Mark Thek, experienced physicist and engineering professional, headed operations at Los Angeles’ Esterline Power Systems for 22 years. Formerly, he served 13 years as a director with the Hughes Aircraft Company. One of Mark Thek’s achievements at Hughes was designing electron guns for traveling wave tube (TWT) amplifiers. The TWT is a thermionic valve that engineers commonly use in designs for various high power microwave amplifiers. These devices offer the benefit of a one to two octave bandwidth paired with exceptionally high gain capacities (30 to 60 decibels). TWTs also exhibit linear characteristics that relate signal input power to signal output power by a proportional gain factor. Due to their wide-bandwidth and low-noise characteristics, TWTs work well for RF amplification in microwave equipment. The power-amplification capacity of any given TWT depends on the length and voltage of its internal helical conductor, the diameter of its electron beam, and its external power input. The president of Esterline Power Systems since 1995, Mark Thek is an accomplished physicist, engineer, and writer. Throughout his career, Mark Thek has been involved in the development of a number of cutting-edge technologies used in the aerospace industry. Under his leadership, Esterline Power Systems has expanded its presence around the world. In recent years, Darchem, a subsidiary of Esterline, has acquired a contract with the United Kingdom, related to the country’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. With its expertise in developing solutions for problems related to high temperature and thermal engineering, Darchem has maintained a presence in the global nuclear industry for over 45 years. The new contract involves the manufacture of over 1,000 stainless steel containers for the containment of historic nuclear waste stored at the Pile Fuel Cladding Silo on the Sellafield Site in Cumbria, England. The double-walled containers will be fabricated from Duplex-grade stainless steel according to the highest quality standards. The Pile Fuel Cladding Silo was commissioned in 1952 and was primarily responsible for receiving and storing radioactive fuel cladding. It was filled by 1964 and currently holds over 3,200 cubic meters of waste. Throughout the cleanup decommissioning process, waste will be retrieved from storage silos by remotely operated equipment and packaged in the stainless containers. The containers will then be transported to a different interim storage facility. As president of Esterline Power Systems, Mark Thek provides sensitive technologies that allow aircrafts used in military and civilian contexts to perform according to expectations. Under Mark Thek’s guidance, the firm provides aircraft parts made from advanced elastomer materials. When people use the word “elastomer,” they often mean rubber produced by artificial manufacturing means, as opposed to naturally occurring rubber. Engineers can carefully manage the elastomer production process such that final products have unique properties useful to various ends. For example, some elastomers do not melt in the face of extreme temperatures. In the world of advanced aviation manufacture, elastomer parts often appear in the form of seals on aircraft hatches as well as in places that prevent fuel and other fluids leakage. Advances in aviation elastomer seals have made them lighter, helping airlines increase fuel efficiency. There are nearly 10 different kinds of elastomers companies use to fashion seals. Each type has a different temperature range in which it functions best. For example, neoprene compound seals function well in temperatures from about -50 degrees to just over 200 degrees fahrenheit, while silicon compound seals can function from about -80 to 400 degrees fahrenheit. However, functional temperature ranges within an elastomer family can vary depending on the specific compound in question. The president of Leach International prior to its acquisition in 1995 by Esterline Technologies Corporation, Mark Thek now serves the latter company as a president in its Los Angeles offices. In this role, Mark Thek ensures that all the company's employees adhere to Esterline’s corporate responsibility standards, including those that relate to the environment. Focused on ensuring the long-term health of the planet, Esterline strives to limit its environmental footprint in the communities where it operates. As a global company, Esterline encounters myriad environmental regulations, many of which differ widely based on location and the type of work being performed. Despite this diversity, Esterline expects its managers and employees to follow all applicable laws as they represent the company. Further, Esterline maintains internal policies concerning the environment and urges staff members who observe any violation to report the issue to a supervisor, HR representative, ethics advisor, or other appropriate party. The company also offers an Ethics and Compliance Helpline, which can be accessed online or by mail or telephone. By voicing their concerns, staff members help ensure Esterline meets its commitment to being a responsible corporate citizen. As the current president of Esterline Power Systems, Mark Thek oversees the sales and marketing of the company’s products along with the manufacturing and engineering systems in its facilities around the world. Mark Thek is also the president of Leach International, a supplier of business jet systems based in Buena Park, California, acquired in 1995 by the Esterline Corporation. Leach International won an award in 2007 for being one of the best annual supply chains for the Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation in North America. Leach International manufactures control components and power switches with a high reliability for aerospace vehicles, including Gulfstream business jets. As a fully owned subsidiary of the Esterline Corporation, Leach International Corporation has established itself as a world leader in aerospace/defense systems designs that also include components like contacts, sockets, and relays used in jets and other aerospace products. The company specializes in creating cutting-edge and unique designs for their component systems. An aerospace engineering professional based in Los Angeles, California, Mark Thek is the president of Esterline Power Systems, an international company that provides power distribution systems to aerospace and rail programs around the world. Outside of his work in the aerospace sector, Mark Thek is an author and the nephew of distinguished artist Paul Thek. Though he passed away at the young age of 54, Paul Thek’s legacy endures in his art pieces, several of which are on display at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC. Among the Thek pieces on display at the Hirshhorn Museum is Fishman, a sculpture that made its debut at the arts center in 1968. Made from a natural rubber and latex cast of the artist’s body, Fishman depicts a swimming man supported by fish that swim along the length of his body. Because the fish has historically been a biblically based symbol for Jesus Christ, many interpret the sculpture’s message as one of resurrection. While the sculpture originally sported a flesh-like tone and texture, time has worn away at its material, darkening the color of the art piece and hardening the latex to the point of crumbling. Restoration professionals from the Hirshhorn treated the sculpture in 2010 for the Whitney Museum of American Art’s exhibition Paul Thek, Diver: A Retrospective. An accomplished physicist and business executive, Mark Thek has served as president of Esterline Power Systems for more than two decades. As president of the Los Angeles-based firm, Mark Thek leads a specialized manufacturing organization that provides a range of products for aerospace and defense companies around the globe. In a recently released statement, Esterline Power Systems announced the launch of a new manufacturing site in Kortrijk, Belgium. Focused on advanced display and visual systems technologies, the cutting-edge engineering and manufacturing operation opened after Esterline invested more than 15 million Euros toward upgrading and consolidating existing facilities in the country. During a grand opening event, Esterline leaders and officials from Belgian trade organizations and government agencies toured the facility, which will help the company better serve the needs of global corporations such as Boeing, Honeywell, and Lockheed Martin. The event also featured the unveiling of a plaque honoring American pilot Murray Kenneth Spidle, who went missing in Belgium’s West Flemish region during WWI. The facility will be named the Spidle site in recognition of the lieutenant’s sacrifice. For more information about the new facility or Esterline’s work in the area, visit esterline.com. Since 1995, Mark Thek has served as president of Esterline Power Systems in Los Angeles. Outside of his work in the aerospace engineering industry, Mark Thek enjoys surfing, snowboarding, and spending time with his family. He also maintains an interest in the work of his late uncle, Paul Thek, a renowned artist. An innovative painter, sculptor, an installation artist, Paul Thek first attained critical success in the mid-1960s when he created his Technological Reliquaries series, which featured realistic wax sculptures of flesh and limbs displayed in Formica and Plexiglas containers. Later in his career, Thek left New York City for Europe and shifted the focus of his work from small sculptures to ephemeral environments made of throwaway materials such as newspaper, flowers, and candles. In the mid-1970s, Thek returned to New York to find that, despite success in Europe’s art community, few people at home remembered his work. Although Thek continued to create innovative pieces until his death in 1988, he never was able to reenter the art world and was forced to support himself by working menial jobs. Since his untimely death at the age of 54, Thek's reputation and popularity have grown considerably. His work can be seen in collections at the Whitney Museum of Art in New York and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC. Thek has also been featured in several books and cited as an influence on a number of subsequent artists. After receiving a master’s degree from the University of California, Los Angeles with a focus in physics, Mark Thek went on to become a physicist and engineering director for the Hughes Aircraft Company and then president of Esterline Power Systems. Mark Thek also published a book titled Quantification of Human Emotion. Modern psychologists have taken a vested interest in monitoring human emotions and brain activity to help explain certain afflictions like schizophrenia. Using magnetic imaging technology, scientists found that people with schizophrenia had lower activity in the brain’s prefrontal cortex. Torque magazine published an article that highlights emerging technologies used to quantify emotions, such as internet tools using speech analysis and video that studies facial reactions. There also is a web-based device that gauges emotion based on positive and negative sentiments of text. However, analysis still tends to be subjective as it is what is unspoken or when someone is sarcastic that can sometimes be tough to read. Graduating with a master’s degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, Mark Thek concentrated his studies on physics and mathematics. While attending UCLA, Mark Thek developed molecular branding techniques using Raman spectroscopy. Raman spectroscopy is related to laser beams and a rigid scattering of monochromatic light. “Inelastic scattering” as defined within Raman spectroscopy happens when the photons’ frequency in monochromatic light changes when it interacts with something. These molecular vibrations are used for sample quantitation and identification. When a laser is pointed at an object and bounces off, that light is shifted in what can be referred to as a Raman scatter. Vibrations of the molecules caused by this reflects the way that people perceive the wavelengths of light. Used primarily in chemistry, molecules are identified via rotational, vibrational, and other low-frequency styles. Raman technology has been used for more than 80 years and can help improve the quality of food consumed and products used by better understanding how light interacts with matter. |
AuthorPresident of Esterline Power Systems - Mark Thek Archives
February 2021
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