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Altus A-Team employee excels

  • Published
  • By Kenny Scarle
  • 97th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
ALTUS AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. --  One Altus mechanic set a new benchmark of success by becoming a maintenance leader for the 97th Maintenance Directorate, or A-Team.

Ramiro Solis, an A-Team civilian was recently promoted to work leader of the KC-135R Inspection Branch.
Mr. Solis is the first graduate of the Grow Your Own Mechanic program to reach this position.
In 1998, Altus partnered with the Southwest Technology Center to develop the Grow Your Own Mechanic program, which is a training system designed to teach its students specific aircraft and avionics skills for employment on the base.
A 1996 graduate of Navajo High School in Altus, Okla., Mr. Solis started working for the A-Team in May 2000.
Before his career in aviation, he worked on cars for three years. Mr. Solis studied automotive mechanics at the school prior to working as an automotive mechanic.

As a long time member of the Altus community, he said 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, B.F. Rowland, told Mr. Solis about a way 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. "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 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 640 hours of on-the-job training, just getting hands-on time with the aircraft," Mr. Solis said.

For the next four years, Mr. Solis excelled at his job. Eventually, he was asked to volunteer to work in Aero Repair. It was a two-person task being done by William Hawley alone.
"Working AR, you work from the nose all the way to the tail -- every flight control -- so you are all over the aircraft," Mr. 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 said he performed so well, when Hawley retired, Mr. Solis took over that training position.

On July 5, Mr. Solis 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.

"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 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. "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."