His path to infrared thermography has been somewhat unconventional.
He started his professional life as an aerospace engineer and spent more than four decades working in engineering, advanced manufacturing, program management, and executive leadership. Along the way, he had the opportunity to work on some remarkable aerospace and defense programs, including the F-16, Cruise Missile systems, and the B-2 Stealth Bomber. Much of that work involved advanced materials, composite and titanium structures, leading-edge manufacturing processes, and the practical problems that come with building complicated things that have to work as intended.
As Vice President of Manufacturing Technology, he led major production programs involving advanced materials and manufacturing processes. That experience gave him a practical understanding of how materials, manufacturing methods, operating stresses, and seemingly small decisions can ultimately affect the performance of a system.
will appear here
Aviation
He also learned to fly, earning private pilot ratings in both fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters. Flying never became his profession, but aviation has remained an important part of his life. Years later, it became a natural bridge into the use of unmanned aircraft for inspection and thermography.
Today, most of his work falls into three areas: project consulting, thermographic inspection services, and infrared education. He is a Level III Infraspection Institute Certified Infrared Thermographer®, an FAA Part 107 Remote Pilot, and a Participating Member of ASTM International Committee E50. He conducts commercial and aerial infrared inspections and teaches Infraspection Institute Level I and Level II Certified Infrared Thermographer® courses, along with specialized courses in infrared applications.
He has never believed that owning a sophisticated instrument makes someone an inspector, any more than owning an airplane makes someone a pilot. The instrument gives us information. Understanding the materials, the environment, the physics, and the limitations of the measurement is what allows us to decide what that information actually means.
That philosophy also led him to write The Environment Decides: The Discipline of Defensible Thermography. After a career spent designing, building, managing, flying, and inspecting complex systems, he wanted to pass along some of what experience has taught him—particularly the importance of judgment, disciplined observation, and understanding the conditions under which a measurement is made.
Looking Ahead
At this stage of his career, he is still doing what he has always enjoyed most: solving interesting problems, teaching what he has learned, and looking ahead to whatever comes next.
will appear here