Postflight
The Quintessential Kerchenfaut
Brilliance is an intense brightness, a sharp gleam of reflection from a brighter source. In the confines of an enormous hangar, an unmistakable artisan draws no attention to himself save by reputation alone. Workmanship performed over the course of decades defines a brilliant man, and an excellent mechanic.
Bill Kerchenfaut's reputation is legend in the Reno Air Race scene, where his leadership as crew chief of both the Dago Red and Strega teams has brought home Unlimited Gold seven years in a row. Bill has no need to speak a word—his results speak volumes.
Kerchenfaut is a mechanic at Hewlett-Packard's flight department in San Jose, California. An ordinary day finds him in a spotless hangar, steadily at work on several business jets and airplanes.
Creative invention is at the heart of Bill Kerchenfaut, and innovative solutions are his lifeblood. Most satisfying of all is when a complex problem begets an obvious answer. "Have you ever seen one of these?" Kerchenfaut pulls out a box and extracts a micrometer-telescope. "These are the best tools!" Rather than spending an infinite amount of time with depth gauges and micrometers, someone has devised a brilliant method to accurately measure a scratch depth through the use of a micrometer attached to a microscope. When the scratch depth is clear to visual perception, the micrometer—attached to the focusing mechanism—reads the depth of the scratch.
A challenging puzzle finds Kerchenfaut diving into the equation with gusto for an answer. Smiling all the while, his hands work effortlessly to fashion what has distilled in his mind, soundly defeating the pace of his speech. In other words, Bill works fast.
Sheetmetal is a medium where Kerchenfaut's brilliance becomes radiantly apparent. Grabbing a hammer, he gives a few sharp blows to a piece of aluminum, creating a dent large enough to merit the sickened gasp of any aircraft owner. If you happen to be Kerchenfaut, this is precisely where the fun begins. "You see the dent in this sheetmetal? Here, let me show you what an English wheel will do."
Kerchenfaut takes a wooden mallet, and places the damaged aluminum over a shaped piece of polished steel. "The guys that used to make armor were brilliant sheetmetal workers," Kerchenfaut said as he hammersed at the dent from all angles. Slowly succumbing to the blows, the dent became a series of indefinable small bumps.
Consumed by the song of ideas, Kerchenfaut walked over to the English wheel, a tool he fashioned while watching a program on armor-making. Tightening rollers to hold the aluminum steadily in place, Kerchenfaut began the rhythmic rolling and smoothing that restores the aluminum to near-new condition. The entire ordeal took only a few minutes. Kerchenfaut beamed. "Isn't this great? Those guys were brilliant! They were the best sheetmetal workers ever!"
Innovation requires the ability to have fun, to think outside the box, to see what wishes to become by discarding everything that is not a part of the end design. Kerchenfaut's greatest gift is this ability to span an unbridgeable gap between fundamental mechanical logic and fluid creativity, where the wide-open universe of possibilities are born.
Kerchenfaut is a gifted team leader, adept at focusing each individual on a precise piece of a mechanical puzzle while he composes an exacting outcome. He expects and receives the best possible effort from team members as he oversees their progress. No thought or suggestion from any mechanic is discarded—each input is valid and necessary. Protecting innovation by containing it within a creative framework, every resource is free to bring its own sparkling solutions into the light. By virtue of this knowledgeable open-mindedness and positive expectation, he consistently reaps the greatest good obtainable from every resource. Those who work for Kerchenfaut are thrilled by the opportunity to do so.
Kerchenfaut's philosophy of working with a team is so simple that it is profound, clearly pointing to one of the many reasons for his popularity.
"Everyone has their insecurities. I will not set these people up. I won't let them fail. I let them know this. If anything goes wrong, it's my fault, and I'll take the heat." Kerchenfaut spoke of a new mechanic, whose job was to take a tug, and park a $45-million dollar jet in the hangar. "Naturally, she's pretty nervous about this. She's never done it before. I told her, ‘I won't let you fail. You take that tug and go out in the parking lot for an hour. Drive that thing around. Get used to it. Then, we'll park this airplane.' She's nervous, but after 30 minutes she's gotten pretty good and she's zipping all over the place."
The aircraft is parked safely. Everyone is happy. Kerchenfaut smiled. "The guys that I work with are the best. I'm just a little guy with a screwdriver in my pocket. I have the easy part."
Doing a great job is easy when you have Kerchenfaut on your team.
— By Sherry Ditmer
The Quintessential Kerchenfaut
Brilliance is an intense brightness, a sharp gleam of reflection from a brighter source. In the confines of an enormous hangar, an unmistakable artisan draws no attention to himself save by reputation alone. Workmanship performed over the course of decades defines a brilliant man, and an excellent mechanic.
Bill Kerchenfaut's reputation is legend in the Reno Air Race scene, where his leadership as crew chief of both the Dago Red and Strega teams has brought home Unlimited Gold seven years in a row. Bill has no need to speak a word—his results speak volumes.
Kerchenfaut is a mechanic at Hewlett-Packard's flight department in San Jose, California. An ordinary day finds him in a spotless hangar, steadily at work on several business jets and airplanes.
Creative invention is at the heart of Bill Kerchenfaut, and innovative solutions are his lifeblood. Most satisfying of all is when a complex problem begets an obvious answer. "Have you ever seen one of these?" Kerchenfaut pulls out a box and extracts a micrometer-telescope. "These are the best tools!" Rather than spending an infinite amount of time with depth gauges and micrometers, someone has devised a brilliant method to accurately measure a scratch depth through the use of a micrometer attached to a microscope. When the scratch depth is clear to visual perception, the micrometer—attached to the focusing mechanism—reads the depth of the scratch.
A challenging puzzle finds Kerchenfaut diving into the equation with gusto for an answer. Smiling all the while, his hands work effortlessly to fashion what has distilled in his mind, soundly defeating the pace of his speech. In other words, Bill works fast.
Sheetmetal is a medium where Kerchenfaut's brilliance becomes radiantly apparent. Grabbing a hammer, he gives a few sharp blows to a piece of aluminum, creating a dent large enough to merit the sickened gasp of any aircraft owner. If you happen to be Kerchenfaut, this is precisely where the fun begins. "You see the dent in this sheetmetal? Here, let me show you what an English wheel will do."
Kerchenfaut takes a wooden mallet, and places the damaged aluminum over a shaped piece of polished steel. "The guys that used to make armor were brilliant sheetmetal workers," Kerchenfaut said as he hammersed at the dent from all angles. Slowly succumbing to the blows, the dent became a series of indefinable small bumps.
Consumed by the song of ideas, Kerchenfaut walked over to the English wheel, a tool he fashioned while watching a program on armor-making. Tightening rollers to hold the aluminum steadily in place, Kerchenfaut began the rhythmic rolling and smoothing that restores the aluminum to near-new condition. The entire ordeal took only a few minutes. Kerchenfaut beamed. "Isn't this great? Those guys were brilliant! They were the best sheetmetal workers ever!"
Innovation requires the ability to have fun, to think outside the box, to see what wishes to become by discarding everything that is not a part of the end design. Kerchenfaut's greatest gift is this ability to span an unbridgeable gap between fundamental mechanical logic and fluid creativity, where the wide-open universe of possibilities are born.
Kerchenfaut is a gifted team leader, adept at focusing each individual on a precise piece of a mechanical puzzle while he composes an exacting outcome. He expects and receives the best possible effort from team members as he oversees their progress. No thought or suggestion from any mechanic is discarded—each input is valid and necessary. Protecting innovation by containing it within a creative framework, every resource is free to bring its own sparkling solutions into the light. By virtue of this knowledgeable open-mindedness and positive expectation, he consistently reaps the greatest good obtainable from every resource. Those who work for Kerchenfaut are thrilled by the opportunity to do so.
Kerchenfaut's philosophy of working with a team is so simple that it is profound, clearly pointing to one of the many reasons for his popularity.
"Everyone has their insecurities. I will not set these people up. I won't let them fail. I let them know this. If anything goes wrong, it's my fault, and I'll take the heat." Kerchenfaut spoke of a new mechanic, whose job was to take a tug, and park a $45-million dollar jet in the hangar. "Naturally, she's pretty nervous about this. She's never done it before. I told her, ‘I won't let you fail. You take that tug and go out in the parking lot for an hour. Drive that thing around. Get used to it. Then, we'll park this airplane.' She's nervous, but after 30 minutes she's gotten pretty good and she's zipping all over the place."
The aircraft is parked safely. Everyone is happy. Kerchenfaut smiled. "The guys that I work with are the best. I'm just a little guy with a screwdriver in my pocket. I have the easy part."
Doing a great job is easy when you have Kerchenfaut on your team.
— By Sherry Ditmer
