AFLCMC awards presented to Hanscom engineers

  • Published
  • By Mark Wyatt
  • 66th Air Base Group Public Affairs
HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. – The Air Force Life Cycle Management Center announced the winners of its 2017 Engineering Awards during a ceremony at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio Feb. 15.

Personnel at Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts, and nine other AFLCMC locations participated in the ceremony via VTC.

The awards recognize the center’s teams and individuals who have demonstrated excellence in engineering.

“We had 134 individual nominees, 27 teams and over 400 team members were nominated,” said Dr. Ken Barker, AFLCMC Systems Engineering technical advisor, to the more than 230 nominees. “That’s quite an achievement and we’re very proud of every one of you.”

Maj. Zachary Bowen, Battle Control Systems-Fixed chief engineer won the 2017 Air Force Life Cycle Management Center Mid-career Military Engineer of the Year Award.

Bowen managed a 40-person engineering team that delivered vital command and control capability to NORAD’s [North American Aerospace Defense Command] air battle managers at multiple defense sectors in the United States and Canada, according to the citation read by the ceremony narrator.

He also led the technical source selection team for the program’s first-ever competitive operational and support contract that resulted in a savings of $12 million. The citation also credited him with fielding a new battle Control Systems-Fixed software baseline that fixed deficiencies and improved aircraft track fidelity. Bowen also led a new sensor fusion effort.

Maj. Michael Fischer, Battle Airborne Communications Node lead engineer, captured the 2017 Air Force Life Cycle Management Center Engineering Senior Military Engineer Award.

Fischer led the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node engineering team in achieving an unprecedented 98 percent aircraft availability rate for the fleet. His efforts enabled combat sorties that resulted in kinetic strikes, according to the citation.

In parallel with daily operations, Fischer successfully fielded a $60 million software baseline upgrade and accomplished the standup of sites in less than three months.

Edward McGlynn, Upgraded Early Warning Radar engineer, received the 2017 Air Force Life Cycle Management Center Engineering Senior Civilian Engineer Award.

McGlynn led 14 organizations in a radar integrated product team that synchronized technical issues and resolutions, ensuring a $307 million radar upgrade program delivered new capabilities to the missile warning mission, according to the citation.

Additionally, he oversaw developmental and operational testing, coordinating test readiness with six organizations and performing 10 successful test runs, which proved communications hardware and software were ready for a $23.6 million radar operational certification effort.

Finally, McGlynn’s innovative action resulted in a split software environment that saved engineering analysis capabilities at multiple sites, preventing delays to a new capability.

Presenting the awards at Hanscom was Col. Edward Masterson, deputy associate director of Engineering and Technical Management.

“The systems we develop are inherently very technical in nature; we can’t buy them off the street, we have to develop them,” Masterson said. “It’s a technical body of work that has to be planned out and managed and executed. We have tremendous talent in doing that, so recognizing the people – our most important asset – is very important. They’re the ones that make all the systems work and get them working in the field for our warfighters.”

Following the presentation of awards, Barker announced that a new AFLCMC engineering award will be given to an engineer who makes substantial contributions to the mission through engineering analyses using tools, such as those contained in the Engineering Analysis and Training Laboratory, or the Hanscom Engineering and Analysis Training, as it is known at Hanscom. The award will be named after retired director of AFLCMC Engineering Jorge F. Gonzalez.