Lockheed Martin engineers get stuck on duct tape

One would like to imagine that, as electrical engineers in the same group at Lockheed Martin, Michael Petner and Tuan Ngo are quick to offer each other words of encouragement.

But is it always quite so boisterous?

"Think light!" Petner shouted at Ngo on Tuesday. "Just keep those legs up. Good job!"

The 145-pound Ngo grinned gamely in reply. It might have been partly a grimace. After all, he was stuck to a cinder-block wall with duct tape.

At the defense contractor's Moorestown facility, employees are participating in National Engineers Week, a celebration of a discipline that too often goes without credit for its creativity and sense of humor.

Four teams of employees taped a coworker to the wall in a nondescript hallway at lunchtime. Three more are scheduled to follow suit Wednesday. The winning team is the one whose "tapee" stays on the wall longest.

Is it engineering? The exercise is certainly remote from the usual fare at Lockheed Martin's Burlington County campus, where long-term projects include designing the high-tech Aegis combat system for the Navy.

Each team got a 165-foot roll of duct tape. It had five minutes to attach one of its members to the wall, feet dangling six inches from the floor. The tapees wore Tyvek suits so the tape would not stick to their clothes or skin.

If more than one remained up after 30 minutes, the team using the least amount of tape would win, said Richard N. Pedersen, a computer scientist who served as judge.

Alas, no one was quite that sticky.

Two of the four hangers-on came off the wall within seconds, the silver tape peeling away with a loud rrrr-ip!

Ngo fared much better, lasting 12 minutes. His teammates, who included Cheryl Boukhediche, Dean Martin, and Doug Brown, had taped up a saddle-like contraption for him to sit on.

In an effort to boost adhesion, they even de-glossed the painted wall with rubbing alcohol before applying the duct tape. They used little wooden rollers to press it on firmly.

Sharp minds, to be sure. Their day job involves designing the cables that connect equipment on naval ships.

But then there were the Wasabi Wall-Stickers.

Two-time champions in the duct-tape competition, the Wall-Stickers had just one engineer in their ranks, systems engineer Dave Griscom. Others included Mark Huemmrich from finance, program manager Bert Tetreault, and manager of subcontracts Chris Udicious.

And of course, the 5-foot, 3-inch, 137-pound Anna-Maria Tentnowski, who volunteered to be taped. An administrative assistant who hails from Blackwood, she lasted 19 minutes, 38 seconds before suddenly falling sideways to the floor.

She was unhurt, though she suffered the indignity of having some tape stuck in her hair.

"We just yanked it out," Tentnowski said. "I took one for the team."

Asked for the secret to their success, Griscom said: "Keep as much tape on the wall, as close to the wall as possible. No angles."

Pedersen, the judge, stood nearby in a black robe, holding a garish red-and-blue trophy that he planned to bestow upon the winner Wednesday.

"This trophy is built to exact engineering standards," he said.

There's that engineering sense of humor again. Though evidently it is not universal.

Among the competitors on Wednesday? An entrant called simply "Data Management Team."

Watch the sticky Lockheed Martin competition at www.philly.com/DuctTapeEndText

215-854-2430