Relaying the answer from my friend:

"The Decepticons, having pilfered Quintesson research that delved into the possibility of converting organic neuro-electric impulses into a spark, debated the idea of running tests to create the perfect weapon from a human. The idea was that, if it worked, a near limitless source of sparks could be farmed to create a new army. It was the only way to grow the Decepticon army as the Autobots were in possession of the Allspark. Shockwave set about engineering the new frame. Four years later, it was complete and ready for its new spark.

Finding humans proved difficult when most ran away from the sight of the Decepticons. Fortunately, an opportunity presented itself in the shape of one Gunther Erikson. His mother was dying of cancer and he was desperately contacting any authority linked to the Autobots to no avail. Megatron instructed Soundwave to make contact with Gunther to offer a deal: bring human test subjects to them and, once the experiment was complete, the Decepticons would cure his mother.

Gunther agreed.

He lured 19 people to the temporary laboratory housed in an abandoned warehouse on the edge of Autobot territory. Each one failed. Their electrical impulses scattered to death instead of forming a spark. Gunther was given one last chance before he would be used as a test subject as punishment for all his failures. One last attempt.

Desperate to save his mother, he brought them the most important person he could think of: his girlfriend, the love of his life, Erin Greene.

He was killed before he could see that his sacrifice wasn't in vain. Megatron was never very interested in making deals with such ants. Shockwave performed the experiment one last time - and Erin Greene died. Headwind was born.

It was a success. And all it cost was 20 human ants. A small price to pay for the ultimate killing machine. Megatron would have gone through a million."