In August 2016, an email was sent to all USACE Regulatory personnel from the USACE Regulatory Program deputy chief regarding a great opportunity available in the ERDC University (ERDC-U) program. After looking into the program, Sarah Spatzer, Savannah District, saw benefits in assisting with research and development opportunities across multiple business lines within USACE.
Sarah, a native of Muncy, Pennsylvania, received a bachelor’s degree in Wildlife Biology from the University of Montana and a master’s in Environmental Management from Webster University. She served as an Army officer in Afghanistan and other overseas tours. She currently works as a regulatory specialist in the Coastal Plain Field Office, Regulatory Branch, Operations Division in the Savannah District, as well as a mission specialist on the emergency Power Response Team.
When Spatzer applied for the program, her branch was fully staffed; however, when the ERDC-U program began, her branch was at 45 percent strength and dealing with a federal hiring freeze. This resulted in a two-month delay in Spatzer’s participation in ERDC-U.
Once in the program, Spatzer wasted no time working with her mentor, Joe Durkee, and his team to learn the details of various mobile devices the USACE Reachback Operations Center (UROC) developed and deployed with district offices and Forward Engineer Support Teams (FEST) to support the Warfighter and Civil Works mission. She was involved with side-by-side comparison on the effectiveness of mobile devices and applications supporting USACE mission requirements. She also conducted geospatial analysis for improving backgrounds and usability of mobile and route collection applications, and is writing a guide for process improvements within UROC.
During her time in ERDC-U, Spatzer traveled with UROC staff to Mobile, Alabama, Fort Worth, Texas, and Los Alamitos, California to train personnel from other districts and FEST teams on devices specifically used for mobile and route collection.
Spatzer’s objectives in the program were to develop improvements in the use of mobile applications on the capability of ESRI products (Survey123 ArcGIS, Collector, Workforce, and ArcGIS Online Portal) that provide more efficient standardized data collection efforts across USACE with the potential to incorporate in a Common Operating Picture. She also performed a comparison of mobile applications as it relates to the end user, Warfighter, civil support, and district-level capabilities. And, she assisted in beta testing a new route collection application that eliminates the need to use a gyro to collect slope data. The new application uses only a camera, touchpad, and GPS with a built-in barometric pressure sensor, resulting in lighter equipment and increased efficiency in collecting field data.
Spatzer said she would recommend the ERDC-U program to her colleagues “without hesitation or reservation.”
“Not only have my objectives been met, they’ve gone beyond what I thought was possible, thanks to the UROC professionals I worked with throughout this program.”