NASA UNITeS Team

June 16, 2008

Subject: BGS welcomes Mr John Richardson to the team on June 16.2008

NASA ESTS Team

June 9, 2008

Subject: BGS welcomes Mr. Gabriel Dambaugh to the team on June 9, 2008

Gabriel Dambaugh joined BGS on June 9, 2008.as Director of Engineering Analysis.  A native of Charleston, SC, Gabe graduated the University of South Carolina, Columbia with a Master of Engineering, Mechanical Engineering Degree.  He has over eighteen years of mechanical engineering experience including ten years of structural finite element analysis.  Gabe will be working with our Composite Materials group at NASA.  Join us in welcoming Gabe to the BGS Team.

NASA UNITeS Team

February, 29 2008

Subject: BGS welcomes Mrs. Stacy Mitchell to the team on Feb 29.2008

Stacy, a graduate of Auburn University comes to us from Sanmina-SCI where she spent several years as a Software Analyst, Senior Programmer Analyst, and XML Services Supervisor.  Stacy is a seasoned IT professional and is a great addition to the BGS IT services group. 

NASA UNITeS Team

February, 25 2008

Subject: BGS welcomes Ms. Daphne Ewing Joins BGS.

Daphne Ewing joins BGS from the Northop Grumman AMDWS M&S team.  Daphne, a graduate of the University of Alabama has resided in Huntsville for most of her career. She is a highly skilled software engineer with a history of quality at a high performance pace.  Daphne was requested by name to rejoin the UNITeS team.  She is a welcomed BGS addition.

NASA UNITeS Team

October, 1 2007

Subject: BGS Employee helps NASA streamline FISMA

B.G. Smith & Associates’ Jim McCraw identified as a key team member to help streamline the NASA’s FISMA reporting.  FISMA requires each agency to track metrics on many different functional areas of information technology security.  The agencies are required to develop an agency-wide security program, implement and adhere to security configuration standards developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Identify and resolve risks, perform ongoing assessment and testing, and conduct annual reviews on the effectiveness of the agency’s information security and privacy programs and report the results to the Office of Management and Budget annually.  

At NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, a team of four key personnel make up the Information Technology Security Center (ITSC), which is an application that automates the FISMA reporting.  “BGS is proud to be a part of the team and want to help streamline processes and reduce overall cost to the NASA operations.” says Betty Smith, CEO and President.

 Click here to read the story by published Government Computer News (GCN)

NASA UNITeS Team

August 23, 2007

Subject:  BGS Employee was honored by the Standards Engineering Society(SES)

A key member of the BGS UNITeS team  was bestowed a membership into the Standards Engineering Society (SES).  The BGS member's nomination and ultimate membership into the organization was based on superior performance and heavy involvement  with several projects that are directly related to the society's mission.

NASA ESTS Team

August, 16 2007

Subject:  Dr. Paul Munafo Joins BGS

B.G. Smith & Associates, Inc. (BGS), a leading systems, solutions, and technical company, is proud to announce that Dr. Paul Munafo has joined its team as vice president of engineering services. Dr. Munafo will direct BGS’s growing aerospace engineering business.

Munafo brings a tremendous amount of expertise and skill to the BGS staff. Previously, Dr. Munafo served as Chief Engineer in the Chief Engineer’s Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) from December 2005 to June 2007. Also, Dr. Munafo was manager of the Materials, Processes and Manufacturing Department at MSFC and under his leadership the department achieved a national reputation for the analysis and resolution of hardware problems in human space flight systems.

 Among his major accomplishments, Dr. Munafo acted as the sole representative of NASA to the European Space Agency I.  As such, he incorporated the principles of fracture control to the project and thereby enabled the safe deployment of the Spacelab. Additionally, he developed a methodology for assuring the flight worthiness of the Hubble Space Telescope’s composite structures. And, Dr. Munafo advanced the technology of two new stress corrosion resistant alloys from the “test tube” stage to the point that they were used in major flight systems. He also led development of aluminum lithium technology, including the detailed welding procedures that enable the use of that material in the super lightweight external tank. Dr. Munafo has authored dozens of technical papers and received more than 40 NASA awards at the individual and team levels, including a Presidential Rank Award, Distinguished Service Medal, and Outstanding Leadership Medal.

NASA UNITeS Team

May 11, 2007

Subject: NTSP Metric Dashboard

Below is a letter that was received by BGS providing positive feedback aimed at Mr. Jay Johnston and other BGS team members.

John,

The NTSP Metric Dashboard is better than we imagined it could be.  It has met and exceeded our expectations and requirements for the program.  We would like to continue to have  BGS team members do some other maintenance on the project above and beyond the initial ROM estimate.  

Best Regards,

Danny

NASA UNITeS Team

June 11, 2007

Subject: The B.G. Smith & Associates team plays a vital role in the NASA Technical Standards Program...

The NASA Technical Standards Program (NTSP) is sponsored by the NASA Chief Engineer. The Program has as its primary mission the enhancement of NASA's engineering capabilities. This is being accomplished by providing technical standards required by the Agency through the support and adoption of non-Government standards, developing NASA standards where needed, and providing NASA-wide access to standards developed by national and international organizations. In addition, the value of standards provided is enhanced by integrating lessons learned, application notes, and having a standards update notification system for the Agency's users of standards. This Website provides access to these and related standards products. This unique NASA Integrated Technical Standards System is made available to help the Agency meet the future demands for timely, productive, and reliable space systems and contribute to improved cost.

This thrust is being reinforced and expanded based on feedbacks from the engineering staff of NASA and its supporting contractors.

Information on standards is a service that could not be done without; however, measuring the need of that information is a difficult task. For the life of the NTSP contract, hundreds of thousands of rows of metric data has been accumulating in SQL tables. The metric data was essentially unusable for the layperson since it needed to be interpreted through highly complex SQL queries and represented clearly via graphs that could dynamically symbolize the results of those SQL queries. Jay Johnston has been able to support this need by developing object oriented, web based software that queries, interprets, and represents the metric data. This need aids the NTSP management in securing necessary NASA funding to continue the ever needed standards information dissemination.

NASA ESTS Team

June 11, 2007

Subject: BGS is a critical component in the National Center for Advanced Manufacturing - Louisiana Partnership (NCAM-LP) Operational Readiness Review  (ORR)...

Over the past few months BGS has been heavily with NASA, University of New Orleans (UNO), and the State of Louisiana with respect to the NCAM-LP transition to UNO.

The NCAM-LP partnership was formed between NASA, the State of Louisiana, and The University of New Orleans (UNO). It was established to address NASA's next generation programs and projects.  NCAM-LP offers services in four major areas which are production operations, education and training, business and economic development, and research and development which are combined to provide leadership in technology.  The State of Louisiana recognizes NCAM-LP and how critical this enterprise is to the future economy within the greater New Orleans area. The Louisiana Department of Economic Development has committed millions of dollars to expand the NCAM-LP project and to facilitate the continued growth of the economy in the region around the Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF).

NCAM-LP at the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) is transitioning the work environment from a single-use, single-tenant facility to a multi-use, multi-tenant facility that can serve as the cornerstone for entrepreneurial economic rebirth in the Greater New Orleans Region. The UNO is committed to this rebirth and to supporting the continued growth at MAF. UNO has for many years partnered with NASA and others to create the National Center for Advanced Manufacturing – Louisiana Partnership (NCAM-LP), which now holds great promise for use on new NASA programs and projects and for attracting new customers.

"Thank you very much with your help on this project. Derrick has been an invaluable asset to our mission and with his involvement this transition will be a great success for NCAM-LP."

Bruce Brailsford

Executive Director

National Center for Advanced Manufacturing-LP

NASA UNITeS Team

A note of appreciation from the NOMAD Handheld Device Migration Team

February 26, 2007

Subject:  Jay Johnston

As MSFC moved from a local electronic mail services to the new agency-wide NASA Operational Messaging and Directory (NOMAD0 environment, the MSFC Telecommunication team was faced quite a challenge.  During the six week migration period, nearly 7000 MSFC users migrated to NOMAD in large groups each Tuesday and Thursday nightly.  In each of those groups, up to 15% of the users had personal digital assistants (PDAs) supported by our team, and each of those devices needed to be retrieved, updated, and returned to their users.  The schedule and workload would have overwhelmed our small team.  Thanks to your help, wee were able to augment our team with some outstanding contributors who enabled us to process over 650 handheld devices during the migration.

I want to thank you for allowing Jay Johnston to assist our team.  He was quickly able to learn the process and his eager and exuberant nature allowed him to fit in well with our team.  Jay was more than willing to help by helping with device deliveries in our effort to return VIP devices quickly.  Jay’s diligence and attention to detail ensured that we never missed a deadline and that our customers received fully functional devices.

The NOMAD Handheld Device Migration Team wishes to extend their appreciation for Jay’s outstanding service.  We also appreciate your willingness to contribute this vital team member who helped another UNITeS team achieve success.

Sincerely

D. Alan Cunningham, Manager

UNITeS MSFC Telecommunications Services

NASA UNITeS Team

Date: December, 11 2006

Subject:  CMS – we have a success!!

BGS, please see the messages below.  This was a major accomplishment for UNITeS and MSFC to produce and deliver NASA’s first SmartCard.  Karen is our of NASA HQ customer that funds the project that Jason is working on.  Jason Betts was our main player on this project, and deserves most of the credit.  We could not have done it without him.

Steve

Message:

I would like to offer my sincere “Thanks You” for all of the effort that you all have put into accomplishing the production of our PIV-2 card.  I know that some of you have been working  weekends to get past the integration challenges and last minute COTS software releases, etc.

I am really very proud of the work that you all have done.  The energy, creativity and innovation that you all have applied to solving some of our challenges is impressive.  And, especially with your ability to implement a card production request through ldM, you have mitigated a serious shortcoming and saved the agency a noteworthy amount of money.

We’ve met the 2006 milestone, now we have to keep up our energy and focus on the 2007 milestone.  We’ve produced one card, now we have to get prepared to produce 90,000 more in the next 365 days.  That is a huge challenge, and its going to take the full commitment of a very talented team to make it happen.  I know that we can get there.

Congratulations, Thank you, and keep up the great work!

Karen

NASA (Agency Wide) Date: October, 23-24 2006   Subject:  Composites Damage Tolerance Assessment Workshop   This workshop was organized by the B. G. Smith Company and held in Huntsville during October 23-24, 2006. The purpose of the workshop was to assess the readiness of composites, especially from the standpoint of damage tolerance, for application on man-rated primary structures of the Crew Launch Vehicle (CLV) and others hardware within the Constellation Program. The attendees included NASA MSFC CLV personnel and a set of experts and consultants from B.G. Smith selected to represent the various technologies needed to understand the readiness of these materials for application on the CLV. The full attendance list is given in appendix 1. The workshop also began dialogue for the establishment of a working group on composites within the agency, industry and academia. During the course of the workshop the various potential applications of composites were evaluated and emphasis was placed on near term considerations for the CLV interstage.  Recommendations were made for work to be done over the next six months that would allow NASA to make technically sound decisions on the use of graphite/epoxy composites as load-bearing structures of the upper stage of the CLV.