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Mine Warfare Executives Dr. Peter Adair, Stephen Hunt and David
Everhart are working to establish a culture of collaboration among
the U.S. Navy’s Research, Development, Test and Evaluation community
to help the United States maintain maritime superiority over
adversaries.
Adair, who was appointed as Mine Warfare
Director for the Naval Surface Warfare Centers (NSWC) on April 16,
2017, said one of the objectives of his newly-appointed role is to
coordinate with all Naval Warfare Centers (WCs) on Fleet engagement
in the area of MIW, which includes Mine Countermeasures (MCM) and
Mining. A native of Panama City Beach, Florida, Adair works at the
NSWC Panama City Division (NSWC PCD).
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Mine Warfare (MIW) Director for the Naval Surface Warfare Centers
(NSWC) Dr. Peter Adair, NSWC Panama City Division (NSWC PCD) Chief
Technology Officer Dave Everhart and NSWC PCD Distinguished Engineer
for MIW Prototyping Stephen Hunt agree that collaboration is key for
the U.S. Navy to be able to Expand the Advantage. (Image created by
USA Patriotism! from U.S. Navy graphic by Haley Walker, June 2017)
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“Collaboration is key,” said Adair. “Working with the
U.S. Navy’s Fleet, we will conduct mission engineering and
analysis to identify MIW capability gaps against current and
future threats. I will then partner with NAVSEA’s Chief
Technology Officers (CTOs), Rapid Prototyping Directors and
experts across the technical community to find potential
solutions to these Fleet capability gaps. To achieve this,
the Navy RDT&E community’s culture must evolve into one that
begins to work collaboratively across all domains.”
Everhart, appointed as NSWC PCD’s CTO on Oct. 2, 2016, said
his primary objective is to lead change in PCD’s culture to
enable more rapid identification of technologies and
innovative solutions to address Fleet capability gaps.
“When I speak about finding potential
technological solutions, I’m referring to emerging and
mature technologies, and those found outside of our Navy’s
traditional Mine and Expeditionary Warfare sources that can
be rapidly configured to address urgent needs,” said
Everhart.
Hunt, appointed as NSWC PCD Distinguished
Engineer for MIW Prototyping on Oct. 2, 2016, said he is
responsible for collaborating with the entire Naval Research
and Development Establishment (NR&DE) in search of
technologies with the potential to be rapidly prototyped as
solutions for Fleet capability gaps.
“I believe we
are ushering in a new cultural shift, a new approach that
encourages the NR&DE community to collaborate as an
enterprise,” said Hunt. “Adair, Everhart and I are
responsible for establishing liaisons across all Department
of Defense (DoD) NR&DE domains. This includes Systems
Commands like the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) and
agencies like the Naval Research Laboratories.”
Hunt
said technology is rapidly advancing on a global scale and
America’s adversaries are now able to obtain competitive
technologies, which challenge the United States’ ability to
maintain Maritime superiority.
“This trend is
shrinking the gap between us and our adversaries,” said
Hunt. “This is why we’re formulating a new cultural shift
toward unifying our NR&DE community into a collaborative
enterprise. This strategy will also help us to rapidly field
more prototypes, which will further expand America’s
technological advantage.”
Adair, Everhart and Hunt
agreed that initiating an expanded network of collaboration
across the NR&DE community will also require creating new
tools to support collaborative work at different locations.
“There is new legal language being introduced into our
DoD’s Acquisition processes which is empowering our
community, not only to develop more innovative solutions,
but also to field these prototypes to the Fleet more
rapidly,” said Adair.
Everhart said by implementing
collaboration at the NR&DE level, the Navy will be able to
accelerate the fielding of solutions to keep pace with our
adversaries.
“The clock is ticking,” said Everhart.
“Innovation doesn’t always mean inventing new technologies.
It is also about finding more ways to combine proven
technologies and integrating them into creative
configurations to effectively counter threats and achieve
military objectives.”
“If we empower NSWC PCD’s
1,400-plus employees by giving them tools to collaborate
more effectively across our command, just imagine the
increase in innovative solutions we’re likely to achieve,”
said Hunt. “It stands to reason by doing the same for the
NR&DE community, we will expand the advantage over America’s
adversaries on an exponential scale.”
By U.S. Navy Daniel Broadstreet, Naval Surface Warfare Center
Provided
through DVIDS
Copyright 2017
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