Fisheries' go-to fixer

On a sunny, blue-skied, 80-degree May morning, it’s not hard to see why Thomas Billingsley loves spending most of his work day outside. Billingsley, an aquaculture technician with Auburn University’s School of Fisheries, Aquaculture and Aquatic Sciences and an Employee of the Year, has worked for the university for 20 years and said that no two days at Auburn’s 1,600-acre E.W. Fisheries Center are the same.

“There’s never one thing I’m doing every day, it’s always something different,” Billingsley said. “You might come here thinking you might finish what you started yesterday, and then you get a phone call or someone comes up to you and then you go and finish and do that. So, that variety is a big deal to me.”

As if on cue, a call came in on his cell phone.

“I have to get this one,” Billingsley said, excusing himself.

“Hey, man, what’s happening?” he said into the phone. “If you’ll be able to do it in a little bit, I can help you.”

Billingsley explained that, due to a piece of equipment running out of fuel, some air had snuck into the injector. So, even though the gas tank was full again, it wouldn’t start and would take two people to fix it: one person to try and start the engine, the other to crack the injectors to let the air out.

That willingness to jump in and help — from locating a leaking pipe among the miles of PVC located on the property, to repairing an air-filled injector — is one of the reasons Billingsley was nominated for the Spirit of Excellence Award and later received recognition as an  Employee of the Year at the 2024 Employee Recognition Program

“He is known as one of our ‘go-to’ people when faculty, students and other staff who use our facility need extra help. Often, these are jobs that others may not want, and he jumps right in no questions asked,” wrote Larry Lawson, director of the Research & Extension Center and Billingsley’s nominator.

In addition to being the “fixer,” Billingsley’s days are filled with varied responsibilities that ensure the Fisheries Center runs smoothly: spraying herbicide and pesticide, operating heavy equipment, teaching students how to do parts of their jobs and helping them fix any mistakes they make along the way.

“I spray the weeds a lot now because it’s when they grow the most. We try to keep the weeds down so when they’re ready to harvest the fish with the seine net , they’re not bringing in hundreds of pounds of weeds,” Billingsley said. “That can be a difficult problem when they’re pulling the fish to have to argue with the weeds, too.”

Billingsley poses for a photo, holding one of the hundreds of fish housed at the Auburn University E.W. Shell Fisheries Center facility.

Chief among those responsibilities are plumbing jobs, of which he most enjoys the opportunity to install a whole new plumbing system. Lawson praised Billingsley’s skills and expertise, noting that he’s often relied on for detailed plumbing operations at the Fisheries Station, providing input on the planning and design of these systems and often implementing those plans to completion.

Billingsley grew up installing and fixing lawn sprinkler systems in Arizona alongside his father, and those skills have laid the foundation for a successful career at Auburn.  

“The kind of plumbing that I had skills with already made a lot of difference to start, but I’ve learned a lot since I’ve been here on what the ponds need,” Billingsley said. “It’s always kind of fun to do something new instead of just fixing something.”

The award came as a huge surprise to Billingsley, and he fondly reflected on how his supervisor, Clint Lloyd, and Lawson got him to the ceremony. At first, Billingsley said, he didn’t want to go, but Lloyd and Lawson told him that every Spirit of Excellence Award winner had to go. They also encouraged him to invite his wife.

“I haven’t won awards much anywhere. I don’t really expect that kind of thing; I just come out here and try to do my best and help management, help the students when I need to,” Billingsley said. “It’s like, well, you get a call, and you go help. And I guess I’ve been the guy who gets the call enough.

“It means a lot to me out here. It’s nice to get recognized.”