Yuma — Even in an organization where it’s common to find people who are passionate about their work, Michael Stoltenberg, Electronic Warfare Radio Frequency Support Lead at the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground (YPG) stands out.

Cross-Functional Team Integrator Justin Croutch said: “You can tell he really understands what he’s doing and genuinely enjoys it.”

The Air Force veteran has served in the YPG for 15 years and sees his civilian career as a continuation of his service while in uniform.

“I’m an instrumentation and telemetry technician, which is pretty much what I do here,” says Stoltenberg. “We had only 600 of him in the entire Air Force, and no one was allowed out of the country. The focus was on research and development.”

Originally from Orange County, California, he loved drafting and drafting, so he began taking classes for an architecture degree at Fullerton College. But at the age of 21, his life unexpectedly changed.

“My college dropped out of my major and needed time to think and figure out what I was going to do with my life.”

He enlisted in the Air Force and scored high on the military’s career aptitude battery test. When offered a choice of military specializations, he chose based on his years of tinkering with electronics already. The Radio Shack catalog was a long-standing companion of his youth.

“I actually built my own satellite dish when I was a kid,” he recalls. “I was re-wiring the tools, but I didn’t understand electricity. I wanted to learn.”

While assigned to the 746th Test Squadron at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico, he was responsible for tests conducted at the White Sands Missile Range as part of the Army Test and Evaluation Command, and it was through this experience that he became familiar with the YPG. I did not know that. After enlisting, he attended the University of Arizona, where he graduated in 2006 and quickly found work in the private sector, only to be laid off during the 2008 Great Recession. Already he was familiar with the YPG and he found a job here as a contractor. At the time, the National Counterterrorism Comprehensive Test and Evaluation Center (NACCITEC) was working hard to deploy electronic systems for improvised explosive devices in Iraq and Afghanistan. He became a government civilian working in his current branch in 2011.

YPG does not have to deal with intrusions from homes and buildings, but it is not excluded from the crowded radio spectrum that makes much of modern life easier. Every time you use your cell phone, microwave, or garage door opener, you’re using a portion of the wireless spectrum. This is the invisible resource the YPG relies on to support highly specialized testing. It reproduces the radio spectrum as-is at various locations around the world to facilitate testing of technology to combat unmanned aerial vehicles.

“Many tests involve very complex and dense radio frequency environments. You can build the exact same environment that you used.”

Part of Stoltenberg’s job includes identifying potential sources of spectrum contention at the test range and finding solutions to enable the mission to continue.

“Spectrum is a valuable resource. If you can’t change the frequency, you can change the time or location of the two competing tests. I have.”

To this end, his trade tools for conducting radio frequency surveys at range include handheld spectrometers and GPS tools. If testers experience radio frequency dropouts at a shooting range, computer models can be created to predict alternative locations for activity. But more important is modeling and coordinating to prevent conflicts from occurring.

“We talk regularly and try not to interfere with each other. The idea is to continue to ensure personal safety and security of communications.”

He also supports the YPG’s Cold Weather Test Center in Fort Greeley, Alaska, and the Latin America’s Tropics Test Center (TRTC). Last year, when the TRTC conducted extensive testing of armored multipurpose wheeled vehicles (AMPVs) in Central America, he used the communication devices his team needed to test triple his canopy and safety in his jungle. Assisted in performing operations on

“We made sure all the equipment worked here before they shipped it there. They were down and everything worked great.”

Off-duty, he is about to complete his master’s degree in applied physics, and is still tinkering with electronics like he did when he was younger.

“That’s what I like to do,” he said. “I teach his son about his RF. He has his own equipment at home that he has acquired over the years.”