About the Owner/Tuner

PhatBotti is led by Owner/Tuner Ron Watson.  Ron has over 16 years of Subaru tuning, part testing and data analysis.

Ron graduated Cum Laude from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 2001 with a Bachelor's Degree in Aerospace Engineering and a minor in Mathematics.  

In 2002, Ron began working for the Department of Defense (DoD) at the Naval Air Weapons Center Weapons Division (NAWC-WD) located in China Lake, CA.  China Lake is around 45 minutes away from Death Valley.  The installation has over 1.1 million acres for testing.  Ron spent 4 years in Solid Rocket Propulsion designing propellant grains, rocket nozzles, composite cases, and analyzing all the test firing data.  

In 2005 Ron transferred across the base to the F/A-18 Advanced Weapons Laboratory (AWL) where he began working as a Flight Test Engineer on the F/A-18 Super Hornet.  He was in charge of all the conventional weapon, bomb rack and fuze integration onto the F/A-18.  Ron has a total of 15 years working as a professional engineer for the Department of Defense, certified Level 3 in Systems Planning, Research, Development and Engineering, certified Level 3 in Test & Evaluation and has over 1,300 hours of training in research, design, test and evaluation. 

While working a full time job at the navy base, he also worked full time at PhatBotti doing e-tuning, road tuning and commuting 3 hrs to his shop in Anaheim every weekend for dyno tuning.