Marine Corporal (from Florida!) saves the American tax payer $140MM

[Parliament 14,227]

Not sure which thread to put this in, so I'll put it here.

Cpl. Gage Barbieri, now 21, received the Meritorious Service Medal on Friday from Col. Damon Burrows, commanding officer of 2nd Marine Division’s Headquarters Battalion. Barbieri is only the second Marine corporal to receive the Meritorious Service Medal since at least 2008, Burrows wrote on LinkedIn.

While serving as the Marine Corps’ representative to Oshkosh Defense as it revised its technical manuals for the joint light tactical vehicle, Barbieri pointed out flaws in the manuals, including one issue that could lead to rollovers.

Barbieri’s engineering acumen would save more than 900,000 person-hours of maintenance production time and more than $140 million throughout the entire life cycle of the platform, the Corps calculated.

 

“He could diagnose issues that most Marines couldn’t find and was able to make the repairs that civilian engineers from external organizations couldn’t,” said Master Sgt. Kenneth Byxbee Jr., Barbieri’s former motor transport maintenance chief, in the news release.

 

He is set to leave the Marine Corps in June. The next step is college at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, where he plans to study mechanical engineering. He hopes of becoming a tech writer, who writes manuals himself, he said.

 

We all know someone like this guy.  They can fix ANYTHING.  Pickups, refrigerators, laptops.  As a future engineer, I bet he's gonna design good shit.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/marine-corporal-earns-prestigious-medal-203823735.html

 

 

[Willfully Horn 7,998]

Sounds like he will carve an exception to the “you either know what you do not manage or manage what you do not know” phenomenon. Good on you, sir!

[RPM 26,315]

He wasn't immediately stripped of his rank and given NJP? That's not the Corps I'm familiar with.

[South Austin 52,431]

That medal is going to get him some serious pussy.

[Samson's Wig 3,189]

Shit, I thought I was cynical.

[Brisketexan 105,041]

That's a good outcome for the Marines.  Do y'all realize how many more crayons they can buy with that money?

[Fudge Nuggets 19,184]

This reminds me of exercises my company does where everyone tries to one up everyone else for "cost savings" on a well.  If you added up all the initiatives we would probably be drilling 30,000 ft deepwater wells for about $350; but alas we still suck and our costs haven't budged at all.

[South Austin 52,431]

1 hour ago, BeardIP said:

Headline feels deceptive. It makes you think there were some hard savings he figured out that had been proven out, but really it's a $140mm cost avoidance and savings formula; an extremely loose excel exercise based on extremely liberal assumptions.

Take that shit to Cloak Room.

[Dennis Taylor 18,807]

Well the senators on Oshkosh Defense payroll probably aren't too happy about this 

[jimmyjazz 45,877]

2 hours ago, BeardIP said:

Headline feels deceptive. It makes you think there were some hard savings he figured out that had been proven out, but really it's a $140mm cost avoidance and savings formula; an extremely loose excel exercise based on extremely liberal assumptions.

The cynic in me says, "I wonder what sort of dirt this guy had on his superiors to be able to get them to go all-in on the ROI of this use case, give him an awesome award and conviently exit him out of the military with a nice, air-tight NDA".

Oh, good lord.

Regarding UCF:  why not UF?  Much better engineering school, same in-state pricing (roughly).

[Mittens 8,251]

8 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Regarding UCF:  why not UF?  Much better engineering school, same in-state pricing (roughly).

If he was smart enough to get into UF, he wouldn't be an E4 in the Marines. 

[jimmyjazz 45,877]

Just now, Mittens said:

If he was smart enough to get into UF, he wouldn't be an E4 in the Marines. 

If his engineering instincts are as good as his superiors seem to think they are, then it should be a classic case of "we're gonna ignore high school" and admit the guy anyway.  It's one chair.  If he flunks out, he flunks out.

I officed next to the guy who invented 3D printing at UT.  He was far from the classic PhD candidate.  UT basically 3D printed his diploma (OK, in 2D, it's a metaphor).  Some people take other routes and have different skills they leverage to get there.

[Mittens 8,251]

I was mostly just being a smartass, but also not, since getting into college is mostly based on what one did in HS.

Seems like he's pretty bright though.  Quite the jump from Palm Beach State College to Berkeley.

Quote

Having skipped fourth grade, Barbieri graduated from high school in 2019 at only 16. He spent two semesters studying mechanical engineering, first at Palm Beach State College in Florida and second at the University of California at Berkeley, but he didn’t love it.

Then a Marine recruiter approached him at a career fair.

“I’d tried everything else out, and I couldn’t find anything wrong with joining the Marine Corps,” Barbieri said.

 

[Parliament 14,227]

2 hours ago, BeardIP said:

Headline feels deceptive. It makes you think there were some hard savings he figured out that had been proven out, but really it's a $140mm cost avoidance and savings formula; an extremely loose excel exercise based on extremely liberal assumptions.

The cynic in me says, "I wonder what sort of dirt this guy had on his superiors to be able to get them to go all-in on the ROI of this use case, give him an awesome award and conviently exit him out of the military with a nice, air-tight NDA".

I bet you're fun at parties.

 

[atomheartbevo 89,618]

1 hour ago, Brisketexan said:

That's a good outcome for the Marines.  Do y'all realize how many more crayons they can buy with that money?

Shit, I thought this was going to be about some Marine changing the crayon supplier to a company whose crayons have an ingredient that no Marine would want to eat, thereby saving them millions in buying new crayons.

[Jiggy-Z 3,432]

$140 million is like 35 cents to the DOD. Surprised he got more than some extra rations.

[Fudge Nuggets 19,184]

5 hours ago, BeardIP said:

Probably because this guy got a presitigous award for doing what the obnoxious guys everyone hates, the first year analysts at the Big 4 or any bank, do on their first day of the job for clients.

It didn’t say he blatantly ripped off the idea from some poor front line worker, put it in a snazzy PowerPoint presentation, and passed it off as his own idea to upper management.

Edited May 21 by Fudge Nuggets

[Redneck Mutha 7,952]

7 hours ago, South Austin said:

That medal is going to get him some serious pussy.

[SydneyCarton 48,051]

I've got to say, desiring to be a tech writer seems like he's aiming a bit low...

[Beau Vine 54,203]

49 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

I've got to say, desiring to be a tech writer seems like he's aiming a bit low...

 Yeah, get an engineering degree to be a tech writer?  WTF?

[Samson's Wig 3,189]

9 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

 Yeah, get an engineering degree to be a tech writer?  WTF?

Right? Everyone knows engineers can neither read nor write.  I don't know what he's thinking. 

[Brisketexan 105,041]

54 minutes ago, Samson's Wig said:

Right? Everyone knows engineers can neither read nor write.  I don't know what he's thinking. 

[RDCanecutter 26,377]

13 hours ago, Redneck Mutha said:

I guarded the motor pool where they shot the scene of those two MPs catching our heroes trying to desert.

No trace of females during my time, but I did use my burglary skills to access the candy machine inside one locked building and get me and my buddy our first Reese's Cups in 6 weeks.

Who watches the watchers.