Employee Spotlight: Keith Ryan

AMS congratulates Keith Ryan as he celebrates his ten-year anniversary with the company!

Keith is the Senior Hardware Engineer at AMS. In this role, Keith performs scoping studies for new AMS hardware systems; enhancements, diagnostics, and repairs on existing AMS proprietary equipment; as well as supervises the technical aspects of all new hardware development. He is currently scoping out or developing seven new systems for four different customers. Keith also works alongside the AMS Technical and Cable Services Groups with performing both AMS core and cable testing and troubleshooting of critical systems in nuclear power plants.

Keith was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida where his dad was a mathematics professor at Jacksonville University and his mom was a chemist for the state ensuring water/air emissions compliance. He decided to stay in Florida for college, graduating from the University of Central Florida (UCF) with a B.S.E.E.

Keith has had a successful and interesting career. Before coming to AMS, he worked for United Space Alliance, which was the prime contractor for NASA on the space shuttle at the Kennedy Space Center. The department he was in was responsible for all the electrical power distribution on the shuttle, and one of them had to be on-station in launch control to power up the shuttle during recovery, operations/maintenance, and launch. Mission STS-125, the fifth and final servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope was the last launch he was personally involved with. He got to meet many astronauts while working with NASA, including Buzz Aldrin, the 2^nd man on the moon.

After the space shuttle program was canceled, Keith considered several areas for a new career. He loved the Knoxville area, having four seasons and being near the Smokey Mountains, so he and his wife Cindy relocated to East Tennessee. Keith took a supervisor position for the data acquisition systems for the classified Advanced Centrifuge Project at USEC in Oak Ridge. After that project ended, he searched for an engineering job that allowed him to do a variety of tasks like design work, research, hands-on development, experimenting, travel, and in-field testing, which ultimately led him to AMS!

Keith and Cindy have been married for 27 years and love trying out new local brew pubs and restaurants. On a typical weekend, you can find them hanging out at Schulz Brau. Keith is also an avid follower of physics and other science news, likes learning about military history, and loves driving around back mountain roads. The couple also has a 19-year-old male Eclectus parrot named Basil who is just a quiet and mellow guy.

Congratulations on this milestone, Keith! We appreciate all you’ve done for the company over the past 10 years, and we are so happy to have you as part of the AMS team!