New firm to focus on low-cost, high-performance composites
By Staff | January 29, 2008
In November 2007, former National Institute for Aviation Research (NIAR) employee Joe Wilding became a co-founder and the senior vice president of AdamWorks (Centennial, Colo.), almost exactly 10 years after he completed graduate work in aerospace engineering from Wichita State University and wrapped up a year and a half of research at NIAR.
AdamWorks will focus on the development and production of low-cost, high-performance composites. The new company will offer conceptual, preliminary, and detailed part design; cost and schedule estimation; systems integration design; design for manufacturing; structural analysis; tooling design; tooling fabrication; prototype part development; production part manufacturing component inspection/conformity; and composite assembly and systems installation. Wilding joins in the venture with co-founders Kim Burquest, the new president of AdamWorks, and Rick Adam, the founder of Adam Aircraft.
From the time he began working in NIAR’s composites and structures labs, Wilding has found composites technology to be central to his aerospace career. Following graduation, he worked for two years at Scaled Technology Works, a Montrose, Colo., company that focused on design, certification and production of aerospace composite parts. From there, Wilding went on to spend eight years at Adam Aircraft in Englewood, Colo., first as a project engineer for the company’s two aircraft, the A500 and A700, and then as the vice president of advanced development since last July.
“During my time at Adam Aircraft, I was continually approached by outside people and companies to develop ways we could apply the low-cost composites techniques we employed to other projects,” Wilding said. “These inquiries came from everywhere: government agencies, aerospace prime contractors and individuals from small companies in various industries.”
“As composites become more accessible and gain higher visibility, more and more people are becoming intrigued and are looking for ways to incorporate the advantages composites bring into their products,” he said. “We specifically started AdamWorks to cater to this opportunity.”
“We will be using NIAR for all of our composites material testing as we move forward,” he said. “We also look forward to opportunities to collaborate on further composites research.”
