Engineers

GREENVILLE, MISS. - Another barge grounding near Greenville, Miss., has closed the Mississippi River to shipping. As of Sunday afternoon, 18 vessels were waiting to head north and 21 waited to head south. The river carries water from more than 40 percent of the United States. Widespread drought has starved it of rainwater, and the Army Corps of Engineers already had planned to close the river for 12 hours Monday for dredging near Baton Rouge, La. - Associated Press

SEPTA's chief engineer, Jeffrey Knueppel, was promoted Monday to a newly created position of deputy general manager, where he will oversee transit operations as well as engineering, maintenance, and construction. In his new position, Knueppel will be in charge of bus, subway, train, and trolley operations, in addition to launching SEPTA's new "smart-card" fare-collection system. Operations had been overseen by assistant general manager Luther Diggs, who retired last month. Knueppel, who has been with SEPTA for 24 years, will be paid $206,024 a year, up from his current salary of $187,278.

RCM Technologies Inc., of Pennsauken, said it had agreed to buy BGA L.L.C., an Oakland, N.J., engineering services firm for an undisclosed amount. BGA, which provides engineering services to the power-generation, energy-delivery, energy-management, architecture, commercial-building, and manufacturing sectors, will bring about 40 employees to RCM. RCM employed 1,560 at the end of last year. - Harold Brubaker

ETON, England - U.S. Olympic rowing coach Mike Teti terms his men's eight-oar team "seven engineers and Giuseppe. " It's a very good call - all but No. 5 oar Giuseppe Lanzone have studied engineering at one time or another. So, when something needs fixing - as it often does in this sport - Teti knows that "these guys can figure it out. " They've figured out a lot of things in the last three months - rallying from the brink of elimination from the Games in May all the way to a place in the Olympic final, a crack at the medals, and a date with destiny on Wednesday.

Daniel Adam Schultz, 38, of Rosemont, a civil engineer, sportsman, and father of four, died at home Friday, June 22, after a 23-month battle with sarcoma. Since 1998, Mr. Schultz had been with ASTM International. The not-for-profit organization develops standards for metals, paints, plastics, medical devices, electronics, and other industries, and for consumer products. Mr. Schultz had been involved in ASTM projects in several countries and in 2005 spent 10 days in South Korea and Japan at meetings involving standardization issues in the areas of medical devices and aviation.

Norman H. Martin, 89, of Moorestown, a civil engineer and company president who coached blind golfers, died Wednesday, June 20, at home of complications from an infection. Mr. Martin owned his own construction and development firm for 10 years, then for eight years was president of American Medicorp, a hospital management and development company. He established his own company, Medifac, in 1978 and remained its president after it was acquired as the planning, architectural, and design unit of the larger Mediq Inc., a health-care services company.

I'D LIKE TO THANK the Daily News for its recent series bringing attention to the issue of illegal ATVs and dirt bikes, which have replaced graffiti as the major blight of lower-income neighborhoods. Why spend the time and money tagging up a wall? You don't know who will see it, and it'll probably get removed in a few days anyway. But roaring down the street, scaring children and setting off car alarms on an ATV or dirt bike gives immediate recognition. Plus, it has the added assurance that you won't get caught.

Perry W. Jones, 83, a retired electrical engineer for General Electric Co and a former Lansdale resident, died of a heart attack on Tuesday, June 5, at St. Joseph's Hospital in Savannah, Ga. Mr. Jones retired in 1994 as manager of the GE Space Division's Satellite Battery Section in Valley Forge. He had lived in Bluffton, S.C., since moving from Lansdale in 2002. Born in Philadelphia, Mr. Jones attended Lincoln University and then served in the Navy from 1952 to 1954, using funding from the G.I. Bill to earn a bachelor's degree in physics at what is now La Salle University in 1958.

Samuel White, 92, formerly of Hatboro, a retired tool-and-die maker and a World War II combat engineer, died Sunday, June 3, of pneumonia at Quarryville Presbyterian Retirement Community in Lancaster County. Mr. White graduated from Horsham High School in 1938 and then had several jobs, including working in a cement-block factory. In 1942, he enlisted in the Army and was assigned to the 36th Combat Engineer Regiment. He participated in amphibious assaults on Algiers, Sicily, Anzio, and southern France, removing concrete beach obstacles, detonating booby traps, and laying bridges under fire.

LAGOS, Nigeria - A crane hoisted the tail section of a commercial jet from the smoldering debris of a shattered neighborhood Monday in a search for the dead from a crash that killed all 153 people aboard and an unknown number on the ground. Apartment buildings, small businesses, and roadside shops were smashed to bricks and rubble Sunday when the Dana Air MD-83 plowed into the area about five miles short of Lagos' Murtala Muhammed International Airport. Pilots on the flight from Nigeria's capital Abuja to its largest city, Lagos, radioed the tower that they had engine trouble shortly before the crash, but the exact cause remained unclear.