Gray's career is on the right track
by Paul V. Arnold
Imagination is life’s No. 2 pencil.
If boundaries or barriers stand in your way, use the eraser end.
If asked to jot an essay answering the question "Why?," use the lead end to write in big letters: WHY NOT?
How sharp is your pencil? Ever use the eraser?
In a country where everybody wants to be No. 1, only imaginative people — the pencil people — know the importance of being No. 2. That’s Thomas Gray.
A creative, hands-on guy by nature, Gray spent his free time tinkering with automobiles and doing home improvement chores. He had a good job as a U.S.
Postal Service mail carrier in Salt Lake City, but wanted more from a career.
Gray imagined himself as a maintenance mechanic at the local USPS processing and distribution facility.
One problem: He didn’t have any formal education or training in maintenance and electronics.
Erase the barriers? Why not!
Gray made it happen by visiting the Salt Lake City public library every chance he got. He read textbooks, manuals, trade magazines — anything to fill his head.
"I took the Postal Service maintenance test and passed it," he says.
Being a Level 5 maintenance mechanic was just the start.
His ability to learn on the fly and seek out company-sponsored training opportunities helped him achieve Level 7 status. He recently passed advanced testing and will soon become a Level 9 electronics technician (ET), the highest classification available for Salt Lake City maintenance employees.
"The first time I took the ET test, I didn’t pass," he says. "After getting suggestions on reference materials from the maintenance manager and studying them, I passed it the next time."
Gray currently serves as a mail processing equipment specialist and is one of only a handful of maintenance pros doing preventive, predictive and repair work on the facility’s high-tech, big-money tray management system (TMS). Maintenance took control of the TMS last November.
The backbone of that system is a cadre of 13 trains that travels on an overhead track. Each train consists of a tug and 30 trolleys and functions on a wealth of electrical components, automation equipment and computer software.
Each train precisely transfers and deposits mail trays at destinations throughout the production area.
Taking care of the TMS requires technical wizardry and, yes, a little imagination. Gray gets creative by using his automobile knowledge.
"One vehicle runs on electronics and the other on oil, but there are similarities," he says. "You need ingenuity sometimes to make it work. Parts may not be available, or the problem may not be that obvious."
He also develops ways to modify trains to increase maintainability and mean time between failure.
When a mail train must get back into operation, Gray always gets the lead out.
This article appeared in the August/September 2001 issue of MRO Today magazine. Copyright, 2001.
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