Aggieufe: On the road again • Page 3
Opinion: Drug testing violates rights • Page 9
1 BATI: 1
am
rare
cial dr
ng for
'Ctions
onditior,
of tk
day u
Paul
\ir Forc
s onl) or
:k maria i
5 "tKti!:
g a fowli ®
ird. itat I
rhif'Ai" 11
:asfr*l 1
ow
i |
I
Ik
*
penalty!
lose coffl
heft inf -'
i/entu
clot 1
nan 5'
VenWt 2
eatme 111
proble 111
er mot e
;|e, 5 alC
ood ..
oodsP'l
3V, vv0 C
. He
subfl
ry phy 5i 1
ling c3 '-'
in in te [j
Volume 108 • Issue 165 • 10 pages
108 Years Serving Texas A&M University
www.thebatt.com
Thursday, July 11, 2002
A&M group chosen to lead NASA experiment
By Christina Hoffman
THE BATTALION
Texas A&M University has been
chosen to lead NASA in a new
University Research, Engineering and
Technology Institute with projects
aimed at advancing aircraft and aero
space science.
A team of 30 people, 10 from
A&M, will mainly focus on building
nano and bio structures for air and
space crafts.
The 20 other members are from the
University of Houston, Rice
University, Prairie View A&M
University, Texas Southern University
and the University of Texas-
Arlington.
The project stems from Richard
Smalley, a professor of chemistry and
physics at Rice University and his
Nobel Prize winning work on carbon
nanotubes. Smalley will serve as chief
scientist of the institute.
“[One of the] primary focuses is to
develop new materials from carbon
nanotubes,” said Dr. John Junkins,
director of the institute and a distin
guished professor in aerospace engi
neering at A&M. “It would be a very
important new material because it
would be extremely strong, strong as
steel, and lightweight.”
Dimitris Lagoudas, associate
director of the institute and professor
of aerospace engineering and associ
ate vice president for research at
A&M, said the goal is to develop the
chemistry of carbon nanotubes into
See NASA on page 2
Functionalized
Single Walled
Carbon Nanotubes
Single Wall
Cross! inked
Nanotubes
Functional zed
Nanotube
Composite
MuMOfunctional
Structural
Supercapacitor
Multifunctional
Aerospace
10' 10 m-
10*fn
Functionalization to integration to create new materials architectures for nanocomposite
smart materials systems that have multifunctional properties
COURTESY OF DIMITRIS LAGOUDAS
Goertz shares wisdom
By True Brown
THE BATTALION
Leo Goertz isn’t your nor
mal 9-to-5 worker. But then
again, having your work seen
by over 500,000 people during
the course of a year doesn’t
qualify as normal.
Goertz has been A&M’s ath
letic fields maintenance manag
er since 1996 and is the man in
charge of maintaining Kyle
Field, Olsen Field, the Aggie
Soccer Complex and every
other outdoor venue used for
A&M athletics.
While the crown jewel of his
job is Kyle Field, his career
began across the street at Olsen
Field where he was a student
manager for the baseball team
in 1978.
“Back then there.wasn’t a
grounds crew that took care of
everything,” Goertz said. “It
was the coaches and the student
managers that did that. I had
done some maintenance in high
school, so when I got here (for
mer coach Tom Chandler) told
me I was going to be in charge
of that.”
Goertz’s groundskeeping
caught the eye of former A&M
baseball player Pat Olsen, (the
field’s namesake), who later
played for the New York
Yankees.
“When I got ready to gradu
ate, Mr. Olsen said he would do
whatever he could to keep me
around,” he said. “And I haven’t
left yet.”
Since then, Goertz has seen
A&M’s natural grass facilities
go from the baseball field and a
football practice field — about
BRIAN RUFF • THE BATTALION
Leo Goertz, A&M athletic fields maintenance
manager, has groomed every outdoor athletic
venue since 1996. Goertz graduated from A&M
in 1985 with a degree in agricultural economics.
six acres by his estimate — to
approximately 15 acres, includ
ing the softball field, soccer
field, track and the grass sur
face on Kyle Field.
Despite not graduating with
a degree in turf management —
he has an agricultural econom
ics degree — Goertz has won
awards for his care of Olsen
Field (in 1985 and 1987), the
Aggie Softball Complex (in
1997 and 1999) and the Aggie
Soccer Complex (in 2000).
“(Not having a turf degree)
doesn’t really hurt in this kind
of business,” Goertz said. “This
is a kind of job where you take
what you already know and
adjust it and apply it to each
individual situation. What
works one day may not work
the next day so there are con
stant adjustments. There are
books that tell you how things
work, but there’s not a book
that tells you how to make
things work.”
In Goertz’s case, making
things work includes keeping
the grass green after it has been
trampled by 300-pound line
men for three hours or been
torn up by baseball spikes for
nine innings.
In the days leading up to a
football game, for example,
Goertz and his crew go into
high gear. Monday and Tuesday
are usually devoted to mowing
and edging the field, but
Wednesday marks the begin
ning of the stretch run when the
crew paints the lines, logos and
emblems.
“The painting takes about a
See Goertz on page 2
Automated trouble
reporting system
implemented
By Ruth Ihde
THE BATTALION
College Station Utilities has
put an Automated Trouble
Reporting System (ATRS),
into effect to better serve the
community when reporting
water and power outages.
Augie Palmisano, a College
Station utilities dispatch opera
tions superintendent, said a
company called Automated
Consulting introduced the sys
tem. The company is based in
Pensacola, Fla., and has sold
the technology for about 15
years and markets the product
to utility companies all over
the country.
ATRS is linked to College
Station Utilities from a data
base to a billing system, which
catalogs and organizes the
calls, by using criteria such as
a mapping system and electri
cal circuit, through the caller’s
keyed-in phone number,
Palmisano said.
When a customer calls in,
the system uses the caller’s
home telephone number to
identify their service location.
The dispatcher can see where
the call is coming from and
monitor the situation as the
problem is being worked on.
In the past. College Station
Utilities used a three line sys
tem, which a dispatcher would
answer and then report the
problem to a worker who
would go out to the problem
area. Palmisano said customers
could rarely get through to
report a problem or would get a
busy signal. Now when a caller
calls the utilities company, a
map of the customer’s location
is brought up, making it easier
to find the location and find out
if similar problems are happen
ing in that area.
ATRS has 14 phone lines
that are automatically
answered and displayed on the
dispatcher’s screen.
“The city has gotten bigger
and this system allows better
contact,” Palmisano said.
Even if all lines are being
used, the caller is transferred
to an answering machine. A
record is kept of all phone
calls that enter the system and
a dispatcher checks every
message so they can address
the situation.
Palmisano said that some
one who calls in will not speak
with an actual person, but that
this system is only implement
ed during crisis situations.
“Some people don’t like
talking to machines, but it is
better to get into the system
than not at all,” she said.
Kelley Cole, public com
munications and marketing
director for the City of
College Station, said there
was no real system in place
before and the ATRS will save
time and help dispatch.
College Station Utilities
customers who want to report
problems such as water or
power outages and interrup
tions in service should call
(979) 764-3638.
Marketing professor stresses
importance of health care
By Melissa Sullivan
THE BATTALION
The most important service to consumers is the
service of health care because we are directly
affected by it every day, said Leonard Berry, a dis
tinguished professor of marketing in the Lowry
Mays College and Graduate School of Business.
Berry recently returned from a five month
research sabbatical at the Mayo clinics in
| Rochester, Minn., and Scottsdale, Ariz. where he
studied health officials at their jobs and rode in the
emergency response helicopter.
“I was there as a visiting scientist and observed
problems with the ideal service experience.” Berry
said. “I studied the perspective of the patient,
physician, nurse and allied health staff.”
Berry has been researching, teaching and writ
ing about service for the past 20 years.
In his recent book. Discovering the Soul of
Service, Berry emphasizes what kind of values
strengthen the health care service experience.
“I am not focusing on the skills, but rather is
the provider a humane, kind, compassionate,
empathetic care giver, which is important in addi
tion to training,” he said.
During the study. Berry, with the help of a col
laborator, interviewed 1,000 people, asking them
See Berry on page 2
jNew food processing system created
By Melissa McKeon
THE BATTALION
Texas A&M’s Rosenthal
â–  Meat Science and Technology
JCenter is involved in testing a
â–  new food processing safety sys-
yem, called SENTRY9000.
The Texas Agricultural
jExperiment Station and
JFoodHorizon, a leading
I provider of executive informa-
|hon and performance support
systems for the food manufac
turing industry, have agreed to
experiment with the new sys
tem at A&M that will involve
testing, research and teaching
activities.
Development for SEN-
TRY9000 started at A&M’s
Research Park four years ago,
said Jose Quintana, chief tech
nology officer for FoodHorizon.
The food safety system is a
remote computer system that
uses hardware and software
applications. It can monitor var
ious food safety programs for
food processing plants.
One of the advantages pro
vided by SENTRY9000 is its
ability to provide production
data for executives, supporting
critical decisions based on real
time production line events.
Personnel have the ability to
See SENTRY on page 2
Scare efforts continue to
alleviate bird problems
By Mariano Castillo
THE BATTALION
With their noisemakers and
flashing lights, the crews that
regularly patrol the A&M cam
pus, scaring off, the roosting
bird population, have become a
familiar sideshow to many stu
dents.
The days of returning to
your car, only to find it deco
rated white and brown with
bird droppings may be gone,
but the A&M Physical Plant
considers the bird population
a long-term problem, and
crews will continue work into
next year.
Texas A&M Physical
Plant officials said the
number of birds on cam
pus has decreased significantly
since March, when an outside
firm was contracted to rid
the campus of the birds, but
that it is definitely an ongoing
problem.
On campus, the usual sus
pects are blackbirds, brown
headed cowbirds and grackles.
Current efforts are focus
ing on recent outbreaks of
large populations of birds
north of Cain Hall and north
of the Memorial Student
Center, said Physical Plant
Pest Control Supervisor
Ralph Leisy.
“The blackbird population,
because of the live oaks, is par
ticularly worse because the
thick branches give the birds
good harbor,” he said.
The Rockwall based Avian
Flyaway Inc. signed a one-
year contract with Texas A&M
on March 8 to rid the campus
of the birds.
Christine Harris, Avian
Flyaway field supervisor, said
the crews are concentrating on
the population of purple mar
tins, which arrived during the
first week of June.
Harris reported a signifi
cant decrease in the bird
population at A&M and said
that in the first month of the
See Birds on page 2
Reduction of Bird Problem
began March 2002 and will
continue for a vear
G r a c k I e
W a f
10 000
Cowbirds 17,000
Starlings 8,000
Sparrows
2 00
N o w
1 .3 0 0
1,200
3 50
50
TRAVIS SWENSON • THE BATTALION