Contributed by Phil Clough, Engineering Manager. I am pleased to announce that Tom Brennan has accepted the role of Project Manager for Altec AIR. Tom did multiple engineering coops with Altec in Birmingham between 2013 and 2015 and joined Team Altec full-time in 2016 after earning his Mechanical Engineering degree from the University of Alabama. He began his career as an Applications Engineer in Roanoke. In the summer of 2018 he moved to Colorado to join Altec AIR’s engineering team. Over the last several years Tom has served as a Technical Lead on multiple projects, delivered positive results on product support and quality issues, and led efforts to continuously improve our organization’s engineering standards and processes. Tom will fully transition to this new role over the next month and immediately begin working with his new mentor, Julie Toeller. While he will formally continue reporting through me for the foreseeable future, Tom will join the ranks of Altec’s Project...

Contributed by Katherine Crane, Manufacturing Engineer, et al. Altec AIR recently held a Social Committee sponsored Contest for our Associates.  Because we haven't been able to have many company-wide social activities due to the Covid situation, the Social Committee (I can't remember who suggested the idea) initiated a "T-Shirt Design Contest".  The idea was to get the Associates working in the same area/department to work together on creating and submitting a design. The plan: Work with the Associates within your area/department (since they are already working and interacting with each other, it was less of a Covid concern), develop a work appropriate design together, submit the design to the Social Committee, the entire Company would vote on their favorite Design, and then the Social Committee would have that Design printed on T-Shirts for EVERYONE at Altec AIR. The Contest turned out to be a popular one among our Associates, with many Teams submitting...

Contributed by Jeff Allen, Technician II. We had an unexpected visitor at the Altec AIR manufacturing facility recently.  It seems this bird (previously thought to be an owl) had been trapped in the shop for a few days.  Some of the Production Associates had actually started calling him "Tom" because he seemed to enjoy dive bombing Associate Tom Mazorowicz throughout the day. One morning, Associate Allen Hunter came upon what he thought was 'a dead bird' on the floor of the Monitoring Production Area. To all of our surprise, this little guy was still alive, but just barely. During our efforts to provide aid to "Tom", Associate Danny Norris assisted me in getting a little water in him successfully.  I then asked Associate Nora Aragon to see if she could track down the Birds of Prey Foundation located here in Broomfield, CO. Upon contacting them, they made it a priority for us to meet with them at their facility. Apparently, this bird was the ...

Contributed by Phil Clough, Engineering Manager. My intent going into this blog post was to talk about where I started at Altec, how Altec helped me grow as a person, and what I think an “outsider” should know about Altec. As the thoughts flowed from brain to keyboard, it took on a slightly different direction, but I think I fulfilled the purpose. Putting this on paper has caused me to once again realize how special of an organization Altec continues to be. So, grab yourself a drink and find a comfy chair. When I first came to Altec almost 15 years ago I was just getting started in my career. I was your stereotypical antisocial B-average mechanical engineer fresh out of college. Through high school and college, I had worked jobs in landscaping, dishwashing, inbound and outbound phone sales, auto parts sales, professional auto repair, and an internship in quality engineering. I thought I had the world figured out. But the environment at Altec was something I had never seen or experi...