Biography

This is my Biography.

Hi! My name is Pete (aka Peter, aka Piet) Versteegen. (I was born in the Netherlands and immigrated to the USA in August of 1961, August 17 to be precise). I became a US citizen on July 23, 1966. I have been fortunate to live the American dream. My background is science. I’m a retired scientist/engineer (Yeh… a mixture of both).

My first job was with Westinghouse Nuclear Power Division in Monroeville, PA, for three years. From there I was recruited by Nuclear Fuel Services (NFS) and moved to Rockville, MD, a new company to provide ‘reload’ fuel for existing nuclear reactors. After being with NFS for three years the nuclear power business came to a screeching halt. I then moved to Science Applications, Inc (SAI), in Arlington, VA. The company renamed itself SAIC (Science Applications International, Inc.), eventually moved to Tyson’s Corner. I was with them for 27 years before retiring in 2000. The technology element of the SAIC that I was in is now Leidos, which spun off in 2012. SAIC was a great experience, working on all kinds of projects from nuclear weapons issues to solar energy development and everything else in between, and with wonderfull people of all walks of life.

I graduated from Arizona State University(ASU) with a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Mechanical/Nuclear Engineering in 1968. I did some work on a PhD but this took to much time away from commuting and the family I had to support. Furthermore, I was doing such advanced work at NFS that I found myself teaching the teacher! I specialized in heat transfer and fluid dynamic processes and the use of computers to solve problems in these and other areas. I worked with some of the earliest computer systems (IBM1620 or GE226 anyone?).

My wife and I ‘retired’ to Garrett County permanently in 2000, having come to Deep Creek Lake for eight years prior to that. The word ‘retired’ is stated rather loosely. Basically we do not have jobs to go to on a regular, 9-to-5, daily schedule. We are, however, engaged in various consulting activities, my wife more so than I, paying and non-paying. We have become involved in local issues, volunteering for various causes and groups.

I started early on being concerned about the health of Deep Creek Lake, having just built house on the northern shores of the lake, near the four-season resort of the Wisp, and wanting to protect our investment. While not an Environmental Engineer, my experience at SAIC made me qualified to tackle any of the environmental issues facing Deep Creek Lake. I have learned a lot during my retirement by ‘Googling’ about many subjects that affect the health and well-being of Deep Creek Lake, and as a result, I feel that I have become one.

Since retiring from SAIC in 2000 and moving to to Garret County I have spent a great deal of time studying processes that affect the well-being of Deep Creek Lake. This has led me to organize, under the auspices of the POA, two successful workshops (Dec. 2010 and Dec. 2011), that, I believe, have greatly contributed to the ongoing activities that involve studying the health of the lake. These two workshops have also resulted in the formation of the SPORE group, a loose organization of retired individuals who discuss, regularly every Monday over lunch, issues affecting the well-being of Deep Creek lake and other miscellaneous interest (You can join us anytime at Brenda’s Pizzeria at noon, provided you pick up the lunch tab.).

My multi-disciplinary experience during my many years of employment with Science Applications International Corporation allows me to sensibly tackle almost any problem. I get paid nothing, nada, rien, niets, niente, nihil, hashi, nichts, netchego, không, semmi, wu, nai, Jack-sh*t. I don’t know all these languages, only a few, but I’ve been to all those countries.

After joining a real estate venture, Ridgeview Valley, residential real estate development project, off Rt 219, on Gravelly Run Rd, in McHenry, MD that halted in 2008 because of the collapse of the real estate market, I became more seriously interested in various aspects of lake health. I have since worked on many scientific issues affecting the well-being of the lake, such as lake level monitoring, boat wake analyses, shoreline erosion, subaquatic vegetation, forecasting water releases through the hydro-electric generation facility, river water temperature predictions, and plenty of other stuff, as realized by several websites that I put together since.

My interest in the lake resulted in me developing several websites.

My first website was [deepcreekanswers.com]http://www.deepcreekanswers.com, an extensive collection of all kinds of information about Deep Creek Lake, which was the result of discussions by a group of us old retired folk gathering, and still do, for lunch every Monday at Brenda’s Pizzeria. These lunch meetings started in the beginning of 2011. We often talk about lake issues which I then documented somewhat on that website. I haven’t maintained it much, but gone on the focussing on other sites. The lunch group became known as SPORE.

During this time my wife and I also did a lot of traveling and I was very much into photography. As a result I developed a website to display and share some of the better images. [pietsphotos.com]http://www.pietsphotos.com is the website. Again, not too well maintained.

In 2013-2014 I became part of a Steering Committee whose task it was to develop a Deep Creek Watershed Management Plan. As part of this effort I put together a list of references to reports and other documents that were relevant to our activities. This was made available on the [deepcreekwatershed.org]http://www.deepcreekwatershed.org website.

I then got involved with the Marcellus Shale issue, having announced that developing Marcellus Shale in Garrett County would be counter to the interest of our prime economic engine, namely as a vacation destination for families. To be fair, I thought it would be relevant to collect all kinds of stories about Marcellus Shale, both good and bad, and make them available via a website. This became [garrettshale.com]http://www.garrettshale.com, again not maintained recently since “fracking” became not legal in Maryland.

In more recent times I saw the need to more completely document my work that I’ve done over the years, and make available to the world the many data items that I’ve collected over time on my personal computer. This led to my fourth website, [deepcreekscience.com]http://www.deepcreekscience.com. This website was then mostly about data on things that affect the lake, still getting some work done to it at the end of 2017.

The present website, [senstech.com]http://www.senstech.com documents in detail how I went about doing some of my work, analyses in other words, with the intent being to draw from the data on the deepcreekscience.com website. That’s still the intent, although there is a mixture of both. At this time, August 2017, the emphasis is on issues dealing with the forthcoming renewal of the MDE Permit with Brookfield Inc., that allows the latter to operate the Deep Creek hydroelectric generator facility. Forthcoming, meaning the spring of 2019. To that end I’ve created this very simple website.

I have been on the Property Owner’s Association of Deep Creek Lake Marcellus Shale committee on which I was invited to participate as a technical advisor. The purpose of the committee was to filter through all of the published hype and inform/alert the POA’s members of those issues that may affect them. I was particularly interested in risk analysis and the interaction of Marcellus shale drilling operations with groundwaters. Fortunately, Marcellus Shale is no longer an issue in the State of Maryland. It has been banned in the State through legislation.

In the past, in Garrett County, I served on the GRIC Board of Directors, was a member of the Technology Group of the Western Maryland Economic Task Force, travelled a great deal world wide (all seven continents), taught photography and Introduction to Engineering at Garrett College, was soccer coach for three years for Northern Garrett County youths participating in the JCP league and helped out coaching soccer for one season for JV at Southern High School (Southern beat Northern for the first time ever!). I’m Ok at golf.

In 2013 I had major bypass surgery. I’m alive and well thanks to the medical staff at MonGeneral in Morgantown, WV. My rehab has been helped considerably by Jennifer Christophel, my Pilates instructor at the Balanced Body Studio in McHenry, MD, which I continue to do twice a week. She keeps me up my toes!

A bit more detail about my past professiona work….

My professional career started with Westinghouse Electric Nuclear Power Division, Monroeville, PA, for whom I developed a computer program to analyze nuclear reactor control rod damping data and used and modified sophisticated tools to estimate the power capabilities of new nuclear power reactors.

I was recruited by NFS (Nuclear Fuel Services, Inc.), to move to Rockville, MD, from Monroeville, PA, in 1971, and subsequently developed several computer programs to analyze the thermal and hydraulic performance of reload nuclear fuel assemblies and performed many tests with 2.5x scaled fuel assembly mockups to understand flow distribution. I invented a method to keep fuel rods from early failure for which the company obtained a patent. I recently 2017) came across a reference that appeared to still use one of those computer programs that I developed in 1972!

Subsequent to the abrupt slowdown of the nuclear industry in 1973, as a result of increased regulation, NFS decided to close doors and I joined SAIC in McLean, VA, where I became involved in all kinds of multidisciplinary projects. My first project was to figure out into how many pieces a Soviet missile reentering the atmosphere would disintegrate to.

Throughout my career I have been on the forefront of many technical applications that required powerful computers, Control Data Inc. computers in those days, to simulation complex analytical problems. I worked on projects, managed projects, and managed people. I’ve written many proposals, reports and technical papers. Most were done for the Defense Department.

I specialized in the modeling of physical phenomena and simulation of systems by both computer and hardware. My experience spans a broad range of technologies, from nuclear power (water and gas cooled), alternative energies(wind and photovoltaic systems for residential and commercial use), transport of particulates in the atmosphere, to the effects of weapons of mass destruction and chemical warfare agents.

I also conducted numerous sophisticated experimental programs at very high temperatures, requiring the design of unique temperature sensing methods, experimental procedures and data analysis techniques.

In the alternative energy area I was involved in designing and researching optimal ways to extract energy from solar hot water collectors, concentrated solar collector systems such as parabolic troughs, dish and central receivers, photo-voltaic systems, and wind energy systems.

Jointly with another company I was involved extensively in analyzed experimental data from dust ingested into military and commercial aircraft jet engines to determine causes for turbine malfunction and engine shutdown. This led us to develop methods to recommend to commercial airlines where and when to stay out of volcanic ash clouds.

I was involved in many other programs and projects, including studying the transport and long term storage of radioactive waste materials, economic analyses of the effects on the nations economy from high oil prices, the analyses of risks from the meltdown of a nuclear power-plant and many others.

Pffhhew! That was a lot of fun. Never worked 40 hrs a week. I had a very satisfying career. I learned how to solve problems, as I would say to my college advisor at ASU whenever I visited him!