From auspicious beginnings...

My interest in the FAA MRO Marketplace started with my father's work. He began working for a company called Tibon Plating as a General Manager during the infancy of the Age of Commercial Aircraft. He started investigating the young aircraft market as the Boeing 727 and McDonnell Douglas DC8 were coming to market. He contacted OEMS such as General Electric, Boeing, Parker Aerospace, Honeywell and any of the other multitude of them. As aircraft entered service certain issues began to arise with original OEM coatings such as hard anodize not holding up as expected on hydraulic actuator parts and even galling and fretting issues on rotating engine components. This was back in 1966.

As he began working with OEMs and airline operators themselves he began coming up with solutions to their problems and initially there was reluctance since OEMs are in the business to sell new parts. The one proviso in his favor was that the parts also had to meet at least the minimum warranty period. With some effort Tibon Plating became one of the first FAA Repair Station with a Specialized Service rating for hard chrome plating. Interest began to grow in this small division and soon all airlines and OEMs were starting to work with Tibon Plating, if nothing else, than to generate some engineering data. 

I started working at Tibon Plating which later became U.S.Chrome Corporation helping out plating, masking, processing, developing repairs even through college. Much later the company was bought out by Aviation Repair Solutions when the owner decided to generate some retirement money. The company was small in terms of employees (20 or so) and remains the same even today. As U.S. Chrome I continued to develop more and more repairs for the airlines and repair stations alike and eventually learned about FAA Designated Engineering Representatives. So in 1996 I applied to the FAA to become a DER. Mr. Bob Stacho was assigned as my FAA advisor and we came up with a plan to use mentors, Mr.Weston Slifer, who lived in Washington and was an ex FAA Aircraft Certification Office employee who dealt with Hydraulic components as a Mechanical Systems and Equipment DER and Mr. Ed Marzolf who lived in Placentia, CA and was a retired McDonnell Douglas engineer with Pneumatic components as a Mechanical Systems and Equipment DER. Since I worked for a small company I had fewer projects than I would have at a large OEM. I was allowed to recommend approval of engineering data since April 1996 and either my mentors or the FAA would approve the data. I worked on Mechanical Systems and Equipment projects for 14CFR Part 23, 25, 27 and 29 aircraft and rotorcraft as the needs arose with my assigned advisor being Mauricio Kuttler. Similarly for Propulsion Accessories and Engine Build Up Units with my assigned advisor being Mr. Bill Bond.

So at this time I had delegations for both a Company DER for Systems and Equipment -Mechanical  and Powerplant EBUs for major repairs for Parts 23, 25, 27 and 29

Go to the next year to see what had transpired there.....