Auston Vandersteen understands his own strengths and weaknesses and makes every effort to understand the needs of our team members and partners. He treats each individual with respect and works to help our team members grow in their specific job functions and beyond. He is an effective teacher and mentor and is always willing to openly share information, expertise, and lessons learned on a wide variety of subjects. He consistently nurtures the development of our junior technicians, enhancing their skills and attributes to ensure team member and company success. Vandersteen also serves in the United States Air Force Reserves.
Vandersteen has been recognized multiple times for his exceptional contributions, earning the Maintenance Professional of the Quarter Knuckle Buster Award, the 419th Avionics Section Airman of the Month award five times, and the USAF Airman of the Month award.
“I have a great passion for the entire operation of aircraft and flying. Nothing motivates me more than troubleshooting a difficult issue and being able to take that problem to the root cause and fix it,” Vandersteen said. “There is nothing more motivating than solving complex diagnostics issues that generates a successful flight.”
Universal Synaptics' primary business focus is to remediate No Fault Found (NFF) through intermittent fault detection. An intermittent fault, or momentary “open,” can be due to a number of different conditions, including a cracked solder joint, a corroded contact, a sprung connector receptacle, a loose crimp connection, a hairline crack in a printed circuit trace, a loose wire wrap, or various other conditions all very common in electronic equipment. As the electronic equipment items are pulled from the errant system for bench tests, they often test No Fault Found (NFF) and Cannot Duplicate (CND). No repair is performed because no problem can be detected. Undetected intermittent faults result in an astounding taxpayer expense of $5.5 billion annually. As Technical Director, Vandersteen is leading the industry in education efforts, training, and solving real-world intermittent issues on the F-35 (certified Level 5 technician, Journeyman), C-130, F-16, and Boeing commercial aircraft.
