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Rich Fields
Senior Manager, Mechanical Engineering Analysis
Lockheed Martin Missles and Fire Control (MFC)

“ASTM standards are tools in your professional toolbox, and have frequent application for those who know them. Start to know them a little, and let them start to work for you.”

Who is your current employer and what is your current position?

I work for Lockheed Martin Missiles and Fire Control (MFC), in Orlando, Fla., where I am senior manager for mechanical engineering analysis, and I continue to act in the role of lead technical specialist for composite structures at Lockheed MFC. My previous assignment was as IPDT (Integrated Product Development Team) lead of the EOTS (electro-optical targeting system) window IPT for the F-35 JSF (joint strike fighter).

Where did you obtain your undergraduate/ graduate degree(s) and in what fields?

I have a B.S. in engineering mechanics from the University of Missouri-Rolla (1978), and an M.S. in engineering mechanics from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (1982).

When and why did you become involved in ASTM International?

I attended my first ASTM meeting in 1986, primarily to learn from a composites symposium that was focused on a topic of interest to my job assignment. The symposium was sponsored by Committee D30 on Composite Materials (its current name, it had a wordier name back then), and the D30 chairman at the time happened to be Wayne Stinchcomb, one of my grad school advisors, a man who I greatly respected both for his technical knowledge as well as his graceful presence. In the more than three years since graduate school I had attended a number of other symposia sponsored by various groups but had not found any of the others to be so directly pertinent to my job, or so educational. The combination led me to join ASTM in 1987, and by 1988 I had volunteered for a standards writing assignment.

In which committees are you active? Are you a committee officer; if so, what group or groups?

I am in my last year of a third (and final) two-year term as chairman of Committee D30 on Composite Materials. My deeper involvement in ASTM started soon after joining when I became a Committee D30 task group leader in 1988. We were charged with developing a new standard on the moisture absorption properties of composites. In 1989 I filled a void by becoming subcommittee chairman of what was then the primary D30 standards subcommittee, D30.04 (reorganized in 1990 to a more focused scope), which position I held until 1996.

I was elected vice-chairman of Committee D30 in 1998, and began serving as D30 chairman in 2002. I have also been involved to lesser degrees in Committee D20 on Plastics, and in the former (but now disbanded) Committee E49 on Computerized Systems and Chemical and Material Information. I was honored and privileged to be elected an ASTM fellow in 1998.

How do you apply ASTM standards in your work?

ASTM standards cover a wide range of topics. Currently, I use them, or direct or request that team members use them, to characterize material and structural properties and response; to specify the procurement of, and control the quality of, materials, parts and finishes; in test result and failure analysis and troubleshooting; and even in drawing standards and unit selection and conversion. To minimize confusion among team members, including between suppliers and customers, I often refer to ASTM standards for the most appropriate and least confusing or least ambiguous terminology.

Apart from using standards, are there advantages to participating in standards development?

ASTM is not some ethereal group of “them” that does things for you. ASTM is you. If an ASTM standard does not suit your needs, but you are not participating, then a reason for any lack may be facing you in the mirror. Interested people can now become significantly involved electronically without even physically attending meetings, although there are advantages to being able to attend at least occasionally. Your active participation allows you to understand the development of the standard or of proposed changes, and it allows you to influence the direction of the result.

While participation in standards development does require some effort, it need not be a chore. Literally everyone in the world is no further away from involvement in ASTM than email or web access. It is now so easy to join that you do need to focus on your main interests; do not over commit by getting involved in too many committees. But do get involved.

What are some of your favorite aspects of your job?

It has morphed over the years from attempting to have fun in solving tough problems, to helping others try to find fun solving tough problems. Sometimes the problems are so tough that, in the middle of them, you aren’t sure you are having fun, and you wonder if you will get to an end of it. But when you do, there is great satisfaction to be had.

Are there advantages that you can identify that result from having an understanding of standards?

I apply ASTM standards constantly – nearly every day, especially D30 standards that directly relate to my technical specialty but also a wide variety of standards from other ASTM committees. Frequency of use is naturally a function of profession as well as job assignment: some will use ASTM standards more than others. However, even when ASTM standards are not directly referenced, awareness of applicable standards, of their basis in fact, and their history and development, is incredibly useful. ASTM standards are tools in your professional toolbox, and have frequent application for those who know them. Start to know them a little, and let them start to work for you.

Are there any words of wisdom that you can offer to professionals starting out in your field?

Better advice than I can give comes in a timeless quote from Blaise Pascal, whose words are no less true today than they were 350 years ago. “Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.” In other words, and despite our current popular culture, truth exists and is not relative – but it can be hard to find.

2007