DVIDS – News – 7 pages of red ink almost ended Beaty’s career. Now he’s celebrating 40 years.

In 1996, Von Beaty stood in Norm Rodewald’s office, staring at the test selection worksheet in his hands. Red ink covered all seven pages. Corrections bleeding across each line.

After 11 years at Point Mugu, this moment almost made him walk away.

“I almost wanted to quit,” Beaty recalled.

It was December 1995, and Rodewald had burned through five other engineers before walking into Beaty’s office.

“You’re my test lead,” he said. “You shouldn’t be down here. You belong upstairs in the lab.”

Now, facing his first test selection worksheet as the newly appointed F-14D test lead, Beaty felt the weight of trust crumbling under red ink.

Instead of quitting, Beaty returned to his desk and studied every correction. For months, he wrote test selection worksheets, each one better than the last.

Red ink became clean pages.

When he handed Rodewald another test sheet later that year, his supervisor didn’t glance before signing.

“You know what you’re doing,” Rodewald said.

Red ink became the foundation of trust. That moment transformed near failure into trusted expertise. Rodewald became the mentor who shared knowledge that continues to guide him.

Twenty-nine years later, Beaty was honored with his 40-year length-of-service award at a ceremony June 18 at Point Mugu, where he now leads the Software Development Group.

Beaty supervises 10 software developers who build real-time applications capturing test data from 2,500 annual events at the Point Mugu Sea Range. His Link-16 Coverage Expansion Project provides critical long-distance communication capabilities to Gray Flag, a large-scale annual force test event.

“Data is everything,” Beaty noted. “We collect data for the customer through our applications. The data provides them with insight into what the system has done so they can make a real-time decision.”

For four decades, Beaty has worked by one simple rule: Treat every task like someone’s life depends on it. Because it does.

From Mr. Allen’s Classroom to Point Mugu

On the south side of Fort Worth, Texas, Beaty’s path to engineering started in a high school electronics classroom.

At home, his father, who drove 18-wheelers, wanted his son to become a lawyer or a doctor. But one teacher had a different vision.

“You don’t want to be a technician. You want to be an engineer,” Mr. Allen told him, setting Beaty on a path toward Prairie View A&M University.

From 1980 to 1985, Beaty pursued electrical engineering while building a brotherhood through Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. By the spring of his senior year, weeks from graduation, he still didn’t have a job lined up.

Then at a campus job fair, a friend’s casual observation changed everything.

“Hey man, there’s this Navy guy over there talking to people. Why don’t you go talk to him?”

Beaty then interviewed with Lovie Webster from Pacific Missile Test Center right there on the spot.

“Mr. Webster, I’m graduating in May,” Beaty said. “I don’t have a job. I need a job.”

Webster asked if Beaty really wanted to move to California. He did.

With a job offer in hand, Beaty drove 1,500 miles and arrived at Point Mugu on June 17, 1985.

Then he saw his branch head, Dan Kimsey, wearing a rubber old-man mask, arms outstretched like a zombie, chasing co-workers through the parking lot.

“I’m walking up, and he’s chasing people,” Beaty recalled, laughing. “Just a character.”

The mask was comedy. The mission was life or death.

Roger Geer, his first task lead, delivered guidance that would shape Beaty’s entire career.

“Whatever you work on, work on it like your life depended on it. You are the person who has to pull the trigger, and if you pull the trigger, it means a missile comes off the rail or a bomb drops.”

For Beaty, the message hit its target. Precision meant survival for American pilots.

10 Ocean Tests Exposed What 180 Desert Flights Missed

In 1990, Beaty served on the AIM-9R Technical Evaluation team.

While the AIM-9R Sidewinder sailed through 180 desert trials, 10 ocean tests revealed fatal flaws everyone else had missed. The TECHEVAL team rejected it.

Beaty learned that perfection sometimes requires rejecting a $50 million program.

“What I learned was we have the ability to say no. If something is not working, why would we want to release it to our men and women in uniform?”

Congress rescinded funding. The program died. But the lesson stuck.

“How many times have you ever been able to say no when a system is flawed?” Beaty said. “We didn’t pass something on to the fleet that would not have met its needs.”

The F-14D: Where Precision Met Phenomenal People

Ask Beaty about his proudest career moment, and he doesn’t hesitate. He turns to the F-14D program from 1992 to 2002. The pace was ruthless, but the team made it worthwhile.

Working with “phenomenal” people, Beaty embraced a fundamental lesson he now imparts to every engineer he mentors.

“Requirements are everything,” Beaty emphasized. “Clear requirements lead to good design, good testing and a reliable product. Without clear requirements, you’re building junk.”

During this time, he led a team of 15 test engineers who kept the F-14D’s software running smoothly. Instead of waiting for problems to surface during flight tests, Beaty’s team worked alongside pilots and flight engineers to catch issues early. This collaboration meant fewer test flights, saving time and money. Their work gave combat pilots systems they could trust.

Proving Himself, One Project at a Time

Beaty worked on multiple weapon systems, including the EA-6B Prowler. But in every new assignment and every project meeting, he had to prove himself.

“My mentality was that I provide a service,” Beaty said. “So let me get in here and do my job, and let the work speak for itself.”

And it did. Test after test. Project after project.

Beaty credits mentors like Norm Rodewald, Dr. Melissa Midzor and Dr. Ron Smiley for his growth. With their guidance, he earned a Master of Science in systems engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in 2009.

When $25,000 and Six Months Hung in the Balance

At Point Mugu, colleagues call Von Beaty when problems need to be solved quickly. In 2018, he proved why.

When contractors found leaks in the HEATR chamber during certification testing, Beaty faced a critical countdown: Three days to fix the problem. $25,000 at stake. Six months lost if they failed.

Beaty worked with a facilities coordinator who reported that Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command didn’t have anyone available for immediate repairs. But Beaty had a solution ready: “I have a person here who can do it. All I need is for you to say yes.”

They fixed the attenuators and saved the certification. Now the chamber lets the Next Generation Jammer and other systems test at full power.

“You can do all your RF testing in the lab,” Beaty explained. “If you’re doing stuff you don’t want people to know about, you can do it in there and nobody would know about it.”

Bad to the Bone

If Beaty’s career had a theme song, it would be “Bad to the Bone” by George Thorogood, a tune forever tied to the F-14D footage from the 1990s he remembers watching with aircrews at Point Mugu.

“When you think about the stuff we do,” Beaty reflected, “my contributions have helped make our warfighters bad to the bone.”

Looking Ahead

So what’s next for an engineer who’s spent 40 years perfecting precision?

To train his team in using artificial intelligence to increase their productivity and develop better applications that enhance the PMSR’s capabilities and meet the fleet’s needs.

“One of the things I do as a supervisor is bring in training for my team, so they stay at the edge of technology,” Beaty explained.

Asked how he wants to be remembered:

“Just that I care about my team, I care about their development, that they produce products that meet the fleet’s needs and they never forget why they’re here.”

The Enduring Lesson

Forty years later, as data flows through his team’s systems and new engineers learn about precision, Beaty still hears Geer’s voice: “What if your life depended on this?”

His answer hasn’t changed: Someone’s life always does.

“Our job is to make sure the men and women in uniform get to come home.”

The red ink is gone. No corrections needed.