As the Chief Engineer for the Engineering and Technology Directorate (ETD), Mr. Trenkle is responsible for providing senior engineering expertise, leading and/or supporting independent technical reviews, troubleshooting issues, developing standards, and providing expert guidance to support a broad range of GSFC and ETD subsystem, system, and mission commitments.
Prior to becoming the ETD Chief Engineer, Mr. Trenkle served in many GSFC technical leadership positions including: NESC Chief Engineer at GSFC; Program System Engineer for the Explorers and Heliophysics Projects Division; Chief Engineer for the Joint Polar Satellite System Flight Project: Lead Systems Engineer for the MAVEN Project and Chief Engineer For the NPOESS Preparatory Project.
Mr. Trenkle got his start at Goddard in the in-house Small Explorer Program (SMEX) where he filled a variety of roles including the Lead System Engineer for SWAS and the SMEX-Lite technology development effort. The SMEX-Lite development became the basis of the Triana design where Mr. Trenkle was the lead systems engineer.
In his Goddard career, Mr. Trenkle has submitted dissenting opinions as an Engineering Technical Authority and has helped to resolve/adjudicate dissenting opinions between Tech Authority/Projects in a number of instances.