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Kiss-a-Pig 2011
July 27th, 2011
At Frederick Ward Associates, we take pride in serving our community through volunteerism and financial support. For the past 18 months, I have proudly served as Board President for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Harford County. Our clubs provide much needed after school care and support to over 1,800 youth members throughout Harford County.
Our mission is “To enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens. We fulfill this mission by offering a daily schedule of quality programs in the areas of:
- Character and Leadership Development
- Education
- Health and Life Skills
- The Arts
- Sports, Fitness & Recreation
In order to provide these great programs, our clubs are staffed with trained professionals as well as community volunteers. Therefore, our biggest expense is the investment we make in our dedicated staff that serves our membership.
Due to the changing economic and political environments, our funding sources are quickly evolving from a government supported model to a community based financial support model. We work hard to meet our goal through unique fundraising events. One of those events is our annual Kiss-a-Pig.
The Kiss-a-Pig event involves “candidates” competing for the most “votes” (financial support) to reward their effort of locking lips with a friendly little stub faced farm creature. So on behalf of the Board of Directors, a huge thank you goes out to this year’s 13 candidates:
- Linda Aaby, The Aegis
- Steve Behymer, The Towne Pub & Restaurant, Ravens Nest #26
- Glenn Gillis from SURVICE Engineering Company
- Lance Hersh, Saxon’s Diamond Center/Aberdeen Rotary
- Vicki Mengel, That Sports Store
- Matt Pramschufer, E-Moxie
- Vi Ripken, Boys & Girls Clubs of Harford County
- Wini Roche, Harford County Office of Tourism
- Tamera Rush, SRC & Women In Defense
- Chris Seling, Christopher Seling and Associates
- Mike Stewart, RBC Wealth Management
- Major Dale Stonesifer, Harford County Sheriff’s Office
- Susan Stover, APGFCU
To support their cause, each of our candidates along with their Campaign Managers are doing a great job running this year’s campaigns and the “votes” are coming in. Please see below for information on several fun events planned for this week.
On Thursday July 28th, there are two happy hours:
- From 5pm-8pm, MacGregor’s Restaurant and Tavern in Havre de Grace will be hosting a happy hour in support of Wini Roche, from the Harford County Office of Tourism. A portion of the evening’s proceeds and all tips will be donated to Wini’s Campaign.
- From 4pm-8pm, Looney’s Pub in Bel Air will be hosting a happy hour in support of Mike Stewart, from RBC Wealth Management. 10% of all proceeds will be donated to Mike’s Campaign. There will also be plenty of raffles, including a $200 gift certificate to Saxon’s Diamond Center.
Beginning Wednesday July 27th and lasting until August 10th, Flowers By Lucy will donate $5.00 from each sale to support Chris Seling, from CJ Seling & Associates. This deal applies at both Flowers By Lucy locations, Aberdeen and Abingdon.
Finally, until August 8th, you can purchase a raffle ticket to support Wini Roche. The Raffle Winner will take home a basket of summer fun worth over $1,000. You can purchase these tickets at Big House Signs in Havre de Grace, at Wini’s events, or by contacting Paula Casagrande from Big House Signs at 410-939-5600 or via email.
The Candidates have plenty of great events in the following weeks, including a Flip Flop Formal, a Battle of the Bands, and a fundraiser sponsored by One Body and Sole Health and Wellness Center. Details for these and all events are available on our website and on our Facebook page.
First Commercial Roof-Mounted Wind Turbine Installed on Environmental Education Center in Harford County
June 27th, 2011
Harford County Public Schools recently installed a new 1.5kW roof-mounted Wind Turbine, courtesy of a Federal Grant, at the Harford Glen Environmental Education Center in Bel Air, MD. The turbine is a Honeywell WT6500 Gearless Blade Tip Power System, and is approximately 8 ft. in diameter. It is mounted on the roof of the Dining Hall at the Harford Glen campus, an environmental education center & MAEOE Green School that also features a ground-mounted solar array, composters, rain barrels and a new greenhouse. The U.S. Green Building Council’s Maryland Chapter held a Northern Chesapeake Branch event at the School on June 15th to commemorate the installation.
The Wind Turbine was a collaborative project between Harford County Public Schools and Frederick Ward Associates (FWA), with structural engineering support from Baker Ingram Associates. FWA prepared the roof-mounted design, provided project management, and completed permit documents in support of the project. Originally slated as a 60’ pole mounted horizontal-axis turbine, the Honeywell turbine was chosen when funding for the concrete footing as well as available ground space became problematic. The Honeywell turbine is unique in that it creates power at the blade tips and can create energy with wind speeds as low as 2 mph.
This project will be a great asset to the school system, as many Harford County fifth graders and others will be able to learn about renewable energy and how it works. The School District’s Resource Conservation Manager, Andrew Cassilly, mentioned that the school will be able to utilize a web-based monitoring readout to educate the students about net metering, utility rates, and energy output, and an outside area at the school will be set up to read the electric and natural gas meters as part of their STEM (Science Technology Engineering & Math) curriculum.
Garrity Renewables
May 13th, 2011
Today’s post is the first in a series we’ll be writing to highlight fellow businesses that value sustainability. At Frederick Ward Associates, all our work, whether it’s surveying or architectural design, focuses on building a more sustainable community. Learn about Veteran Compost, another organization with the same focus and fitting topic the week after International Compost Awareness Week.
From Combat to Compost
When US Army Combat Engineer Officer Justen Garrity returned home to Maryland from Iraq, he didn’t expect he’d find himself unemployed. However, with the economy struggling, veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars have the hightest unemploywment rates. Garrity decided to explore entrepreneurial opportunities that would help other veterans while focusing on his interest in sustainable energy.
Now, Garrity operates Veteran Compost, providing organic waste collection, compost equipment and finished compost while employing our nation’s veterans and their family members. Veteran Compost is the only worm composting operation in Maryland. Their worms take ordinary compost, and over 30 to 60 days, transform it into a high quality vermicompost. For example, they gutted a former horse barn and fitted it with long bins, which hold thousands of composting worms.
The environmental impacts of his composting business are substantial. For every ton of compost Garrity produces, two tons of carbon are kept from our environment in comparing traditional waste disposal methods. In addition, the compost that Veteran Compost produces offset the use of traditional inorganic fertilizers.
Veteran Compost currently markets its compost as bagged products at local Farmers Markets, gardening shops, and the like. Garrity hopes to expand his business into downtown Baltimore, utilizing a warehouse for the composting process and eliminating the need for the majority of his transportation, which is the biggest component of his carbon footprint. Garrity also spends a lot of time in Educational Outreach programs, promoting composting and dispelling myths about the industry.
Veteran Compost partners with businesses and institutions in the Harford and Howard County areas to recycle their waste. Currently in Maryland there are no credits or initiatives for businesses and institutional to utilize renewable methods such as composting, although they exist in other states such as California.
Frederick Ward Associates Celebrates National Surveyor’s Week
March 19th, 2011
National Surveyor’s Week will be celebrated between March 20th and 26th this year. NCEES (National Council of Examiners for Engineers & Surveyors) states that National Surveyor’s Week is “an occasion for professional surveyors throughout the US to bring attention to their profession.” This certainly is needed, as the roles of surveyors are so misunderstood in today’s society. When the word surveyor is mentioned, many might simply think of someone standing in a mall with a clipboard annoying customers with questions. Others think of someone standing on the roadside standing behind a tripod looking equipment taking pictures. So what is the role of a surveyor and what makes a good surveyor?
Yes, a surveyor works outdoors, but there is much that is done in the office as well and sometimes leads to the courthouse where he becomes an expert witness in a dispute. A surveyor at times is a mathematician, an investigator, and a historian as he attempts to resolve boundary lines of property. Land disputes have almost existed in society since the beginning of time. He deals with land law, works with computers and technology, and solves puzzles as he pieces different property boundaries together. A surveyor makes maps and drawings that many times are recorded in the Land Records Office.
Two famous surveyors by the name of Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon delineated the famous “Mason-Dixon” line between 1763 and 1767. They were charged with the resolution of the border dispute between British colonies in colonial America. This demarcation line involved four states: PA, DE, WV, and MD. This line also symbolized a cultural boundary between the northeast US with that of the southern US (Dixie).
Two of the most famous surveyors in American history were Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. Between 1804 and 1806, their commission by President Thomas Jefferson was an expedition mission to explore the Louisiana Purchase ascending the Missouri River, crossing the highlands, and following the best water communication to the Pacific Ocean.
What do Lewis and Clark have to do with Maryland? Well, as a way to kick the National Surveyor’s Week, NSPS (National Society of Professional Surveyors) created a surveying event that is expected to eclipse the work of Lewis & Clark by its size. Surveyors across America will occupy and collect GPS data simultaneously (on Saturday, March 19, 2011 between 1 and 5 pm) on survey monuments. This data will be submitted to NGS (National Geodetic Surveys) through its OPUS portal (Online Positioning User Service) and a map of all the surveyed locations will be visible across the US. Now that’s the biggest survey ever!
We can’t discuss famous surveyors without including the Presidents of our nation that contributed to the tradition of surveying, such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln. Many surveyors, like our Presidents, were bi-vocational, such as the famous author, poet and surveyor Henry David Thoreau. Even the founder of Frederick Ward Associates, the late Frederick Y. Ward, left behind a legacy of giving back to the community in addition to his profession. In most cases, our lives will be summed up in one sentence. So I leave you this challenge, what will be your “life’s sentence?”
Precycling: Stopping Waste Before It Happens
February 25th, 2011
By now everyone is familiar with the three “R’s”: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. How about the two “P’s”? Prevent & Precycle? Precycling is the practice of reducing waste by not purchasing items which will generate waste. It may not be quite as easy for the public to embrace as recycling was, though. To precycle, one must make a conscious effort to not accumulate junk mail, heavily packaged goods, use disposable products, water bottles, Styrofoam, and many other items. Precycling stresses an overall reduction of waste by asking people to rethink they way they acquire products as well as the products themselves.
Recycling (or downcycling) may be very popular, but it takes a lot of energy to transport the materials – from when someone purchases them at a store or online, to their home or office, to the curb and ultimately the recycling facility, where more energy is used to break them down into a raw product. Oh yeah, and then more energy is expended making them back into something else again. If something must be purchased and used, why not have it be a durable, long lasting product that has little or no packaging and is not going to end up in a landfill or be melted down?
Examples of using precycled products are easy to find: metal water bottle or thermoses instead of a plastic disposable water bottles or cans, recycled content shopping bags (can be used over and over again instead of paper or plastic and are much sturdier anyway), silverware in lieu of plastic ware, cloth napkins in lieu of paper, bulk and concentrated products (use much less packaging compared to same amount of non-concentrated product), and digital media instead of print media. Also, don’t forget that some items can be “re-purposed” to give them another life. My favorite personal example is the claw foot bathtub my mom repurposed into planter on our back deck when I was growing up in Virginia. It went from potential landfill fodder to the back deck where it lived a long life as a container for many spices and small plants. Young House Love and Terracycle have some great ideas on how to re-purpose things creatively. Some other good information on PreCycling can be found here.
February 23 Is A Day To Celebrate Boundaries
February 23rd, 2011
February 23rd marks a day of celebration that many have completely lost sight of. Should anyone review the history of the Roman Empire, one would find that very similar to the Greeks, the Romans created and worshipped many gods. One god in particular arouses the interest of many surveyors. He is the Roman god known as “Terminus”, the Roman god of boundaries. “Terminus” is the Latin word for a boundary stone. Surveyors still today retrace boundaries that refer to ancient monuments, stone, and markers. It is only fitting then that the most recent ALTA/ACSM Standards for Land Title Surveys goes into effect on February 23, 2011.
As history is examined, the honor associated with the Roman god Terminus was celebrated annually with a festival celebrated on February 23 called “Terminalia.” This celebration involved practices that brought individuals to a place of reflection or “yearly renewal.” Neighboring families would come together at boundary markers and would garland their respective sides of their markers. They would worship Terminus and make offerings of crops, honeycombs and wine to him at an altar. Many ancient authors agree that the motivation for the worship of Terminus was to prevent of violent disputes over property. So in keeping with his character of peace, his earliest worship did not involve blood sacrifices. But then later, these markers became drenched in the blood of a sacrificed lamb or pig. And in the end, it was followed by a communal feast and the singing of hymns to his praise.
Surveyors throughout history have dealt with boundary disputes. People have been disputing boundary lines since the beginning of time. Ovid, a Roman poet, wrote: “O Terminus, whether thou art a stone or a stump buried in the field, thou hast been defied from days of yore…thou dost set bounds to peoples and cities and vast kingdoms; without thee every field would be a root of wrangling. Thou courtest no favour, thou art bribed by no gold; the lands entrusted to thee thou dost guard in loyal good faith.” Like Terminus, a good and prudent land surveyor marks boundaries fairly while taking into consideration all evidence found from their client’s deed and parcel as well as the neighboring properties.
Even Old Testament scriptures in the Bible speak to the importance of boundary markers and not moving them. It says in Deuteronomy 19:14: “Do not move your neighbor’s boundary stone set up by your predecessors in the inheritance you receive in the land…” Also, Deuteronomy 27:17 states, “Cursed is the man who moves his neighbor’s boundary stone.”
Another old custom relevant to boundary lines and markers is something called “beating the bounds.” This tradition, still kept in some parts of Britain, of marking the boundaries of a church parish by marching round them and hitting the ground, or certain boundary marks, with long sticks. The ceremony is performed once a year, usually on Ascension Day or before Easter. Thereby a tradition came about where boundaries were walked and a child beaten at corner points so as for him to remember where they were. This became popular during the transfer of lands from one generation to the next.
The ceremonies and traditions surrounding boundaries have gone by the wayside in our culture, but we can still value knowing where the boundaries of your property are. There is no need for beatings or sacrifices – simply walk your boundaries frequently. Sadly, many purchase property without much thought to where their corners are, but this February 23 is a great time to give it some extra thought.
Luna’s House Wins Best Major Renovation
January 29th, 2011
Frederick Ward Associates is proud to announce that Luna’s House Animal Care and Education Center won an award from The U.S. Green Building Council Maryland Chapter at their Annual Awards event on January 27, 2011. Luna’s House, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to bettering the lives of animals and their people, won the award for the best building in the Major Renovation category. FWA contributed Architecture and Landscape Architecture design, Project management, and LEED Consulting for Luna’s House. Check out photos from the event, which took place at the Thames Street Wharf in Baltimore, at the Chapter’s Flickr page.
A registered LEED For New Construction Project tracking LEED Silver, the Luna’s House project includes a 14,900 square foot adaptive reuse of a foreclosed car dealership on Route 40 in Edgewood, Maryland. The program includes a shelter, kennel, retail sales, and a clinic that will set a new standard for shelters and kennels in the area. It also includes an on-site residence for full-time staff. Sustainable features include a proposed dog park which will decrease the impervious surface ratio by creating half an acre of habitat, use of rain barrels, waterless urinals, HVAC units with energy recovery heat wheels, high efficiency water heaters and lighting, 95% reuse of the existing building structure, and diversion of 98% of construction waste from local landfills.
Luna’s House will add 5 to 7 full time positions to the job market in its first year of operation at the new facility. The purchase and rehabilitation of the facility will provide more than $2 million of stimulus to the local economy. Luna’s House will provide animal care education services, retail services, and animal adoption to the community as well. Visit the Luna’s House website for more information.
Sustainable Maryland
January 28th, 2011
Maryland has begun the process of creating a rating system for Green initiatives and programs by its 157 municipalities. This is an initiative through the Environmental Finance Center, which has partnered with the Maryland Municipal League on a new initiative called Sustainable Maryland Certified. It is an effort to develop a sustainable certification framework based on a pilot program in New Jersey: www.sustainablejersey.com.
The EFC has organized various Task Forces centered on a specific aspect of sustainability that will determine the framework for certifying municipalities as sustainable in various areas of green building and living. The task forces are as follows:
- Natural Resources
- Community Action
- Social Equity
- Health & Wellness
- Local Economics
- Agriculture
- Planning & Built Environment
This is designed to be a free and voluntary program that will help communities choose a direction for their greening efforts, provide help with program tools and case studies, and be recognized for their accomplishments. A Mayor’s Advisory Council and Executive Committee made up of mayors from eleven cities and towns throughout Maryland including Aberdeen, College Park & Chestertown among others will meet to review the progress of the certification efforts as they proceed through the refinement process during the few months.
This program began in the fall of 2010 with a stakeholders meeting and review of New Jersey’s program and is currently working through the task forces to refine and develop the criteria for the certification system by spring of 2011. Frederick Ward Associates is eager to help Sustainable Maryland get off the ground and make a difference in our community. The ultimate goal is to take registration by the summer of 2011.
KSmall 
Sustainability
Environmental Finance Center, Sustainable Maryland
Surveying Standards
January 25th, 2011
At Frederick Ward Associates, our land surveyors use the ATLA/ACSM land title survey standards. Now, new standards go into effect on February 23, 2011 that will apply to all forthcoming commercial land transfers. What is most significant regarding these standards is they were not just updated, but are actually a substantial re-write of the original standards.
Officially known as the Minimum Standard Detail Requirements for ALTA/ACSM Land Title Surveys but commonly referred to as the “ALTA standards”, surveyors view these as the “crème de la crème” of surveys for two reasons: 1) they require a very detailed survey of improvements as well as delineation of easements and other encumbrances relative to the title policy, and 2) the particular language required to be a part of the surveyor’s certification statement.
These standards define the standard of care, measurement standards, fieldwork required, research required, and the delivered product to the client. Most significant regarding these latest standards is the certification requirement. In the past, many lenders had their own certification language that they required on the survey map in place of the standard ALTA certification language. Now, the ATLA has standardized the certification process, requiring the same language across the board. This item alone will cause many discussions in the future between lenders, lender’s counsel, and surveyors.
Frederick Ward Associates Use Greenroads Checklist
January 10th, 2011
Last year, FWA blogged about the introduction of “Greenroads,” a program developed to improve the sustainability and lessen the environmental impact of highway projects. We were eager to see a new rating system developed for building sustainable roadways similar to the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED system. The Frederick Ward Associates team of surveyors, planners, architects and engineers can use the Greenroads to measure the sustainability of the roadways we help build.
In September 2010, Civil Engineering magazine ran an article highlighting the big changes that are in store for road design and construction with the implementation of Greenroads. There’s no question highway construction is destructive to the environment. From the construction debris running off and poisoning groundwater, to serious fossil-fuel burning from the heavy machinery, author Laurie Shuster says, “For Mother Nature, it’s a losing battle.”
Greenroads hopes to help Mother Nature win the battle by implementing a scoring system that evaluates sustainability by seven key principles: ecology, economy, extent, expectations, experience and exposure. To satisfy these goals, a Greenroads project must meet 11 requirements and earn up to 108 “points” within 37 different voluntary credit categories as up to 10 points within the category that encompasses customer-designed voluntary credits. Read more about the seven principles and see the table of requirements and voluntary credits in Civil Engineering’s article.
Notably different from the LEED system is that activities that contribute to sustainability are weighed differently based on their potential to lead to greater sustainability. For example, using a pavement with an unusually long service life is weighed more heavily than fueling the construction vehicles with biodiesel. That’s because using biodiesel only has a one-time benefit while the pavement provides long-term benefit.
While Greenroads is still in development, some are already finding it helpful for roadway design. Frederick Ward Associates already implements many of Greenroads’ criteria and uses it as a checklist to evaluate current practices and to see what can be incorporated into future projects.
Learn more about Greenroads at their website.
EVanArsdale Frederick Ward, Sustainability
Frederick Ward Associates, greenroads
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