Photo By Jim Dresbach
Tony Vaughn (on ladder) and Kenny Bond prepare to install a “no parking” sign behind Fort Myer's Bldg. 202 July 11.
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JBM-HH sign team works to be letter perfect
There is a professional uniformity and precision to their work and craft, and the quantity of their handiwork runs into the thousands.
Kenny Bond and Tony Vaughn are the custodians of the signs.
When the Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall signage team signs in on work mornings, they are in charge of the handful of base sign categories. From Custer Road to Sheridan Avenue to the Summerall Field parking lot, whether it is a traffic, direction or a building identifying sign, Bond and Vaughn are in charge from the creation of a sign in Bldg. 306's sign shop to the installation on a barrack wall or an officer's step nameplate.
Scattered across Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall's 265 plus acres are over 1,000 signs that point the correct direction, stop cars, reserve parking spaces and identify headquarters. In about three decades of work at JBM-HH, Bond has created many of those signs and nameplates.
“We are in charge of traffic signs, parking signs and the maintenance of certain street name markers,” Bond said from his desk inside the sign shop which is located near Wright Gate and is part of the Directorate of Public Works. “If they request it, we make it.”
Bond mentions that a sign — depending on the size and wording — can take from 30 minutes to a couple days to finish.
Before starting a work order, the sign shop receives an approved 4283 (facilities engineer work request) form. A sign order must be OK'd by funding estimators. That paperwork process can take up to a month before Bond and Vaughn see an actual work order.
Creating today's JBM-HH signs is an easier process than making octagon sheet metal stop signs and triangle-shaped yield markers 20 years ago, but one detail remains the same — deadlines are to be met and computers have assisted Bond and Vaughn to do a letter perfect job.
“Making signs has changed a lot because I remember when I first started, you had to use silk screen to make a sign,” Bond remembered. “The equipment now used to make a sign is much faster. A one hour job today would be a four-, five-hour job with silk screening. With the technology we have, we can do a job sometimes in 30 minutes.
“Depending on the job, if we have a change in command and if a new commander is coming in, we want to get that sign done and have a specific time to put it up,” Bond added. “All that is involved in a change of command [work order] is a new nameplate going on a sign.”
Bond and Vaughn are also in charge of traffic, parking and street signs at Fort McNair, but every four years, the JBM-HH signage team gets to contribute to a part of American history.
“Sometimes we get special projects, like we did signs for the [Obama] inauguration,” Bond said. “They were basic directional signs; we've done [the inaugurations] before — for almost every inauguration — we get to do the signs, and we'll produce over 200 signs.”
Vaughn and Bond also are in charge of sign maintenance and upkeep. According to Bond, the average life of a typical JBM-HH sign is 10 years.