Mark Sapp, a welding and supplies engineer inside FRCE’s Upkeep, Restore, and Overhaul (MRO) Engineering Division, was inducted as a NAVAIR Fellow throughout a March 23 ceremony in California, Maryland.
Sapp has catalogued an intensive checklist of accomplishments throughout his 28-year profession on the depot. He was inducted into the NAVAIR Fellows Program in 2011 as an Affiliate Fellow. Being made a Fellow, the primary from FRCE, represents the fruits of excellence demonstrated all through Sapp’s profession, stated MRO Engineering Division Head Stuart Clayton.
“Mark’s accomplishments go far past FRC East, with the last word benefactor being the warfighter,” Clayton stated. “His profession has confirmed that technical excellence is greater than using engineering rigor to realize better restore functionality or value financial savings; it highlights the significance of staying curious and passionate in a single’s self-discipline, pursuing what’s in the very best curiosity of the warfighter, and setting requirements which have widespread and long-lasting impacts.”
The NAVAIR Fellows program, which was established in 2000, options three tiers: Affiliate Fellow, Fellow and Esteemed Fellow. Affiliate Fellows signify the highest 3% of NAVAIR scientists and engineers, whereas Fellows signify the highest 0.75%. The title Esteemed Fellow is reserved for simply the highest 0.25%. This system is nationwide in scope and is open to all NAVAIR engineers and scientists. Nominees will need to have a well-established historical past of serious technical contributions and accomplishments inside naval aviation.
Because of his work inside NAVAIR and with different branches of service, gear producers, skilled organizations and mentees, Sapp’s affect within the aviation welding group spans the globe, stated Supplies Engineering Division Director Robert Mehring. He nominated Sapp for the popularity, and stated he felt Sapp’s credentials spoke for themselves.
“Mark is thought to be absolutely the authority inside NAVAIR for resolving welding and materials becoming a member of challenges,” Mehring stated. “His experience is wanted by many throughout the Naval Aviation Enterprise, and his engineering companies are continuously in demand by NAVAIR, the Air Drive and the Coast Guard. Mark’s technical contributions have made impacts in any respect ranges of upkeep and acquisition, each inside and outdoors the Division of Protection.”
Sapp started his Navy civilian profession as a welding engineer at Charleston Navy Shipyard shortly after graduating from the Ohio State College. He moved to FRCE after the shipyard closed just a few years later and, since then, has gone on to set the usual for technical data within the area of aviation welding engineering. Sapp serves as a voting member on committees that write welding and brazing requirements for the American Welding Society and Worldwide Group for Standardization (ISO). He’s one in every of simply 12 American members of the ISO’s welding working group, and the one Division of Protection consultant. He additionally serves because the technical level of contact for a number of collaborative initiatives with academia, trade and different Protection Division organizations.
Regardless of his depth of expertise, Sapp stated he by no means imagined he’d earn such excessive reward and recognition. Nonetheless, he’s not in it for the accolades – Sapp, who retired from the Navy Reserve as a chief petty officer, is at first interested by supporting the Fleet.
“After all I’m appreciative that NAVAIR is recognizing my work, but it surely goes a bit deeper than that,” Sapp stated. “The army has been with me since ’76 and, once I consider what I’m doing, I’m considering of the man that’s having the mortar thrown at him, and the way I could make his life extra comfy. I can’t cease the mortar from being thrown at him, however I can maintain him from having to repair one thing or give him the means to repair it proper then and there, if he must.
“I by no means thought I’d ever attain Fellow. To me, that’s the place all of the PhD’s and the upper grade engineers at NAVAIR headquarters work,” he continued. “However I regarded on the nomination type and so they wished me to clarify what I’ve performed since I made Affiliate Fellow that has helped NAVAIR, and I spotted I may do this. If it’s in NAVAIR and it has the phrase weld in it, you’re going to seek out my identify someplace very shut, perhaps even on the prime of it.”
Along with his give attention to the Fleet, Sapp additionally locations nice significance on mentorship in his day-to-day operations. He has served as a mentor for an estimated 100 engineers from FRCE, FRC Southeast and FRC Southwest, together with a number of different Naval Instructions and different services. Sapp’s coloured pencil illustrations of welding repairs have grow to be a coveted collectable amongst those that’ve sought his steerage in making repairs that aren’t coated within the technical manuals.
“I simply get pleasure from educating. My door is all the time open,” he stated. “I don’t care who you’re, which platform or program you’re assigned to; I don’t even care if the issue you’re attempting to resolve isn’t associated to welding. If you wish to are available, we’ll sit down and root by way of easy methods to make repairs that aren’t within the technical guide.
“I principally train them to suppose. That’s what I do,” Sapp continued. “All of us had the identical physics lessons, all of us had the identical math lessons – even after 40 years, we’re nonetheless utilizing the identical mechanical engineering textbook. So I train them easy methods to suppose, and when somebody approaches me for assist, I don’t write something down. I don’t inform them easy methods to make a restore, however I do pull out my coloured pencils and I’ll draw the restore and even make a storyboard out of it to allow them to see, step-by-step, what I’m speaking about.”
For somebody who lives and breathes welding – Sapp even has an internet site devoted to welding historical past, and is engaged on a e-book masking the identical topic – being acknowledged as an authority in his space of experience and serving to mould the way forward for the occupation inside the command has been extraordinarily gratifying.
“I by no means thought I’d be as profitable as I’ve been, but it surely’s been a pleasure,” Sapp stated.
FRCE is North Carolina’s largest upkeep, restore, overhaul and technical companies supplier, with greater than 4,000 civilian, army and contract employees. Its annual income exceeds $1 billion. The depot gives service to the fleet whereas functioning as an integral a part of the better U.S. Navy; Naval Air Programs Command; and Commander, Fleet Readiness Facilities.
