Keith, List,
This was a good idea, it is very interesting to find the varied experiences
involved here. Here goes mine.
Mike Manghelli, 42
21 years at Lockheed Martin, 20 of which have been in the Skunk Works,
working primarily on the F-117A Stealth Fighter. Started deburing parts,
then a senior metal fitter (putting all that stuff together for the
welders), moved to the manufacturing line assembling the F-117, then started
the trip into management, 9 years supervising the final assembly,
electrical, avionics and hydraulic check out. I moved to avionics (again
the F-117) specializing in the mission computers and Infrared systems, this
lead to 8 years as the Project Engineer for a four bay automated tester for
the F-117. When the black boxes fail on the airplane it comes to our tester
and it tell the operator which card is bad in the box. That program ended
last year to I am back in Avionics Engineering for the Infrared system and
the automatic tester that we built. Yes, I am proud to be in the REAL Skunk
Works.
I started desert racing motorcycles as a kid and went into LSR in high
school. My shop teacher had car that he ran and since I was ahead of the
class, worked on his race car instead of the regular shop stuff. When his
partner, Don Carr started racing with Barry Kaplin (this is another story,
Don was the first at 306mph on El Mirage), I partnered with "teach". After
a couple of years he went drag racing and I partnered with high school buddy
on a Karman Ghia, During the ' 78&79 season at El Mirage we set 11 records
in 12 meets and finished second both seasons by only 5 points. In '82 I
started a VW powered lakester with another partner that held records at El
Mirage both gas and fuel classes. We later put a Rabbit motor in it to hold
the worlds fastest VW record at 199.902mph at Bonneville (1500cc turbo on
Alcohol) This little car set the diesel record last year at 116mph. After
the VWs I raced with Rich Manchen and his big block lakester setting records
at El Mirage and Bonneville. I almost died in '94 on the salt crashing it
on a qualifying run at 258 on a 251 record. (another story). Now I am
tuning Rich's Alfa and have built my wife a VW diesel pickup truck.
Pam, my wife has also spent 22 years with Lockheed in various computer
related jobs. This brought her to design and start the SCTA website
www.scta-bni.org. Also, she has been doing the results for the last three
years at Bonneville and El Mirage. Now she gets to drive her own race car,
(but I do all the work... not sure about this deal). As of January 1, she
will be the office manager for the SCTA and BNI, so all those phone calls of
complaints to the office will be handled by her.
Mike and Pam (sorry I got a little long winded) Manghelli
SCTA President and the SCTA/BNI Office Manager
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