Katie Dunn
Click to enlarge. After a LONG day of crash testing, we are back to assimilate the data. This Cherokee is remotely controlled. Most of the others were driven by Rusty Haight.
A partial lineup of "the victims." Thanks to the ARC Network.
Claire, a native of Birmingham, is currently in her first year as an MBA student at UAB. She received her undergraduate degree in Communication Studies from Huntington College in 2006. After serving in an interim role as the manager of a residential association in Montgomery, she moved back to Birmingham to accept an internship in marketing at Motion Industries. Later, Claire was the Director of the Pepper Place Farmers Market, before leaving to go back to school at UAB. She hopes to finish her MBA by May 2010, and further pursue her career in Business Development, Marketing and/or Commercial Real Estate. Claire's interests and hobbies include her mixed breed black lab - Bella, running, climbing, music and exploring everything Birmingham has to offer.
Will is attending Auburn University and will be graduating in December. He is majoring in chemical engineering with a biomedical specialization and minoring in business. He is a member of the social fraternity Phi Gamma Delta. He also belongs to several honor societies: Tau Beta Pi, Omega Chi Epsilon, Phi Lambda Upsilon, and Delta Epsilon Iota. He is originally from Birmingham, and graduated from Hoover High School in 2005. He enjoys watching and playing sports in his free time.
On May 21, 2009, Dr. Raymond Thompson and I were invited guests of HSA Engineers and Scientists at the annual Montgomery Claims Association Golf Outing. The tournament was held at the new Tallapoosa Lakes golf course in Montgomery. It was a scramble format with our team finishing a respectable 5 under par 67. A portion of the proceeds were donated to a local charity. Pictured from left to right are: Billy Jett of AlaMed, Dr. Raymond Thompson of Vista Engineering, Gary Johnson of Vear, and Keith Honeycutt of HSA.
Dr. Thompson and Camie Schraner of HSA. We had to make a beeline back to Birmingham after the tournament because Vista was hosting an ASM meeting that evening. Work, work, work....
Yesterday we used our Sokkia SET 530R3 total station to map nearly 2500 feet of a dirt road with a change in elevation of nearly 75 feet. That's an average grade of 3% - pretty good. This required one traverse. I've decided I'd rather map a mile of interstate than 1/2 mile of dirt road: no stripes, hard to discern road edge, just a transition into a ditch on both sides. It could have been dustier though. The weather around here has been reminding me of the 4 years I spent in Seattle. Back to the dirt road: There's about 15 elevations that could be mapped across the road for any given cross section: tree/grass edge, outter top edge of ditch, outside bottom of ditch, inside bottom of ditch, inner top edge of ditch, road edge, wheel trough, and center line gets you half way. If you do that every 100 feet for 2500 feet, that's 375 points not counting accident viscinity evidence like debris, tire marks, gouges, etc. And then the school buses started going by......
Be ready for your vehicle to look like this. The necessities: mobile email, gps, and satellite radio. In my case, Blackberry, Garmin Nuvi, and Sirius. My truck had factory XM radio, but thanks to the Chevrolet Avalanche forum, the Sirius radio (with a Tivo like buffer) is hacked into the XM input on the factory radio, hence the "Preview." This eliminates the need to use the anemic FM transmitter in the Sirius unit, and the sound quality is great. Also, below the Sirius unit is a 1/8 inch stereo plug from Radio Shack hacked into the satellite radio that interrups that, so I can plug in my iPod. I drive a 2004 Chevrolet Avalanche, but you can really drive what you want. I'll do a later post addressing the most common question I hear: "How do you get started in accident reconstruciton?"
