portsmouth Hotel, 425 Water Street, Portsmouth, Va. 23704
 
First Aid/CPR/AED Responder Certification
4/26/07 at 7:30 A.M.
United Coatings Corp., conference room, 650 Chautauqua Ave., Portsmouth, Va. 23707