While serving as the Marine Corps’ representative to Oshkosh Defense as it revised its technical manuals for the joint light tactical vehicle, Barbieri pointed out flaws in the manuals, including one issue that could lead to rollovers.
Barbieri’s engineering acumen would save more than 900,000 person-hours of maintenance production time and more than $140 million throughout the entire life cycle of the platform, the Corps calculated.
At 14, he started drag racing through the International Hot Rod Association. He learned how to check over his car before getting onto the track.
But most of his background in mechanical engineering was theoretical knowledge — about aspects of systems like wiring and resistance — he gleaned from reading technical manuals, he said.
Having skipped fourth grade, Barbieri graduated from high school in 2019 at only 16. He spent two semesters studying mechanical engineering, first at Palm Beach State College in Florida and second at the University of California at Berkeley, but he didn’t love it.
Then a Marine recruiter approached him at a career fair.
When Barbieri was about six months into working at the unit, he faced a problem that didn’t have an easy solution: how to replace hoses that ran from the vehicles’ engine bay to the back end.
It took him two weeks, but he figured it out, he said.
After that, his leaders tasked him with repairing more and more vehicles with thorny problems. Barbieri repaired more than 75 trucks, keeping the battalions’ readiness above 90%, according to the news release.
His leaders took notice.
“He could diagnose issues that most Marines couldn’t find and was able to make the repairs that civilian engineers from external organizations couldn’t,” said Master Sgt. Kenneth Byxbee Jr., Barbieri’s former motor transport maintenance chief, in the news release.
Later in 2021, while Barbieri was still a 19-year-old lance corporal, his command selected him to spend months working with Oshkosh’s tech writing team in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, on the technical manuals for the joint light tactical vehicle.
“Anytime I would find something that felt like it was out of order or would mess with the flow of things, we’d write that down,” Barbieri said.
Based on those issues, Barbieri and the rest of the team would pile into a conference room and suggest changes to the technical manuals.
One day, Barbieri noticed a problem with a manual’s instructions for replacing the steering column. Installing the replacement part that way would have stopped the steering wheel from moving, he said.
“If that happened while you were in a turn or on a highway, that could cause a rollover,” he said.
Oshkosh was receptive to what he had to say and worked with him to change the instructions, Barbieri said.
On Friday, Barbieri received the Meritorious Service Medal, which is awarded to service members who distinguish themselves through “outstanding meritorious achievement or service.”
He is set to leave the Marine Corps in June. The next step is college at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, where he plans to study mechanical engineering. He hopes of becoming a tech writer, who writes manuals himself, he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment