Eight years ago, a University of Arizona engineering student spent a summer interning in U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground's Ground Combat division.
Today, he is a veteran of testing a variety of combat vehicles and manages 10 test officers and the test center's second-largest hand receipt.
Omar Silva, team leader for Ground Combat's special projects team, is the epitome of the up and coming generation of YPG leadership: locally raised, outgoing, thriving through growth and change.
"Engineering is find a problem, look for a solution, and that has always been my mentality and personality. I've always wanted to find a better way to do something."
Though born in Bakersfield, California, Silva considers himself a local native.
"I've lived with my family in Arizona since I was two months old," he said.
He grew up in the border town of San Luis, watching its explosive growth from a sleepy town of a few thousand people, so small that it bussed its few high school students 20 miles north to Yuma.
"I was in the last graduating class from San Luis to go to Kofa High School. I did the bus trip for four years."
He began his higher education at Arizona Western College to stay close to his family and played bass in a Spanish rock band that got local attention. Yet after a year, Silva knew he wanted to go to the University of Arizona to pursue mechanical engineering.
"I've always been good at math. I always liked to figure out how things worked. But the thing that really pushed me over the hump to become an engineer was my cousin, the first family member to get her bachelor's degree."
He interned at YPG during the summer and winter breaks of his junior and senior years, working on the Bradley Fighting Vehicle during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that caused an astronomical rise in the proving ground's ground vehicle testing. He liked the work and his superiors liked him.
"I graduated on Friday, started working on Monday," he recalls with a smile.
That was in 2008, three years before YPG's workload peaked at nearly double what it had been in the typical years prior to the wars. Troops in two overseas wars were counting on the work done at the proving ground, and Silva was keenly aware of the stakes.
"When I started working here, I saw a different side of engineering. We always think engineering is nuts and bolts, but working here is more systems management engineering. At first the amount of responsibility was a little daunting, but I embraced it and really liked the mission."
Perhaps the most important early lesson he learned concerned safety in YPG's extreme environment. One blazing hot summer day as he helped move heavy boxes at a gun position, his nose began to bleed for no apparent reason. Silva wanted to work through the malady.
"The senior test officer told me to go inside, take a break, get some water. I said, 'I really want to help, I don't want the crew to do it all,' but he insisted. About 15 or 20 minutes after I sat down inside, it hit me. I began to feel a little dizzy and weird."
He spent the rest of the day indoors.
"Now every time I go out there, I keep an eye on everybody. Somebody might think they're just fine like I did, but if it hadn't been for the senior test officer telling me to sit down, I probably would have been a heat casualty. We are here to collect data and do testing, but the one thing you can't reverse is someone getting hurt: there is always another day to collect data."
Silva's safety consciousness was recognized as part of the sterling performance that made him one of YPG's most recent civilians of the quarter: last fiscal year, his team expended about 120,000 labor hours testing 15 different systems, including the Bradley and Stryker combat vechiles, without a safety incident.
On top of the ordinary demands of his job, Silva is also participating in YPG's aspiring leaders program, which, among other things, means he is pursuing a Master's Degree. So far, he has maintained a 4.0 grade point average, and the end of his program is in sight.
"I'm one of the six expected to graduate in May with a Masters in Engineering Management."
Silva is also an active participant in YPG's youth outreach program, speaking about engineering to children in the local schools and serving as a judge in Yuma County's annual science fair for several years.
"I really enjoy talking to the kids and sharing the knowledge I have. If I was that teenager, I would like to have that information so I can figure out my path. I enjoy it a lot and think it roots from my mom, who is an educator and very passionate about her work."
Silva expects to stay at YPG for the duration of his career. He met his wife, Savannah, when she was a data collector. After they married, she quit working for a while to pursue a systems engineering degree of her own, and now works as a test officer.
"I want to give back to the community. That is one of the things I came back for: one was family, the other was wanting to give back. I saw a lot of my friends graduating college and leaving San Luis and thought, 'You know what? We need to bring some of that knowledge back.'"
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