FORT DEVENS, Mass. (March 11, 2016) -- Like the title character from the old television series "MacGyver," it seems that Jim Dowse of Fort Devens Range Control can fix just about anything.
Officially, Dowse is a system target equipment worker. As he pointed out, however, the guy with the tools always gets asked to look at other stuff. That's him.
"Everybody's good at something," Dowse said. "I'm good at fixing broken stuff. My whole life, I've taken stuff apart. It drove my parents nuts. I can't leave anything alone. That's just the way I am.
"I've 'MacGyvered' a lot of different things. You patch things together, and you use gum and duct tape, but it works. I don't throw anything away."
Step into his work space, and you're as likely to find radios and public address system components as targetry. But as a gun enthusiast and former Soldier, Dowse is all about making sure that the service members and law enforcement officers who shoot at Fort Devens get the best training experience possible.
"My job is to keep everything at a hundred percent, or as close to a hundred percent as I can," Dowse said. "I'm very service-oriented. If the customer's happy, the customer's coming back.
"If everything's running fine, what could be better? How could we make it better? There's always something."
In the five-plus years he's been at Fort Devens, Dowse has seen the ranges go from pneumatic to digital systems that feature integrated targets and automated control and recording. Those ranges now feature a variety of 3-D, realistic, stationary, moving, and thermal targets. Range Control Officer Keith Jackson estimates that from $750,000 to $1 million has been spent upgrading the targetry on South Post.
"We've really switched technologies over the years," Jackson said. "Ranges are awesome, but if you don't have a targetry system on there that's really conducive to the training, you don't have a range, in theory."
And if you don't have someone like Dowse to maintain the targetry systems, well, you don't have ranges, either.
"I've only got one Jim," Jackson said. "A lot of installations have got six or seven Jims."
He may be alone, but Dowse, who has an industrial design background, brings a unique skill set to the job. As with the curtain in the "Wizard of Oz," few Soldiers who shoot at Fort Devens know what goes on behind that sand berm.
"I think it's taken for granted that there's something behind that sand pile that makes the target go up and down, but who knows what it is?" Dowse said. "As finicky as the pneumatic ranges were, I could fix them with a pocket knife. You could really fix them with nothing."
The introduction of networks, fiber optics, computers and modems to ranges has changed all that, Dowse said.
"There's a lot more in the chain that can actually fail," Dowse said. "It all goes back to make it work, get it working."
Dowse will go to any lengths to keep the Fort Devens ranges functioning. In an era of fiscal constraint, that means getting creative. For example, in the winter when the ranges slow down, he will cannibalize failed target lifter motors.
"Out of every two or three, I'll rebuild another good one," Dowse said. "I won't spend money if I don't have to. I can't throw away anything that I can find useful.
"If I can do it with less, I'm going to do it with less, and I refurbish most everything."
According to Dowse, his days are challenging and varied.
"Every day, I come in here thinking my day is planned in a certain direction, and it always takes a right or a left," Dowse said. "And that's fine. To me, that's what I look forward to. I don't want the same old thing every day."
And business is booming for Dowse.
"The best part about my job is, they're shooting at the product that I am hired to fix," Dowse said. "They're shooting bullets at a product that I'm supposed to keep running. It's bound to keep me in business. How can I fail?"
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