Category: Spotlight on Seabrookers

Each year, our Director of Engineering, Steve Hirsch, recruits two summer interns to help with gathering data about our island to help with the planning of future projects – and to help further the students’ education with real world experience. This year Spencer Parrish from Richmond, VA, a rising senior in Geology at the College of Charleston (on the right in the photo), and Ian Lovice from Sumter, SC, a recent Clemson grad in Biosystems Engineering, join us as they work on fine tuning the Geographical Information System (GIS) data about our island.

While they are learning to use the ESRI ArcGIS software by familiarizing themselves with the existing GIS database, they are also taking measurements of our storm drain system, backflows, meters and tertiary irrigation system to corroborate the information before putting it into the software. This will improve the information that is used to detail contracts for future work on these systems. They are working on producing a clearer picture of what sea level rise will look like on Seabrook Island using this data, combining it with systems used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). In addition, Spencer and Ian are hoping to create a Damage Assessment tool to be used after a hurricane by utilizing ESRI software and an application called Survey123.

Ian and Spencer will be working here until the end of July. If you see them out and about this summer, thank them for their help in planning our future.

-Rich Siegel, Tidelines Writer

Seabrook Island, as most of you know, is a very complicated place.  Managing miles and miles of marshland intermixed with a healthy dose of human habitation creates all sorts of “opportunities.”  Throw in some king tides and the occasional hurricane and they become serious challenges.  The credit for holding this all together belongs, in large part, to our Director of Engineering, Steve Hirsch.

Steve is a proud Clemson grad – he freely admits it’s a good time to be a Tiger – with a BS in Biosystems Engineering and an MS in Environmental Engineering making him uniquely suited to bring his expertise to Seabrook Island.  His five and a half years working for SIPOA have included important roles on both the Environmental Committee and the General Operations and Maintenance Committee.  But his most important role is that of husband to his wife, Lawton, and father two his two kids, daughter, Mackenzie, and son, Rigby.

Between working with the SIPOA Board, committee members, his maintenance staff and fellow directors, Steve still finds some time to answer questions from community members and take a little time to enjoy the beautiful island that we all might sometimes take for granted.

-Rich Siegel, Tidelines Writer

It is said that first impressions are lasting impressions. If so, we are very lucky to have Rhiannon Schalaudek as the receptionist at the SIPOA office on Landfall Way. Rhiannon is very likely to be the first SIPOA staff person new property owners meet upon arrival. Rhiannon came to us as a temporary employee in January 2018, was made permanent in May 2018, and has become a fixture in the office ever since. Rhiannon was recently promoted to the Finance and Human Resources Assistant position, but will continue to serve as receptionist for a while.

Rhiannon moved to the lowcountry after high school in Pennsylvania and never went back. She spent several years in retail management and time as an entrepreneur before settling down here at Seabrook Island. She lives on Johns Island with her daughter, Gabriella, and their three dogs, Zoey, Lila Bea and Pow Pow. Most of her free time is spent playing with Gabriella, swimming and biking around Trophy Lakes, and crafting and painting in their garage where they are covering the walls with murals.

Working as the receptionist, Rhiannon has become adept at pointing people in the right direction to help solve their problems, which requires an almost encyclopedic knowledge of how things work on Seabrook Island. She spends much of her day fielding questions and being the point person for property owners She does it all with a friendly and professional demeanor. We are, indeed, fortunate to have her.

-Rich Siegel, Tidelines Writer

Have you noticed two college students working around Seabrook Island in recent weeks surveying the roads, taking measurements and recording data? Meet Lillian Kome and Kaiser Rich. These are the summer interns hired by Steve Hirsch, the Director of Engineering for SIPOA. For the past several years, summer interns have worked under Steve’s supervision on special projects to address the infrastructure needs of the island. Past projects have included a lake management program, a stormwater master plan, and a stormwater pipe rehabilitation plan. This year’s project involves assessing asphalt conditions, determining when road areas will need to be repaved and anticipating long-term budget implications for this work.

Interns are recruited from engineering and related programs of study in area colleges including The Citadel, Clemson, and the South Carolina state college system. In Steve’s words, he selects the best of the best from the pool of applicants, as he did when he hired Lillian Kome and Kaiser Rich. Both are intelligent, motivated, rising seniors at Clemson, though they didn’t know each other prior to this internship. Lillian’s major is biosystems engineering while Kaiser’s is environmental engineering. What they share in common is their concern for the environment and their attraction to engineering as a path to problem-solving.

Neither Lillian nor Kaiser had ever done work with asphalt prior to coming to Seabrook Island and readily admitted they faced a steep learning curve. They began by researching about asphalt, exploring various resources, and attending training sessions sponsored by the South Carolina Asphalt Pavement Association. Once armed with this knowledge, they began their fieldwork. In the mornings they surveyed the roads in defined sections looking for signs of distress, such as cracking and the protrusion of tree roots, and collected their data. In the afternoons, the data was entered into Excel spreadsheets and mapped onto a working diagram of the roads.  For this, they use Geographic Information Systems (GIS), which is an analytical computerized mapping tool that shows spatial locations and relationships.

Overall, these data are being compiled to determine a Pavement Condition Index (PCI) for all of the roads on Seabrook. Their findings will be included in a report to  SIPOA, which will guide the planning of future road rehabilitation needs. The report is due to be released shortly. The good news is that at this point, they have not identified any “red flags” of immediate concern.

Both Lillian and Kaiser are natives of South Carolina. Lillian is from the Upstate near Clemson and Kaiser from Charleston. Neither had been to Seabrook Island before their first day of work here and they are enamored of the natural beauty that surrounds us on this island. They have been so busy working on the asphalt project that they haven’t gotten to spend any time on the beach yet. Let’s hope they have a chance to experience the beach before their internship ends on August 10 and they head back to their formal studies at Clemson….and if you see them on the roads, give them a wave and a shout out!

–Tidelines Editor