Mission failure means 'lights out' for engineers

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Mara Title
  • Detachment 4, Air Force News Agency
RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany (AFNEWS) --  Every Air Force job is vital to accomplishing the mission. But the work of civil engineers affects anyone who uses power; if there is no one do to their job, it's lights out.

Staff Sgt. Brian Sawyer is one of those civil engineers. When asked what he loves most about his job, Sergeant Sawyer said, "Just being able to help run the Air Force mission, because even during snowstorms, rain, shine, if a vital building ... loses power, we're the first ones out there to respond to make sure it gets back up, quick."

The electrical systems craftsman recently tackled a tough job on the flightline here.  Some of the lights weren't working.  Although he and his team appeared undaunted, the task seemed a little bit overwhelming as the poles are 80 feet high. Since the buckets on the back of their truck can't reach that high, they had to lower the gigantic poles.

Once the first pole was lowered, the team switched out the giant light bulbs only to discover the bulbs weren't the problem.

"Now we have to look further into our system, and maybe change out transformers, replace fuses, and see what happens from there," he said.

The civil engineers will have to troubleshoot to figure out what went wrong, because for these Airmen, there's more than one way to change a light bulb.

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