T-Bone Comes Home to Roost After 35 Years at Woodlawn
Many of you don’t realize that T-Bone has spent the past 35 years getting up, sometimes six days a week, and all throughout the COVID era, working ten or more hours a day at Woodlawn Manufacturing.
Woodlawn Manufacturing is a first- and second-tier supplier to the military of warhead bodies, countermeasure flares and other ammunition. It opened its doors in 1973, and Gene’s dad was right there with them as their engineer and head of maintenance. He carried them through their early days and through the start of their foray into the world of CNC machining. Prior to the latter part of the 1980s and early 1990s, all machining was done on manual lathes and milling machines.
Gene started at Woodlawn for the first time in 1987/88. So, he learned the trade the old school way, under the tutelage of his father and lots of great men and women. He also attended Kilgore College during this time for a year and was taking their General Machining course. He remained at Woodlawn for five-years during this first stint.
T-Bone during his first stint at Woodlawn Manufacturing in the late 1980s or early 1990s.
According to T-Bone, they told him to pose for the company brochure because he was “the purtiest one there.” 🤭 (Mrs. Bone said it had to have the hair 🤭🫶)
He had an opportunity at another machine shop in Marshall, Lewis Engineering. So, he went to work for them for 2½ years and then went to a pattern shop and then back home to Woodlawn. When he returned to Woodlawn, it was in 1996 as their third-shift supervisor and technician.
It wasn’t long until he was promoted to the Quality Control Department and day shift. Now, while he appreciated the change and the day-shift perk… if you know T-Bone at ALL, it did not take him long before he was bored out of his skull! 🤭🫶 This man’s mind is going 100 mph, 24/7! SO, what did he do? He started teaching himself CNC Programming! 🤯
When he returned to Woodlawn there were 5 CNC machines on the floor. He was intrigued and I think he saw the future, perhaps HIS future, and he saw stability for his family. He just needed to carve out his niche, and that is exactly what he did.
Within three years of his return to Woodlawn, in 1999, he was promoted to the maintenance crew, with his dad as his boss. Now, I KNOW his dad, and I can tell you one thing for certain… T-Bone EARNED that spot on that maintenance crew. Maybe more than anyone else, he proved his mettle and earned that position, and to this day his dad could NOT be prouder!
T-Bone wasn’t just another one of their maintenance men. He became their programmer, their tool designer, and their CNC repairman without any REAL formal training… AND, he excelled at it!
His dad retired in 2001, not necessarily because he needed to, or even was ready to. He needed to go home and care for his wonderful wife, who had been stricken with Parkinson’s disease. He would come back in and do specialty jobs now and then for Woodlawn as a contractor, at T-Bone’s behest over the years. They really made an incredible team. 🫶
A couple of years after his dad retired, T-Bone was handed the entire Maintenance Department to run, just as his father had for so many years.
Now, they were adding more and more CNC machines to the floor, and as time went on the machinery was getting more complicated, as was the programming. So, in 2007 Woodlawn sent T-Bone to TSTC in Marshall to obtain his associate’s degree in Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM).
He was working 6 days a week most weeks and attending school at night. He and his first wife, Lucy, had a young son, as well… his plate was FULL. Then about halfway through his studies, Lucy fell ill with cancer in 2009. Her illness was swift, aggressive and devastating. Within eight months she was gone and he was left with his nine -year old son to face a whole new life and world… School went on the back burner for a moment.
He didn’t stop though, he had some help from Lucy’s mom, and he was able to get back in the game and finish his studies. He walked the stage and graduated with honors in 2011, he even made the Dean’s List. 🫶😁 He wanted to show his son that you don’t stop when life gets hard.
When he took over the maintenance department there were about 15 CNC machines, plus the presses, spot welders and wire welders on the floor. When he retired, there were about 50 CNC machines, plus the presses, spot welders and wire welders on the floor. Of course, as time has passed over the last 30 years, the complicated nature and workings of these machines have just magnified. However, T-Bone was never allowed to increase the size of his crew. He was basically working with the same size staff he began working with in 2007 when he took over the Maintenance Department, or smaller. Anyone who has ever worked in maintenance, feels the pain of this… and they wonder why he retired. 🤔
His final hoorah was redesigning a pneumatic-hydraulic quad-drilling unit/table that is PLC controlled. His dad built the original in the late 1970s. It worked and did the job for close to 50 years! It had run its course, and they needed a replacement. Here is a photo of the old girl.
Now, T-Bone took his time, more time than he really wanted to, because other maintenance issues kept pulling him away. It took him nearly a damn decade to even talk them into redesigning and building a new one. So, you can imagine his excitement and the conversations we had here at home during the design phase!
One thing I can say, and I appreciate about our relationship, is that I have a background in Industrial Maintenance too. Mine is with BIG machines, while his is with precision machines, we still speak the same language for the most part. It has made our decade together extremely fulfilling.
I am so very proud of everything he has accomplished, both before I knew him and since I came into his world. He never ceases to amaze me at the depth of his intelligence and willingness to continue to learn and stretch as a human. I am blessed beyond measure to be his partner in life, his wife, his best friend and his running buddy.
Stay tuned because we are writing our next chapter and this is going to be the best one yet! So, take a minute to congratulate him on 35 years of dedication to his craft and supporting the members of our Armed Services.
I know that as a Veteran myself, and the mother of a soldier who has dedicated his life to the Army, I appreciate all the men and women at Woodlawn Manufacturing and the work they do daily. It is a dirty job out there and in the last few years there have been multiple employees who have retired after more than thirty, forty, and even fifty, years of dedicated service to Woodlawn.
