Philadelphia Post Recognition

2024 Award Recipients

Sustaining Member Firm of the Year: Sevenson Environmental Services. This award shall be presented by the Post to a sustaining member firm in recognition of outstanding contributions to the Society of American Military Engineers and/or the military engineering profession. To be eligible for the award, the firm must be a current sustaining member of the Philadelphia Post, SAME in good standing.

Young Member Award: Kyle Young, Bluestone Environmental. This award shall be presented by the Post in recognition of superior achievement by a Young Member. To be eligible for the award, the recipient must be a current young member (under the age of 40) of the Philadelphia Post, SAME at the time the award is presented.

Notable Achievement Award: LTC Drobenak, VFMAC. This award shall be presented by the Post in recognition of outstanding contribution by the recipient to the military engineering profession and its practice. To be eligible for the award, the recipient must be a current member of the Philadelphia Post, SAME in good standing at the time the award is presented.

Service Award: Stephanie Sherwood, Weston Solutions. This award shall be presented by the Post in recognition of extraordinary effort by the recipient in maintaining and advancing the objectives of the Post. To be eligible for the award, the recipient must be a current member of the Philadelphia Post, SAME in good standing at the time the award is presented.

Sustaining Member Firm of the Year: Colliers Engineering

Young Professional Award: Alexis Witt, Weston Solutions

Notable Achievement Award: Mike Hansen, Verina Consulting Group

Service Award: Peter Gori, USACE Philadelphia District

Sustaining Member Firm of the Year: KOMAN Family of Companies

Young Professional Award: DCHWS Committee

Notable Achievement Award: Patricia A. Coughlan

Service Award: Roland de Guzman, PE, CEM, CDR, CEC, USN (ret)

Sustaining Member of the Year: Wood.

Wood has been a sustaining member for over 34 years.  Wood (previously AMEC) has been a strong supporter of the SAME Philadelphia Post since they became a sustaining member.  Wood has 201 members listed on their roster and are a member of 59 Posts and 1 Field Chapter.  Wood, under previous names has been awarded the:

JW Morris Sustaining Member Award Large Company
2006 AMEC 
2001 Foster Wheeler
Large Business Award for support of small business 

Often one of our highest financial supporters, they sponsor events, encourage their employees to attend events and allow employees to hold leadership positions within the society.  Wendy Parker, an employee of Wood has been on the Philadelphia Post board since 2008.  She won the National YM Award in 2013.

Service Award Group: Washington Crossing Project Team

The impact of the SAME Philadelphia Post’s Washington Crossing National Cemetery (WCNC) Project Committee and its successful efforts through dedicated volunteers has yielded a significant upgrade to the WCNC’s Scattering Garden; located in Newtown, PA. Working in collaboration with WCNC representatives, the area now features proper drainage and a defined new landscape design provided by Maser team member, Jay DeFelicis – for veterans’ sacred cremains to be put to rest by their loved ones. Lewis Environmental, in partnership with Foley Cat, donated two days of labor to successfully construct a new secondary retaining wall and drainage system in support of the overall design. Concrete blocks from abandoned storage bins at the WCNC were repurposed and used to build the new retaining wall (both sustainable and saving WCNC a good deal of money). In addition, the field stones excavated from grading the site were used to complete the wall façade to cosmetically tie in the two retaining walls.

During the Committee’s planning stage to upgrade the scattering garden, the Guardians of the WCNC reached out to gain SAME assistance to drill holes for new flag poles; unable to drill through the granite-filled soil. The Committee responded by engaging TWS Environmental (TWS), a Service-Disabled Veteran Owned Small business (SDVOSB) from Wilmington, Delaware to lead the project, along with TetraTech team member, Carl Rodzewich. TWS donated and provided the project management, mark out, and labor for this endeavor, partnering with Sunbelt Rentals who donated a bobcat auger to complete the project. In the end, this team sunk 22 holes to complete the Avenue of Flags, ensuring that this feature will continue to represent patriotism and national pride at the WCNC for future generations.

Special thanks to Feeney’s Nursery, Clearview Nursery and Maser Consulting for foliage donations, Tetra Tech’s Langhorne, PA office for their donation of Riprap stone and the Philadelphia Post WCNC Project Committee: Chairwoman Laura Saunders (Maser Consulting), Carl Rodzewich (Tetra Tech), Diane Lucas (Tetra Tech), Dustin Kapson (AKRF), Stavros Patselas (Tetra Tech), Gerald (Jay) DeFelicis (Maser Consulting), Mike Hansen (Verina Consulting Group), and our construction partners: Lewis Environmental and TWS Environmental. With over 35 volunteers who gathered on a Saturday morning in October, additional appreciation to the NJ S.A.M.E. Post members, Conwell Egan High School students, the local VFW Post, Cedarville Engineering and the friends, family and colleagues who armed themselves with shovels to dig and plant approximately 150 trees, shrubs and perennials until the design was perfectly achieved by mid-day.

Service Award Individual: Roy Denmark, Urban

• Member Philadelphia Post since 1985
• Philadelphia Post Secretary 1986 – 1991
• Chair or co-chair of the Post’s Annual Golf Classic since its inception in 1988
• Philadelphia Post Board of Directors since 1999
• Philadelphia Post President 2014-2015
• Scholarship Committee 

Roy has been dedicated to SAME for 35 years!  Throughout his SAME career, he has always been a committed and loyal member, supporter, sponsor, mentor, and the list goes on.  This small token of our gratitude can’t possibly speak for the years and years of service to our society and our post.  Thank you Roy!

Young Member Award: Lindsay Keller, Ramboll

Lindsay Keller joined the SAME community in 2018 and is currently a sustaining member with Ramboll.  During this time, she has helped organize and volunteer at several local events including the Liberty Golf Classic scholarship fundraiser.  As part of the Resiliency Committee for the annual Philadelphia Resiliency Symposium, Lindsay has helped develop the technical program for the event and interface with presenters.  Lindsay was also selected as the Philadelphia Post’s young professional representative at the 2019 SAME National Joint Engineer Training Conference in Tampa, Florida.

Notable Achievement: Kate Garufi, EPA

Denver SAME Post member since December 2016.  For the past seven years, I, on behalf of EPA, have facilitated the EPA co-sponsorship of the Design and Construction Issues at Hazardous Waste Sites (DCHWS) events with the SAME Philadelphia Post. The purpose of this co-sponsorship is to enhance communication networks and promote continued information exchange among professionals from the private and public sectors regarding design and construction issues at hazardous waste sites. In the beginning years, the co-sponsorship focused on the delivery of a DCHWS symposium every spring in Philadelphia.  Since its inception, this event has grown to over 400 attendees.  In addition, the co-sponsorship has expanded to include the Denver Metro Post to support execution of a sister West symposium event and most recently a webinar and in-person training series.

Sustaining Member Firm of the Year- Cohen Seglias Pallas Greenhall & Furman PC

Cohen Seglias, a law firm representing government contractors, has maintained a strong relationship with the Philadelphia Post of the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) since Michael Payne, chair of firm’s Government Contracting Group, first joined in 1983. As the firm and its Government Contracting Group grew, Cohen Seglias remained committed to the local Philadelphia Post and its members. Over the years, the firm has represented various Philadelphia Post members, providing legal services and guidance on federal contracts. Cohen Seglias attorneys are active with SAME, both locally and nationally. The firm and its attorneys regularly sponsor, attend, present, and exhibit at events including the Philadelphia Post Annual Golf Outing (2018, 2019), the Philadelphia Post’s Small Business Conference (2016–2019), the Joint Engineer Training and National Small Business Conferences (2017–2019), and the 2018 SAME Federal Small Business Conference. Cohen Seglias increased its commitment when it recently became a Sustaining Member. Partner Robert Ruggieri currently serves as Elective Governance Director to the SAME Philadelphia Post Board of Directors. In this position, Bob assists in the development and execution of the professional construction and engineering education programs, which actively promote an understanding of the legal, compliance, regulatory, and contracting aspects of governing contracting.
Young Member Award- Jaimie Wright KOMAN Holdings 

Ms. Wright has been a member of the SAME Philadelphia Post since 2017 where she is part of the Communications, DCHWS, Awards, and Young Member committees. In 2018, Ms. Wright was elected to the Philadelphia Post Board of Directors for a three-year term. As Communications Chair, she is responsible for all communications for the Post including the website; event emails; social media pages including Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn; and Eventbrite. She often volunteers to take care of tasks associated with all aspects of Post meeting coordination and communication to ensure each event runs smoothly. Working for KOMAN Holdings, LLC, she is responsible for assisting subsidiary business development staff in presentations and proposals; supports the corporate-wide branding strategy; conducts market research; and is responsible for updating and maintaining all of the KOMAN Family of Companies websites. Ms. Wright has a BS in Marketing from West Chester University. In addition to SAME, Ms. Wright is also an active member of SMPS.
Notable Achievement Award- Maria Antonia Andrews University of Pennsylvania

Ms Maria Antonia Andrews is the Associate Director of Undergraduate Programs in the Earth and Environmental Science Department at the University of Pennsylvania. She has been teaching graduate and undergraduate courses at Penn since 2003 in the fields of Geochemistry, Environmental Chemistry and Air Pollution. She is a member of the Stakeholder Advisory Board for the Community Outreach and Engagement Core of the Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology (CEET) at the Perelman School of Medicine at Penn where she co-directs the Short Term Educational Experiences for Research program. She is the faculty advisor for the Penn Engineers Without Borders (EWB) Chapter. As an advisor and a mentor for EWB she participates in water access, sanitation and hygiene projects in rural Guatemala. Ms. Andrews is active in SAME including as an At-Large Director for the Philadelphia Post and Co-Chair for the Scholarship Committee. She has been serving the Society as an active member since 2017. Ms. Andrews has contributed to the Society’s mission of Industry-Government engagement, as well as student outreach, by significantly increasing university participation in the Post’s Symposium on Design and Construction Issues at Hazardous Waste Sites. Additionally, Ms. Andrews was instrumental in creating and maintaining the partnership between the Philadelphia Post and the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business-Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership, which increases Industry-Academia engagement. She has also served as the Post’s unofficial event photographer for the last 2 years.
Service Award- Rocco P. RomagnoliUS Army of Corops of Engineers

Mr. Romagnoli joined SAME in 1993 and has been a substantial part of the post ever since. As Post Secretary, Mr. Romagnoli scheduled dinner meetings and sent out paper invitations for each event prior to the use of online registration. He welcomed guests at the registration table at every event to collect payment long before credit card payments were accepted! Mr. Romagnoli prepared monthly meeting notices and info bulletins, maintained and updated membership files, prepared streamer justifications, served as liaison with National, and many other multi-faceted duties over his 26 years. With the advancement of online registration tools and National’s resources, Mr. Romagnoli’s responsibilities have become more efficient or handled online, but he still compiles Board of Direction meeting minutes, maintains records of Board members, and nearly everything else the post requests of him. Mr. Romagnoli also preserved a lot of the Post’s history, and was able to locate the original 1920 charter of the post which he recently had framed to highlight the centennial celebration of the Philadelphia Post coming up in 2020. Mr. Romagnoli has provided decades of unwavering and loyal service to the Philadelphia Post.

2018

• Sustaining Member Firm of the Year: OBG
• Young Member Award: Mr. Dan Amate, GZA
• Notable Achievement Award: Mr. John J. Smith, J.J. Smith Environmental Consultants
• Service Award: Ms. Amy D’Alonzo-Basehoar F. SAME KOMAN Holdings

2017

• Sustaining Member Firm of the Year: Urban Engineers
• Young Member Award: Mr. Michael Badeau, Stell Environmental
• Notable Achievement Award: Mr. Lyle Trumbull, OBG
• Service Award: Mr. Jeffrey York
  Membership Anniversary Milestones
• View the list of Membership Anniversary Milestones.
• Event Photos
• View the event photos.

2016

• Sustaining Member Firm of the Year: CDM Smith
• Young Member Award: Mr. Gordon G. Araujo Jr, REGENESIS
• Notable Achievement Award: USACE, Philadelphia District
• Service Award: Mr. Jerald A. Jones, USACE Philadelphia District

2015

• Sustaining Member Firm of the Year: TTI Environmental, Inc
• Young Member Award: James S. Blake II (OBG) 
• Notable Achievement Award: COL Andrew G. Wilcox (USMC) 
• Service Award: James M. Romig (CDM Smith)

2014

• Sustaining Member Firm of the Year: Weston
• Young Member Award: Kierston Koory, Lewis Environmental
• Notable Achievement Award: Rad Delaney, AECOM
• Service Award: CAPT Charlie Shields, USN

2013

• Sustaining Member Firm of the Year: Dewberry
• Young Member Award: Wendy Parker, AMEC
• Notable Achievement Award: COL George Cressman, Bohler Engineering
• Service Award: Karen Buniak, TTI Environmental