Idea earns sergeant $10,000

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Kenya Shiloh
  • 39th Wing Public Affairs
INCIRLIK AIR BASE, Turkey (AFPN) --  A noncommissioned officer here recently earned $10,000 from the Air Force's Innovative Development through Employee Awareness program. He received the money for writing an inspection and maintenance manual for the Department of Defense and the Air Force concerning metal shipping containers.

Tech. Sgt. Robert Tarbox, 39th Maintenance Group quality assurance munitions inspector, saved $719,000 in maintenance fees for U.S. Air Forces in Europe alone.

While he was stationed at Royal Air Force Fairford, England, he thought about writing a manual on how to maintain the containers since they were expensive to fix, even for minor adjustments such as putting on a new identification decal.

The containers store goods ranging from food to equipment and can fit on ships and the back of tractor-trailers. The containers here are used by the 39th Transportation Squadron and the 39th Maintenance Squadron Munitions Flight to move equipment and munitions.

Tarbox inspects the containers to make sure they are up to DOD and Air Force standards.

"When I was stationed in England, we had to hire a contractor to fix the (containers) for things such as fixing pin holes and dents under the bottom carriage of the container," Tarbox said. "After a while, I realized we were spending an extreme amount of money on contractors for something we could fix 'in-house.' The problem was the Air Force didn't have a manual on how to fix them. That's when I came up with the idea of writing one myself."

This is not the first time Tarbox submitted a money-making idea. Six years ago, he invented a chaff and flare squibbing device for fighter aircraft. He earned $7,500 for that invention.