DELAWARE AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE, Del -- Master Sgt. Aaron Weber, 166th Civil Engineer Squadron explosive ordnance disposal technician has been awarded the 2018 Master Blaster of the Year award for his service to the Delaware Air National Guard and nation. Weber explained that he was excited to have been chosen from sixteen unit flights throughout the guard.
“After being nominated for the award over those individuals was pretty cool,” he said.
“It is my privilege to recognize and congratulate the 2018 Air National Guard Civil Engineer Award winners and those teams and individuals that represented the Air National Guard at the Air Force level. This program recognizes our outstanding CE Airmen, who are truly the ‘best of the best,’” said Col. Scott P. Chambers, Deputy Director, Installations, Air National Guard Civil Engineer, ANG Installations & Logistics Directorate.
EOD is the high-stakes career field that Weber chose when he joined the ANG in 2006.
“I had some friends and family who were assigned to this base here – this unit. I came in and talked to my first supervisor who told me what EOD does. He told me that we can blow stuff up and disarm bombs. And I said, ‘This is what I want to do.’ I believe I was 18 or 19 years old so it was an easy decision. I knew that it was a difficult career field, but I had confidence that I could pass all the training to become an EOD technician.”
What set him apart from the rest was initiative.
“I checked our man hours for the incident management report system that we do and we have over 17,000 man-hours of operations. Plus we’re working on creating a better product by improving our training site at Fort Indiantown Gap.”
The166th CE EOD unit also partners with civil authorities, performing several joint exercises throughout the year.
Weber owes much of his success to his team.
“My biggest reward is seeing my team accomplish the mission, complete their training, and seeing them become better Airmen and EOD techs,” he said.
Weber also has plans for the future. He has set the goal that by November of this year to identify a degree to pursue.
“Inside the EOD career field there are a myriad of different degrees in a lot of different majors and minors that I could probably take that could marry up in some sort of way with my career field: engineering, physics, and chemistry – anything along those lines. Even down into criminal justice if I wanted to go into law enforcement whenever I happen to retire. I want to continue my education. I want to learn more and I want to be more capable.”