NES January Employee Spotlight

NES Employee Spotlight

Chris Delaney

In the most general terms, Chris Delaney might be considered a metallurgy technician.

After all, he does spend much of his work time testing, analyzing and inspecting metal samples to determine their physical properties, composition and quality.

To categorize him merely as such, however, wouldn’t be doing Delaney justice.

The Fort Erie, Ontario native has served as a bearing assembly technician, dimensional inspector, met lab technician and hone operator. Lately, he’s focused much of his attention on visual inspections, non-destructive testing and metallography.

“But then also whatever needs to be done,” said Delaney, who’s worked at Napoleon Engineering Services since October 2007, making him the company’s eighth-longest tenured employee. “The advantage of being here a long time is you learn a bunch of different (things), and you can sort of be slotted into different roles as necessary.”

As such, “I don’t really have a title,” Delaney maintained. “There’s nothing that really fits.”

Delaney summarized his place at NES as doing “quality stuff.”

The impact he’s made over the course of nearly two decades, however, goes well beyond these implied minutiae.

Delaney, in recent years, has become a Level II Magnetic Particle Inspection/Surface Temper technician. He played an integral role, last fall, in NES receiving NADCAP certification in Non-Destructive Testing. He’s, in many ways, the common denominator in NES’ quality assurance efforts. And it’s this kind of flexibility, and the tangible results he’s produced, that led to Delaney earning this month’s spotlight.

“Chris is a true jack of all trades who brings a rare level of versatility to the team,” Chris Truman, NES’ vice president of business operations, said. “He’s able to move between tasks, adapt to new challenges quickly and step in wherever support is needed without hesitation. His broad skillset, combined with a strong work ethic, makes him a dependable resource across all departments and a key contributor to keeping operations running.”

These attributes were recognizable early in Delaney’s NES career.

And since then, “he’s quickly progressed from assembly technician into our metallurgical department, then into visuals (and beyond),” Truman continued. “His ability to adapt, learn and excel across multiple disciplines highlights his versatility and reinforces why he is viewed as a true (virtuoso) within the organization.”

Still, the metallurgical side of the job remains central to his day-to-day.

But what does that entail exactly?

“So, you’re looking at the stuff that makes up that metal,” he pointed out, “and then you’re just comparing it to, this is what it’s supposed to look like; it’s not supposed to have these features. I’m looking at it to make sure that it doesn’t have any of the stuff that it’s not supposed to have.

“It’s (probably) more complicated than that; you could get pretty deep into it. But basically, that’s all it is: This is what this piece of material is supposed to look like at this magnification. Does it look like that, yes or no?”

Given his multiple roles, you might assume that, for Delaney, no two days look the same.

More realistically, “I would say no two months look the same,” he said.

For the past three weeks, he’s performed several visual inspections, keeping us caught up there before the load lightens and it’s back to the grinder. When grind ramps up, he’ll shift to surface temper etch to ensure that there’s no grinding burn before ultimately returning to the inspection lab and perhaps even the met lab if needed.

“So, do I have a routine?” he asked. “Yeah, but it’s more of an improvised routine, and that sort of shifts depending (on priority). Where are we on the workflow side of it? If we’ve gotten a ton of stuff through grind, then I know I’m going to be in here (the inspection lab) for the next two weeks.”

DELANEY DESCRIBED the NADCAP audit as a “complete unknown,” something we’d never experienced before (“I don’t know if it was interesting, but it WAS stressful,” he said with a chuckle). And it was due largely to Delaney (and others) that NES passed.

But that’s not necessarily how he views it. To the NES veteran, he was just doing his job.

“There’s a number of things that we have to do, and a number of people that are able to do them,” he said. “So, I’m put into this role, my job is to not screw that up, and if I can manage to not screw it up, then I can come back tomorrow and do it again.”  

To this end, he added jokingly, “I’m good at not being seen around the building, so that they don’t have many opportunities to fire me.”

To Delaney, the NADCAP audit is a microcosm for NES’ enduring success – through hard work and teamwork, we accomplished something that made the company better.

“And it’s the idea that this can continue,” he said. “We all have a hand in it and it’s just this little piece. You’re just doing this one thing, but it’s part of a larger collective. … Seventy percent of the time (throughout his tenure), we didn’t know what we were doing. We plopped a bunch of grinders down and said, ‘figure this out,’ and we did. ‘Develop how to make a raceway,’ and we did.”

And that’s what Delaney has been most proud of.

“It’s that we’re not just still here, but everything will just keep on going,” said Delaney, who’s raised three kids, now has five granddaughters and in his free time enjoys camping and playing video games with friends. “I don’t need any credit. This place fed my kids … and it helped raise a family.”