Maintenance civilian manager wins Marquez Award

  • Published
  • By Nick DeCicco
  • 60th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  A civilian working with the 60th Maintenance Squadron was recently named as a winner of the 2009 Air Force Lieutenant General Leo Marquez Award.

Steve Francis, the civilian superintendent of the Aircraft Maintenance Unit, was chosen as the top maintenance civilian manager for last year.

It marks the second time Mr. Francis has won the Air Force-level honor in the last five years. His efforts were previously recognized in 2004.

The Lieutenant General Leo Marquez Award is presented to maintainers who have demonstrated the highest degree of sustained job performance, job knowledge, job efficiency and results in the categories of aircraft, munitions/missile and communications-electronics maintenance. In 2009, Mr. Francis was one of 14 people to win in his or her category.

"He's my go-to guy on tough jobs and technically challenging issues," said Maj. Thomas Hollender, commander of the 60th AMXS. "He's our expert when we have an issue."

Mr. Francis leads more than 320 members of the squadron as they keep Travis' fleet of 18 C-5 Galaxies in the air.

Although awarded to him, the man is quick to deflect attention from himself.

"This is not about an individual," said Mr. Francis, "but about Team Travis and for what we do every day, 24 hours a day. This is for the base, not for me."

Impressed at the scope and level of competition, Mr. Francis said it is "humbling" to have won a second time.

"To win it twice really catches you off guard," he said. "It's unbelievable. (It's) phenomenal."

Among Mr. Francis' accomplishments in the last year was maintaining a rigorous flying crew chief schedule during a period of high operations tempo.

Travis C-5s supported 112 missions for Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2009 - nearly one every three days. Even at such a high pace and with only 75 percent manning, Mr. Francis' crews had zero deployment shortfalls.

Mr. Francis also was instrumental in leading the Avionics Modernization Program for the C-5s, a program Air Force leadership created with the goal of extending the fleet's life for another 30 years.

Additionally, Mr. Francis led the wheel brake system improvement program, with 56 assemblies installed on the base's C-5 NASA space-container-module-capable aircraft.

"He's going to use the information gathered from here to expand it to the entire C-5 fleet," Major Hollender said. "He's been vital in collecting that data and is going to present it to the engineers."

Major Hollender also noted Mr. Francis' efforts as a leader. The squadron superintendent facilitated a down day for maintainers which is estimated to have accelerated the squadron's training by three months.

"It's great that we have someone like Steve who is a grizzled veteran, teaching them the ropes the correct way," the major said. "That's one of the biggest things a guy like him provides."

Mr. Francis will visit Washington, D.C., later this month to receive the honor in person.