Ross Laboratories Receives Export Achievement Certificate

Ross Laboratories Inc. of Seattle Wa. has been awarded an “Export Achievement Certificate” by the U.S. Commercial Service a division of the Dept. of Commerce. Ross Laboratories, a long time supplier of precision hydrographic survey equipment to U.S. government agencies as well as many private survey firms, was recognized for their effort in developing new markets with sales that included Europe, The Middle East, and Asia. The award was given to six Seattle area companies in recognition of their efforts to promote their products internationally in a variety of markets. The presentation was at a legislative reception and dinner held at Salty’s Restaurant in Seattle the evening of May 30th 2006, to celebrate and recognize Washington State Manufacturers as part of "Manufacturers Appreciation Week". Representative Jim McDermott presented the award to Jim Ross, President of Ross Laboratories. During his brief acceptance remarks, Jim thanked the Seattle office of the U.S. Commercial Service, for their help over the last three years. “ Without their support and guidance it would be very difficult for a small company such as ours to understand and comply with the complex regulations and requirements involved with international marketing”.

St. Louis Surveyors Helping Out In New Orleans
By Joe Burnett, Geodesist St. Louis District, COE
The New Orleans District asked the St.Louis District to bring their SeaArk 2272 River Runner with its newly outfitted Ross 875-5, five-channel multi-transducer system, to perform hydrographic surveys of several of the outfall canals within New Orleans. The main reasons for requesting this vessel was due to its shallow drafting, shallow and high-resolution recording, and low clearance abilities. These outfall canals are being surveyed to determine their channel bottom configurations. Amultitude of analyses will be conducted with the data collected. Among these analyses, will be seepage and stability concerns.
Also, new volume capacities for each outfall canal will be calculated. The team members from the St. Louis
District performing these surveys are myself, (Joe Burnett) and Randy Trout. Assisting us from the New Orleans District is Shawn Kempshall.
The Ross 875-5 system consists of five transducers, placed in a line, on two collapsible booms. The Ross 875 system has been specifically calibrated and tuned to collect depths as shallow as 1.0 feet below the face of the transducer. The total swath width is 26 feet, with each transducer evenly spaced at 6.5 feet apart. However, the spacing is user-defined and can be placed at any distance apart. The GPS antenna
is placed directly over the middle transducer and offsets to the other four transducers are entered into HYPACK’s data collection software. A Honeywell HMR 3000 sensor is placed on the boom just below the GPS antenna and compensates for heading, pitch, and roll. The range of depths encountered during these surveys were from 18 inches to 18 feet, which made this system the ideal choice for this project. The St. Louis District’s main reason for acquiring this system was for use in shallow, back channel areas along the Mississippi River. Bathymetry collected with this system will aid fisheries biologists within the Corps of
Engineers, Departments of Conservation, and Fish and Wildlife Services. This shallow water data will be used to study existing and potential habitat areas that were previously unmap-able.

	(Left)The St. Louis District Corps of Engineers survey boat passing under a pipeline in a New Orleans canal during a mapping job in March.
(Right)A screen capture of the survey in progress in a New Orleans canal, including the bridge shown in photo at left. The Hypack program depicts the survey lines, color coded for various depths, with red indicating less than three feet and magenta deeper than 11 feet. Blue is nine to 9.5 feet of depth.		(Above)The low-profile boat emerges from under a bridge on the Orleans Canal with only a few feet of clearance. Shawn Kempshall of the New Orleans District is standing in the bow after lowering the GPS antenna under the bridge. Joe Burnett is on the port side operating the computer, and Randy Trout is driving the boat.

As it appeared in IDR in April of 2006.