Journey to Fellow: Detours & Alternate Paths to Fellow

Adam Boubede is a speaker, author, Adjunct Professor, and an ICF certified leadership coach currently serving as a Chief Master Sergeant in the Air Force at Ramstein Air Base, Germany as the Senior Enlisted Leader for the 86th Civil Engineer Group. In this capacity, he is the senior enlisted advisor to the Civil Engineer Group Commander to effectively lead over 1,200 military and civilian personnel spanning 18 distinct career fields. The Group’s mission is to provide, protect, and sustain an $11.8 billion physical plant consisting of infrastructure that supports the 86th Airlift Wing’s rapid air mobility and strategic partner missions while providing emergency services and environmental protection for 56,000 personnel in the Kaiserslautern Military Community, the largest military community outside of the United States.

Adam is from New Orleans, Louisiana and is dedicated to leverage his experience to teach, develop, inspire, and mentor leaders, empowering them to unleash untapped potential and grow organizations to achieve greater success.

As a member of the Society of American Military Engineers, he has held various roles at 4 Posts, including Post President at the Mount Tacoma Post, founded Enlisted COI, served as a National Elected Director, and is currently Europe Deputy Regional Vice President.

Lt Col Timothy D. Scheffler is the Deputy Command Engineer for Air Force Global Strike Command at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. In this role, he leads 20 personnel in project development and execution, emergency service support, and nuclear response task force assistance. He validates, prioritizes, and leads the collaboration for advocacy of the command’s $2B integrated priority lists for MILCON and O&M programs. He also develops and refines Civil Engineer policy and guidance for 9 Wings and bases worth $24B which support two of the nation’s three nuclear capabilities.

Lt Col Scheffler received his commission through the Reserve Officer Training Corps program at Virginia Tech in 2004 where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and Minors in Mathematics and Leadership. Since then, he served in a wide range of leadership positions within the base level civil engineer squadron as well as an Electrical Engineering instructor for The Civil Engineer School. He served in the Joint Operations Center for U.S. Southern Command as a Watch Captain and as the Deputy Executive Officer for two Combatant Commanders. He deployed in support of Operations ENDURING FREEDOM, IRAQI FREEDOM, INHERENT RESOLVE, and FREEDOM’S SENTINAL. He also deployed in support of Exercise ULCHI FREEDOM SHIELD in Korea. He commanded two squadrons, the 627th Civil Engineer Squadron on Joint Base Lewis McChord where we also served as the Military Deputy Director for the Army Garrison’s Directorate of Public Works. He led 400 civilians and 120 Airmen in the maintenance, repair, sustainment and operations of the infrastructure and facilities on the largest Army-led Joint Base with a $15.3B plant replacement value. Prior to his current position, Lt Col Scheffler completed his second command of the Air Force’s second largest Civil Engineer Squadron, the 374th Civil Engineer Squadron, where he led a over 1,000 military, contractors, and U.S. and Japanese civilians in the execution of a $130M annual program to operate and sustain over $11.7B in real property assets at 19 operating locations across Japan and Australia.

Lt Col Scheffler is a Joint Qualified Officer and fully qualified Political Military Affairs Strategist. He is also a registered Electrical Engineer in the state of Ohio and a Certified Energy Manager.

Major General (Ret) Anthony “Tony” Funkhouser is a licensed Professional Engineer and served in the US Army for over 35 years where he last served as the Deputy Commanding General for the US Army Corps of Engineers. He has a proven capability of managing organizations, improving processes through innovation, collaborating with partners and delivering engineering solutions that benefit the customer and align with the organizations strategic goals. A leader committed to people and organizational success with over 24 years of executive experience leading, directing and overseeing complex multi-million-dollar projects/ programs around the world in partnership with contractors, Congressional leaders, Department of Defense, International and Interagency partners. Currently he serves as Vice President, Army Client Account Director for AECOM, responsible for the Army client account, the largest annual sales account.

COL(R) Steve Sattinger, PE, F.SAME, is a Senior Program Manager at Tetra Tech Inc., focused on Tetra Tech’s support to the Army Corps of Engineers Civil Works Program. He retired from the US Army in 2023 after a successful 27-year career as an engineer officer. His notable command assignments included commanding the Rock Island District of the US Army Corps of Engineers from 2018-2021 and the 864th Engineer Battalion at Joint Base Lewis-McChord from 2013-2015. His last assignment was at the Pentagon, where he served as the Executive Officer in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works. He has been involved in SAME since his days as an undergraduate at Penn State in 1993, and became an SAME Fellow in 2022. He lives in State College, PA.

Commander Symansky assumed command of Civil Engineering Unit (CEU) Cleveland in April, 2023. She leads the unit in delivering full service civil engineering support across the Mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes regions. CEU support services include facilities planning, contracting and procurement, engineering design, construction, real property, and asset and environmental management for a portfolio valued at $5.6 billion, encompassing eight million square feet of buildings at 140 customer units across 13 states. She also serves as the Tactical Operations Product Line Manager with oversight of configuration management, sustainment, and recapitalization for all aviation, shore operations and waterfront facilities Coast Guard wide. Prior to this assignment she served as the Executive Officer at CEU Cleveland from 2021-2023.

Prior to reporting to Cleveland she served at Civil Engineering Unit Providence as the Planning and Real Property Branch Chief from 2018-2020 and Construction Branch Chief from 2020-2021 providing Civil Engineering mission support across the 5 Sectors, 2 Bases and 65 operational units in the First Coast Guard District.

CDR Symansky served as the Facilities Engineering Department Head at Base Portsmouth, VA from 2015-2018 where she was responsible for facilities management including maintenance, construction, safety and environmental compliance at the 187 acre, 430,000 square foot Base that supports 26+ tenant Commands and detachments including homeport for 10 Cutters, she oversaw the execution of $1M AFC-30 unit level facilities maintenance & directed $9M AFC-43 depot level construction programs annually.

Previous assignments include U.S. Coast Guard Academy Civil Engineering faculty instructor, Civil Engineering Cleveland where she served as a Construction Project Manager, Design Team Member and Tower Climbing Trainer managing and CGC RELIANCE (WMEC-615) and a Deck Watch Officer and First Lieutenant.

CDR Symansky is a native of Fort Salonga, New York and graduated from the United States Coast Guard Academy in 2005 with a Bachelor’s of Science in Civil Engineering. CDR Symansky holds a Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering and Masters of Business Administration from the University of Illinois. She is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of Connecticut and a registered Project Management Professional. She is also a Society of American Military Engineers Academy of Fellows. Her personal awards include the Meritorious Service Medal, Commendation Medal, Achievement Medal and Letter of Commendation in addition to other Service and unit awards.