Craig Barton’s long career in aviation was a steady climb

Fresh out of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1988 with a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering, Craig Barton got his first job as an “experimental aerodynamics guy” at Rockwell.

“I was doing primarily wind tunnel testing, but across a lot of different products—some classified stuff and the B-1B, testing for Cessna, for Douglas, for the Army, and for some space companies. It was super exciting because everything I worked on was the next generation of its kind. I learned a lot.”

Barton said his interest in learning more, led him to get a master’s degree in aerodynamics and propulsion at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.

“Rockwell made it easy to get an advanced degree. They paid for a preponderance of it and It helped that classes were taught at the Northrop B-2 engineering facility. I was able to go to school in the evenings—that part was difficult, but it led to higher pay and greater opportunities.” 

About a year after getting his master’s, Barton said he and his wife Bethany wanted to do something new, relocate to a less expensive part of the country and have kids. He got a job in Tulsa, Oklahoma which fit the bill.

That move became a 27-year career with American Airlines. He started as a power plant engineer at American, working side-by-side with mechanics and Pratt & Whitney engineers on engines for the MD 80 and 727s in Tulsa. Soon after, he was promoted to be lead engineer on the V2500 and from there experienced a series of steppingstone job changes leading to top management.

“American had bought Reno Air and inherited some of those engines. I quickly became manager of one of the power plant groups for all the GE engine products—767, MD11, 737, you name it. We did all our engine overhauls and repairs. It was a super busy engine shop. I was managing lots of engineers who in turn worked with approximately 1,000 mechanics.”

After about six years, Barton made a dramatic career move from engineering to the operation side of American. The first 15 years of his career were as a technical engineer or technically focused management where his soft skills were recognized. He had the ability to manage upwards and also relate to the skilled labor force in the unionized environment of an airline. He did well and was asked to lead the operations side of the business.

Barton described the “crazy” promotion offer.

“It was Christmas time. I was skiing and up on a chairlift when my phone rang. I didn't want to answer it because I knew my phone would end up in the snow drift. It was my boss who was at the time the vice president of maintenance. I skied down to the bottom and called him. He basically said, ‘this is your new job’ and off I went.

“Crazy enough, but two years later the exact same thing happened. A different new boss called me while skiing and asked me about moving from the engine side of the business to the airframe side. I decided I would never go skiing again unless I wanted a new job.”

Moving to the operation side of the business, he was now working with thousands of mechanics and led to larger and more expansive roles.

 After a few staff jobs, American Airlines and US Airways merged. Barton volunteered to take on the task to integrate the two companies.

“That was probably the biggest one-off challenges of my career. I was on a team responsible for transforming the technical operation side of the business into one business—not two different airlines with two different philosophies, but one.

Barton said he was told to make it happen on time and not cause operational disruptions like some of their competitors’ mergers.

“I was excited about it because it would be something completely different from what I’d ever done in the past. I’d seen so many different aspects of the business and believed I could oversee the integration. I certainly wasn't the technical expert in doing every piece of it. While others did the nitty, gritty work, I program managed the process and rewrote all of the manuals.”

He said the most difficult part of the integration was combining the employee labor contracts.

“First, we combined the employee groups, our IT systems and our inventory—all of which were very disparate at the time. All our maintenance programs and practices and policies had to be made into a single set and it all had to be accepted and approved—in some cases by the FAA because airlines are very highly regulated.

“There were only about two dozen of us working on that integration phase. Eventually, my job was supervising 14,000 people. Always be ready for what comes next!”

After that success, Barton was promoted to vice president and oversaw all of American’s supply chain, planning and heavy maintenance. What does that entail? One example is that three to 10 years every engine and airplane must be disassembled, cleaned, repaired and rebuilt. At that time, American had a fleet of about 1,000 airplanes. His shops were doing maintenance on 50 aircraft and 100 engines at a time, some partial repairs and others in their heavy overhaul.

In his last role before retirement, Barton was the vice president of technical operations. He oversaw all maintenance execution around the globe for American—including work done by American mechanics as well as that done by a third party. At that point, about 14,000 mechanics and management reported to him, doing aircraft and engine component maintenance as well as the ground support equipment.

“All of that equipment you see at an airport, the maintenance reported through me as well as the airport maintenance facilities—and that’s for all airports around the world. You know, airlines are inherently 24/7 jobs. But that one was particularly so.”

Barton recalled the sobering events of 9/11, which happened about six years after his move to American. There were over 20 American employees who died that day and the two American airplanes that were hijacked had been maintained at some point in their service at one of the facilities where Barton had worked.

“I had done a lot of testing on low observable aircraft at Rockwell. One outcome of 9/11 was concern that terrorists might use heat-seeking missiles to shoot down commercial airplanes. Partnering with a defense contractor, we took existing military technology designed to spoof those types of weapons and figured out how to integrate that into commercial aircraft. I ended up being the lead of that program. This was the first prototype installs in the US. We flew it for many months and got the FAA approvals necessary to go install it if we or anyone else ever needed to so.

“That experience told me that the things you do previously in your career will always be with you and may help you 10 years later doing something completely different.”

Barton has served on the department’s alumni advisory board for several years and now serves as president of the board.

“It’s an opportunity to help share with the department more of what’s happening in the aviation industry. Because I was on the operations side, I can bring a little different perspective.”

He mentioned that one of the department’s main goals is to teach students and prepare them to be high-quality prospective engineers that employers can hire and expect to do well.

“I’ve been at some places where we’ve hired engineers and were disappointed in their readiness. The feedback I’ve received from everyone is that an Illinois aerospace grad is ready to be an aerospace engineer.”