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Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Friend

Honored by:

"Frank is and was a pioneer in the fluid power field in aerospace." "Frank is one of the top five hydraulic engineers in aerospace in the United States."
Frank started his 47-year aerospace career on June 30,1958 working for American Brake Shoe, which became Abex in the 1960s, and later acquired by Parker in the 1990s. He was responsible for taking a new experimental or an existing design and enhancing the design of the unit to make it producible and less costly to produce, qualification testing of the unit, improving the design to increase reliability and maintainability, and applying the design to new requirements.
In 1972, Frank became the Chief Engineer responsible for the design group in Wiesbaden, Germany. He interfaced with Aerospatiale and the French Air Ministry for the Concorde and Airbus pumps and motors, Dassault for the Falcon Jet, Saab for the Viggen, British Aerospace for the Jaguar and various airline customers such as Lufthansa, Alitalia, and KLM. In 1975, he became Chief Engineer for Service Engineering in Oxnard, CA. He was responsible for technical support of all the pumps and motors in the field for both commercial and military applications, as well as new designs for commercial aircraft applications. In 1995, he was appointed Chief Engineer of pumps and motors in Kalamazoo, Ml. Frank then went to work for the Customer Service group in Irvine, CA before his final retirement from Parker on June 30, 2005.
One of the highlights of his career was working on the 2-stage pumps for the B-52 in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and then again on an upgraded pump design to replace the old 2-stage pump just prior to retiring.
In August, 1996, Astronaut Bill Readdy presented Frank with the Silver Snoopy Award for his technical support of various components on the Space Shuttle. He was surprised and honored to receive this award.
Frank supported several programs during his career including: A-6. A-7, AH-64, B-2, B-52, C-5, C-17, C-130, C-141, CH-46, CH-47, CH-53, DC-8, DC-10, F-14, F-15, F-16, F-18, F-100, F-101, F-111, F-117, KC-10, UH-60, 707, 727, 737, 747, 767, 777, Gulfstream G-IV & V, Saturn V and the Space Shuttle.