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Recipients of the Award of Merit

Joe Soderquist
Award of Merit
April, 1998, San Diego, CA

Joe Soderquest retired from the FAA and the Handbook before a system of awards was instituted. However, it would be impossible to have an Award of Merit without recognizing the founder of the modern CMH-Handbook-17. Joe had the vision of revitalizing the Handbook in 1978 as an important tool that the FAA could use to support approval of composite aircraft structures. At the same time, he structured the goals and processes of the handbook so that became a national resource for all composite programs. Joe's personal energy and vision have left an indelible stamp on the world-class product that we have today.

Joe was recognized at a retirement banquet in April, 1998


Mark Vangel
Award of Merit
October, 2003, Charleston, SC

As chairman of the Awards Committee, I'm pleased to have the opportunity to give the Handbook's first Award of Merit to Dr. Mark Vangel.

The Award of Merit was conceived as the CMH-17 organization's highest honor. It recognizes major service toward advancing the goals of the handbook. The process established by the committee is that nominations for this award are passed along to the executive committee and handbook chairman for approval. When Mark's name was mentioned, there was unanimous agreement that he fit the model for the intent of this award. The award was actually made at the 2002 meeting, but because of Mark's new responsibilities, this is our first opportunity to actually give it to him. The Award of Merit is not given at every meeting, and indeed, there have been no additional nominations since Mark's.

For those of you that are new to CMH-17, Mark was the chairman of the Statistics Working Group, and our statistics guru for many years. For a handbook with the words "authoritative source of statistically-based characterization data" in our mission statement, this is clearly an important role. Mark came to us by way of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. His leadership gave us the rather impressive Chapter 8, and his guidance touched many other sections. In recent years he tackled the issue of equivalency in data, and was instrumental in developing the AGATE methodology being used in the General Aviation Community.

One of Mark's traits that has helped the Handbook tremendously is his appreciation for the fact that there are engineering and practical aspects of the Handbook statistics as well as the desire for statistical rigor. Although Mark is not a composites engineer, and strives for statistical accuracy, he has always been willing to acknowledge the need for engineering judgment. He has realized that what might be statistically significant may not be significant or of interest from an engineering standpoint. I remember being at many meetings where Mark begged for "real" data to test abstract methods. This has provided a welcome balance in the statistical guidelines in the Handbook. Another important trait was his ability, and patience to explain statistical concepts to other engineers. This frequently required multiple attempts using different physical examples to get the point across to those of us that were statistically challenged.

Mark stepped down as chair of statistics in 2002 because of a change of jobs. However, his legacy will remain with the handbook for decades to come.


Gary Hagnauer
Award of Merit
January, 2008


Dana Granville
Award of Merit

August 2012, Boston, MA

Dana Granville was awarded the CMH-17 Award of Merit at the Boston meeting in August 2012.  He has been a faithful and productive member of MIL-HDBK-17 and CHM-17 for 20 years.  He started as a member of the Materials and Processes Working Group in 1993.  In the fall of 1995 he was asked by then Chairman Gary Hagnauer to co-chair the Specialized Data Development Working Group with Gene Camponeschi and Terry VanDiver.  Under his leadership this Working Group provided an opportunity for contributors to the Handbook to learn about novel composite materials for applications other than aircraft, and about the processing challenges that were associated with their use.  Development of composites for sea and ground vehicles was supported by the activities of the Working Group, and information about novel material forms and processing methods was made available through the Handbook.  In 2000 Dana was asked to serve as Co-Chair of the PMC Coordination Group with Larry Ilcewicz .   He was instrumental in getting the Composite Handbook briefed at annual Defense Manufacturing Conferences and SAMPE conferences, and helped establish the key partnership with NASA's National Center for Advanced Materials Performance (NCAMP).  He has been a champion of composite materials, and a friend to all his colleagues in CHM-17 and beyond. 

 

Dana holds a B.S. in Plastics Engineering from UMASS-Lowell, and is just retired senior materials engineer for the Materials Manufacturing Technology Branch of the Weapons and Materials Research Directorate at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL), Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD. He has over 37 years experience with thermoplastic and thermosetting polymer materials and processing methods. He served as Army Principal and is past chair of the DoD Manufacturing Technology (MANTECH) Composites Processing and Fabrication Subpanel, Army deputy of the DOD RELIANCE 21 Technical Panel for Advanced Materials, and served on the Journal of Advanced Materials (JAM) editorial board.  Locally, he continues to serve as a trustee for the Plastics Institute of America at UMASS-Lowell, industrial board member at Northeastern University, and is an officer and Board of Directors member of the Society for Advancement of Materials and Process Engineering (SAMPE).

 

Curtis Davis
Award of Merit

September 2023, Wichita, KS

Curt Davies is presented with the Award of Merit in recognition for his decades of dedication and contributions to the handbook. He has held numerous titles; most recently including CMH-17 Handbook Co-Chair and Coordinator, PMC, CMC, MMC and AM Co-Chair, Statistics and Data Review Working Group Chair.

Curt started his involvement in (then) MIL-17 in the late 1990s, before he joined the FAA. In the early days of his involvement, Curt worked with industry to evaluate the interest in composite shared databases and to better define usable characteristics. Along with Steve Ward, Curt Davies worked on a NASA contract, formed and chartered the Data Utilization Working Group to work on issues that would speed the implementation of shared databases in Mil-17. This led to several FAA/Industry workshops on material and process control, supporting a detailed basis for FAA Technical Canter Reports and related regulatory guidance.  Over time, these efforts were closely coupled with the NASA AGATE and NCAMP Programs, which included additional NASA, DOD and FAA support. The Data Utilization Working Group overcame several hurdles to link material and process specifications with requirements statistically derived from base material databases under the direction of Curt before its work was complete. The ongoing, coordinated efforts of the Data Review, Statistics and SAE P-17 Working Groups have all benefited from Curt's leadership.

Curt Davies was also essential in keeping the CMH-17 Organization active and moving forward through the transition from the Army to the FAA. Curt worked many long hours to overcome bureaucratic hurdles in establishing a method to continue using the available FAA funding for CMH-17. This allowed the Secretariat to continue work and keep the organization active without missing a meeting. 

Curt’s leadership and dedication to the organization has spanned all the coordination groups, well beyond PMC. He has played an instrumental role in ceramic and metal matrix composites, as well as additively manufactured materials as we started a whole new coordination group in 2018. He has also led activities on future publication plans for CMH-17 and integrating other related efforts, like NASA ACP, into the Handbook.

 

Stephen Ward
Award of Merit

April 2024, Scottsdale, AZ

In our view, there is no better candidate for this award than Steve Ward.  Bestowing this award on Steve as he retires from full-time professional work (18 years at Boeing, 13 years with his own consulting firm, and 10 years at UTC/Collins) and steps back from PMC Guidelines Working Group (GWG) leadership is highly appropriate as his CMH-17 achievements over the past 25+ years demonstrate.

Steve first attended a MIL-HDBK-17 meeting in Fall 1995.  He became GWG co-chair in Spring 2001 and thus helped lead all subsequent WG tasks.  Notable achievements include:

  • Rewriting Damage Tolerance chapter (with Tom Walker) for Rev F, published in 2002;
  • Conceiving and creating the Vol 1 Roadmaps that allow readers to easily find relevant content; leading Data Utilization WG that refined “batch” definition, updated/created Vol 1 test matrices, created data documentation and specification requirements for Vol 2 material data; and rewriting “Failure Criteria” section of Vol 1 Chapter 8 for Rev G, published in 2012.
  • And for Rev H:
    • Leading a major overhaul of Vol 1 terminology, symbols, Roadmaps, and test matrices; including creation of an extensive yet practical set of standard laminate codes.
    • Coordinating reorganization of sub-sections between Vols 1 and 2.
    • Authoring complete re-writes of Vol 3 chapters 9 (stability analysis) and 11 (bolted joints), plus updates/additions to chapters 4 (Build Block Testing) and 8 (strength analysis).
    • Contributing to and reviewing content updates for virtually every Working Group in the Handbook organization. 

In 2018, Steve accepted an additional role as one of two industry representatives on a new CMH-17 Executive Leader’s group and in this position (which he still maintains) he has brought critical organizational and planning skills to CMH-17, most notably by creating and maintaining the master tracking spreadsheet of all Rev H tasks, and keeping the Secretariat and the rest of Exec focused on their immediate development tasks and deadlines.  Without his relentless effort in this regard, Rev H would not be the amazing update that it will come to be.