In November, Wilding became a co-founder and the senior vice president of AdamWorks, 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. 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.”
Wilding credits NIAR and WSU with having not only a powerful impact on his career but his personal life as well. He met his wife, Laura, while both were Wallace Scholar aerospace engineering students at WSU.
| “She was two years behind me, and we actually first met when I was her tour guide during her visit during the Wallace Scholarship competition,” Wilding said. “We both worked at NIAR concurrently for about one-and-a-half years.”
He said Laura worked in engineering for awhile, but now spends most of her time at home with their daughters Emily, 6 and Anna, 2 ½.
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Wilding said that as AdamWorks takes off, he plans to continue modeling his own leadership after the management style he worked under at NIAR.
“I learned a lot about project management and mentorship while working under (NIAR Executive Director) John Tomblin,” he said. “John has very high standards, and he inspires his staff to produce quality results on time every day. He creates a fun, rewarding working environment and his success over the years shows that his management style works."
“I have never forgotten these lessons, and have tried to adapt these principles in my role as a manager and leader ever since.”
The new company will make use of Wilding’s NIAR connection in other ways, too.
“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.”
