NASA has started soliciting proposals for a potential 10-year, follow-on contract covering research operations, maintenance and engineering support services to Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

The space agency intends to conduct a full-and-open competition for the Center Maintenance, Operations and Engineering II contract in support of LaRCs technical research facilities, according to a solicitation notice published Wednesday.

Jacobs (NYSE: J), the incumbent CMOE contractor, won a $742 millon award in 2013. The company provides research facilities operations, technology development and administration, central utilities operations, facility engineering and research and institutional maintenance support under the contract.

The CMOE II contract will have a 15-month base term, four 24-month option periods and another nine-month option term.

The agency expects the competitive acquisition process to result in one contract award by the end of March 2024 and anticipates CMOE II to take effect on July 1, 2024.

Interested stakeholders can submit questions related to the request for proposals until Sept. 4.

NASA will accept proposals through Sept. 28.

Excerpt from:

Final RFP Issued for NASA's Center Maintenance, Operations ... - GovCon Wire

Beginning this fall, undergraduate engineering students at the University of Toronto will be able to augment their degree with anew certificate in public policy and engineering.

The program is the result of a collaboration between the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering and the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy in the Faculty of Arts & Science.

The idea to create a certificate in public policy actually came from students who were chatting with [U of T Engineering Dean]Chris Yip at the University of Toronto Engineering Kompetition in 2022, saysDionne Aleman, a professor in the department of mechanical and industrial engineering andassociate dean of cross-disciplinary programs at U of T Engineering.

We began co-ordinating with the Munk School a few months later and here we are launching the certificate in 2023. Its a perfect example of how we can create unique educational opportunities to suit our students interests tell us what you want, and we will find a way to make it happen.

There are many challenges around the world that cannot be solved without close coordination between engineering and policy makers, saysDaniel Posen, an associate professor in the department of civil and mineral engineeringwho was part of the team that helped support the new programs creation.

These challenges exist in a wide range of areas: climate change, energy, the environment, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, space policy, urban design and more. It is hugely beneficial for engineers to bring their technical expertise to the policy space, and for engineers to understand how policy affects their design constraints.

The new certificate consists of three half-course requirements, which can be completed as part of the elective credits in a students program or taken as extra credits.

Virtually every engineering project is also a public policy project, in that they involve the allocation of public resources and have an impact on public life, saysAlexandra Rahr, assistant professor, teaching stream, and director of undergraduate programs and student experience at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy.

At the same time, engineers have expertise that make them natural partners when it comes to creating effective public policy. This certificate is designed to give engineering students the fluency they need in the language of policy design and implementation, so that theyre not sitting on the outside, but instead can be active participants in that process.

The first course provides an introduction to microeconomics, a foundational element of public policy, designed for students with an engineering background. The second course looks at the political and social institutions that are involved in making public policy, from legislators to advocacy groups and professional associations.

The final course acts as a capstone in which students will apply the skills they have developed to analyze case studies of public engineering projects. By looking at both the intended and unintended consequences of policy-making, they can gain insights that inform their own practice.

We know from experience that a number of engineering graduates already choose to enrol in our master of public policy program, so there is a desire on their part to learn more about these policy frameworks, says Rahr.

Ideally, what we hope for graduates of this certificate whether they go on to work in engineering, or in public policy, or some field that combines the two is that they become effective and fluent practitioners of policy who are deeply engaged with the public good.

Read more from the original source:

U of T certificate program merges engineering and public policy - University of Toronto

ROCKINGHAM LKC Engineering will be responsible for another water-related project in Richmond County.

The Board of Commissioners last week approved an agreement with the Moore County-based firm for the engineering of a sewer pump station near the southern end of Rockingham Speedways property.

Public Works Director Jerry Austin said there will be no infrastructure work on the speedway property this is all public property.

Weve been working with LKC on numerous projects over the last six years and theyve been on this project from day one, Austin said. Weve got a very good relationship.

In addition to the station itself, the project also calls for the installation of 3,400 feet of 8-inch forced main sewer line down N.C. 177 to the intersection with E.V. Hogan Drive, across from CSX, according to Austin.

The project does not include the internal gravity sewer line on the speedway property.

The proposed capacity will be 500,000 gallons per day.

The total budget for the project is listed as $7,656,000. Austin said that estimate was as of June 23. However, with rising inflation, Austin said theres a possibility the costs could increase.

A breakdown of the costs include:

Funding for the project comes from the $9 million appropriated to the county via the American Rescue Plan in 2021 for water and sewer and related infrastructure projects for service to the Rockingham Speedway.

Contrary to perception and most other media reports, the money did not go directly to the speedway and was specifically earmarked for water and sewer infrastructure.

Some of that funding was used late last year to repave the oval.

Austin said the funding has to be approved for use by 2024 and the project has to be complete by the end of 2026.

Finance Office Cary Garner told commissioners that the county is holding out for additional funding from the upcoming state budget.

Commissioner Jason Gainey asked if residents along the six-mile stretch would be able to tie in to the sewer line.

Austin said there would have to be extra infrastructure improvements for the neighborhoods along that road.

You cant just run out and tie in to the sewer main, Ausin said, but added that it would be possible.

County Manager Bryan Land said the line would be passing several existing industries, including Enviva and CSX: Weve got a lot of opportunities.

Land also mentioned Polivka International wanting to expand. That company, based in Weddington, was granted a synthetic minor air permit from the N.C. Division of Environmental Quality in January 2021 for the planned International Tie Disposal plant off of N.C. 177.

Commissioners also approved a resolution of intent regarding the closure and abandonment of a section of Lassiter Road, at the request of Vulcan Lands, LLC.

According to the resolution, the section is south of Tillman Road and north of Mary Evans Road.

The resolution is conditioned upon NCDOTs stated willingness and intent to abandon any property interests it has or may have in the roadway, easements, and/or rights-of-way

A public hearing is scheduled for the next meeting on Sept. 12.

Read the original:

Richmond County Commissioners OK agreement with LKC ... - The Richmond Observer

Getting hired as an engineering manager for the first time means youve already shown you have the right mix of technical experience and people skills. But there are certain things to keep in mind that will help you start on the right foot and avoid some pitfalls of management. Here are five to get you going.

Why its important: Knowing your organizational preferences will determine how successful you are at leading a group of people to get things done in a set amount of time (in other words, your job).

Ask yourself how much organization you need to be comfortable with your team. How organized do you need your team and its processes to be in order to be confident your team can achieve its goals?

Take sprint planning, for example. Will you run that loosely or tightly? I've worked with folks who were way more organized than I am, and their sprint planning was driven off of the Jira board. Everything was story pointed, and they knew they would do A, B, C, all the way through to Z.

Ive also worked with looser approaches. These managers approach sprint planning with, What are we getting done this week? What's going to come out the other side? They might know the functionality itll have and a general sense of how to break down the work, and thats enough for them to feel confident in getting the work done.

Theyre very different styles, and both can work.

The point is, I havent seen many managers succeed in adopting something that doesn't fit their natural tendencies. More often than not, they fail when they're trying to emulate somebody or a process that doesnt align with their preferred working style.

The engineering manager is the one taking on the responsibility to organize a group of people to get things delivered. As the new person coming in, you have to figure out what works for you and your team.

All this is going to determine your satisfaction and confidence in the way your team works. Its your team, and you need to be comfortable with how they operate so youre not second-guessing things. You need a process that allows you and your team to thrive.

Why its important: Your manager judges your success on what information you give them and how you present it.

Whereas the first tip is about your working style and interactions with those who work below you, this tip is about acknowledging your managers working style and how youll conform to it while maintaining your own.

Figure out how much reporting up your manager wants -- are they a details person, a big-picture person, or (hopefully not) a micro-manager?

The reality is, their style might be very different from yours. You might be very organized, but your manager is very loose. You might show them the sprint board, but they only want to know how its all going, what youre delivering, and where you are in the process.

Your level of organization will likely be able to produce that information; you just need to present it differently. If your organizational approach doesnt easily produce the information your manager needs, you need to adjust your process -- but you can still do that in your own way.

I've had direct reports who were more organized than I was, and I had to tell them that their sprint board didnt mean anything to me. I could tell the team did a lot of work, but I wanted them to zoom out, give me a sense of where they were at, and if there was risk involved in that project.

Heres a reality check, though. You'll switch managers, and all of a sudden you have a totally different universe.

For example, I reported to a very hands-off, trusting manager at Bitbucket. I was enjoying the autonomy, until my manager changed, and then I hated my job. The new manager was a micromanager who wanted to know details 10 layers in.

I was on top of all of those things, but he was stressed because he didnt know the answer to everything. It meant I spent more time documenting what I knew so that he could know them too. If I didn't do it, my life was going to be even more unenjoyable than it already was reporting to this guy.

Coming from an individual contributor role, you might not be used to reporting up much. Understanding who you work for is hugely important. Even if you don't like them much, you have to figure out how to work with them. They're your boss.

Why its important: The expectations will create the landscape of your job, and you have to be able to meet them.

Every company does things differently, but the lowest common denominator typically is that engineering managers have responsibility for both the personal and technical sides of things -- but the emphasis can be quite different.

There's a big debate in the industry about whether engineering managers should code or not. I think EMs should focus on doing impactful, useful things. Coding is a distraction. But some organizations want EMs to spend a percentage of their time coding, which creates a very different job layout.

This ties into how technical youre expected to be. I've worked at places where they wanted EMs to have a nuanced understanding of how to build and grow teams, make them efficient, and use the roles on the team, while also having enough technical acumen to know whats BS and whats legit, but not necessarily have to answer technical questions.

At other places, they want you to be able to do the technical work if you had to and have technical conversations. Likely, youll know this before getting hired into an EM role, but its important to know what mix of expectations will make you satisfied in your job.

Why its important: Getting hiring wrong is hugely expensive, time consuming, and frustrating.

I entered management not realizing that hiring can be 50% or more of the job, and not understanding what it meant to be good at it.

I went through a phase where I figured the organization would ultimately handle hiring. Only after messing it up for many years did I realize that not taking it more seriously led to big problems.

Even if you work for a giant organization that has a robust hiring process, if it's not doing what you need it to do, youre not going to get a great squad.

So, figure out what you and your team need to do to hire well. This means many things:

Own your candidate pool and hiring processes such that your team can be successful.

I never really wanted to know how to hire well, but when I realized I wasnt very good at it, I thought, How do I get better? I read some books, took ideas I liked, and came up with a structure for what to test for in interviews.

If your team says a candidate seemed good but nobody was really thrilled with them, then you don't hire them, because youve agreed you're the type of team that's looking to be thrilled.

Understand the hiring expectation, too. Is your team growing? Whats the right configuration of who you have and what you need? Determine what skills youre missing and what skills would augment the team.

I've interviewed people who were brilliant, but Id never hire them because they werent team players and theyd destroy the team's cohesiveness.

I was interviewing a manager who seemed great to all of my other managers. But our most senior engineer, who is the nicest guy on the planet, had nothing good to say about the candidate because of the way he asked about things. That told me something wasnt right with this candidate.

So, be intentional about hiring. You might think theres some degree of trial and error -- you hire someone who checked all the boxes but they end up not performing well -- but thats an expensive experiment.

You're hiring because you're behind, and you need somebody to help you get ahead. If you mis-hire, now instead of having somebody who's helping you get more done, you have somebody whos a problem and takes up 50 percent of your week. You want to be fair, so you spend time meeting with them more often, trying to help them succeed.

But often it doesnt work out. So bulletproof your hiring process.

Why its important: Its the best way to improve and be effective.

You can keep all of these tips in mind as you start your new role. But the best advice is to jump in and do the work. Get your hands dirty. Make mistakes and learn from them and make fewer mistakes next time. The worst thing you can do is aim for perfection -- the enemy of good.

Run an experiment for a process change. If your team shows up to the retro and says the system you came up with is garbage, change it again.

Set a goal to change something at least once a month to zero in on whats working and what isn't. Even if everything seems to be working, there's always one thing to do to be a little bit better.

If all the devs complain about something that you don't think is a big deal, but it's affecting their morale, shake up the process and see what works better. The best managers who have worked under me do this in real time, all the time.

As with any role, itll take time to figure out what processes and dynamics work for you and your team. But for engineering managers in particular, the faster you do this the sooner your team will run efficiently, be happy, and be a source of your satisfaction.

The rest is here:

5 Tips To Crush It as a First-Time Engineering Manager - InformationWeek