Robins engineer earns award Published Oct. 16, 2006 By Amanda Creel 78th Air Base Wing Public Affairs ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE Ga. -- One member of Team Robins said he wouldn't trade his job for anything and recently his hard work and love for his job earned him an Air Force level award. Marty Sheppard, an electronics engineer with the 402nd Electronics Maintenance Group, was recently awarded the 2006 Air Force Science and Technology Award for his work implementing a new surface mount assembly process and for retaining military certification to manufacture or produce any Printed Wiring Board to military specifications. "The guy is tremendous. He is so dedicated. He puts everything he has into it," said Gus Spurlin, flight chief of manufacturing support with the 402nd EMXG. "He is real passionate about what he does and he wants to make sure we are successful." The Robins PWB shop is the only shop in the Air Force that is certified to fill orders for circuit boards meeting military specifications. It is important to get the certification because there has been a diminishing number of companies in the U.S. that have this capability, Mr. Spurlin said. Contracting out circuits produced to military specifications to foreign countries can cause problems when it is a matter of national defense, he added. The PWB shop can build through-hole printed circuits up to 22 layers. "One of the biggest things is the inspection such as inspecting each inner layer before we go and press it up," said Mr. Sheppard, who is the engineering subject matter expert supporting the PWB. "It takes about two days to do all the inspections for four panels." The surface mount process assembly line has been in place at the 402nd EMXG for about one year and has already been able to complete invaluable tasks for the Air Force, such as the production of a surface mount power supply Circuit Card Assembly for a missile warning system. "We set the surface mount assembly line up from scratch and bought the equipment from scratch," Mr. Sheppard said. Mr. Sheppard and Mr. Spurlin agreed bigger and better things are in store for the surface mount assembly line as they plan the conversion from a manual pick and place machine to a more automatic assembly technique. Mr. Sheppard was also recognized for his role in being able to replace obsolete printed wiring assemblies, which are built with little or no data about the original construction of the circuit board. "They will just send us a circuit and say 'can you make this with no data?' Then, we remove all the parts and figure out how they were generated," Mr. Sheppard said. He said he knows how important the work is to Robins repair lines and the maintenance mission. "The repair part is important to them, because the repair line goes down without that card," Mr. Sheppard said. One of his favorite things about his position is that he can face problems himself and go out and solve them side by side with the technicians. "I am right in the middle of it. I get to work hands-on and it's a different challenge every day," said Mr. Sheppard. "I like what I am doing here and as long as I can do that I am happy here."