Altus A-Team Employee Excels

  • Published
  • By Kenny Scarle
  • 97th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
ALTUS AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. -- --  One mechanic on Altus Air Force Base has set a new benchmark of success by becoming a maintenance leader for the 97th Maintenance Directorate, or A-Team.
Ramiro Solis, a civilian employee with the A-Team was recently promoted to work leader for the KC-135R Inspection Branch. Mr. Solis is the first graduate of the Southwest Technology Center's Grow-Your-Own-Mechanic program to reach this position. He is just one of the more than 100 Grow Your-Own employees at Altus.
In 1998, Altus AFB partnered with the Southwest Technology Center to develop the successful "Grow Your Own Mechanic" program. It is a training system designed to teach its students specific aircraft and avionic skills for employment on Altus AFB. Mr. Solis is the proof of the program's success.
A 1996 graduate of Navajo High School, Mr. Solis started working for the A-Team in May 2000. But before his career in aviation, he studied automotive mechanics at the technology center. Mr. Solis spent the next three years working on cars.
As a long time member of the Altus community, his eyes were continually drawn upwards with the roar of a passing KC-135 Stratotanker or a C-17 Globemaster III. One of his previous instructors, Mr. BF Rowland, told him about a way they had for him to make his way onto the tarmac.
"He let me know about the Grow-Your-Own-Program they had going," Mr. Solis said, "and I thought it would be great to learn how to work on airplanes."
Mr. Solis enrolled in the maintenance program and six months later, he found himself standing on the flight line at Altus, assigned to the KC-135 Isochronal inspection, or ISO Dock, branch.
"At first it was a little intimidating," Mr. Solis said. "And my neck hurt for the first week because I was always looking up. But to me it was cool."
Isochronal inspections examine numerous essential aircraft systems such as propulsion, hydraulics and the structure of the aircraft. Mr. Solis said he learned a lot in school but most of his experience he learned from his trainer - a civilian employee mentor who showed him the bulk of his job.
"It's a 640 hours on-the-job training," Mr. Solis said, "just getting hands-on time with the aircraft."
For the next four years, Solis would excel at his job. Eventually, he was asked to volunteer to work in Aero Repair, or AR. It was a two-person task and the current worker, William Hawley, was doing it alone.
"Working AR you work from the nose all the way to the tail - every flight control, so you are all over the aircraft," Solis said. "You have to know how hydraulics integrate into your flight controls, how your avionics work - it all ties in together."
Mr. Solis said he was very interested in it and jumped in. He performed so well, when Hawley retired, Mr. Solis took over that training position.
On July 5, he accepted an offer to be the work leader for the KC-135 Inspection Branch. Mr. Solis said he owes it all to the Grow-Your-Own-Mechanic program at the Southwest Technology Center.
"A college degree is a good thing, but it's not mandatory to have a good career," he said. "You can't put a price on education, but what I've taken from working with the A-Team was its own form of education."
Mr. Solis said Altus AFB and the A-Team have been a great combination for him and his family.
"It's been a long road but it's been a good one," he said, "and I feel fortunate that I was able to stay here in my hometown and have a good paying job with good benefits for me and my family."