Nathan S O’Kane, a Marshall University senior from Alexandria, Va., is the new president of the National Student Council for the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME).
“It’s an honor, absolutely,” O’Kane said of being elected in January of 2012 and taking office as president at the beginning of the 2012 fall semester. “I’m very proud to do this. It feels good to represent Marshall University.”
SAME is the premier professional military engineering association in the United States, facilitating interaction between the public and private sectors to enhance engineering support to national security.
Its membership comprises more than 20,000 leaders representing the uniformed military services as well as numerous government agencies, nonprofit associations, academic institutions and private-sector firms.
O’Kane, who will graduate from Marshall next May with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (B.S.E.), said SAME has 49 student chapters, with representatives from each region of the continental United States. The national student chapter membership has reached about 750.
At a student chapter workshop earlier this month in St. Louis, representatives from the different regions discussed successes of student chapters and challenges they face. They agreed on the idea of creating an annual report “to measure the student chapters’ health,” O’Kane said. Also, student chapters can now earn the honor of “distinguished chapter,” he said.
“That’s something to strive for,” O’Kane said. “We got a lot done. Most importantly, we came up with a way of measuring the health of the student chapters. None of the chapters are the same. This has to do with the big picture and how close they are following the strategic plan developed by SAME.”
Jeff Huffman, an assistant professor of engineering at Marshall and faculty adviser for the student chapter of SAME-ASCE (a dual chapter involved with both the Society of American Military Engineers and the American Society of Civil Engineers), said O’Kane has a “high energy level.”
“Nathan energized our MU student chapter as president in 2011-2012 and I am positive that he will do the same for the National Student Council of SAME,” Huffman said.
