The Future Of Naval Engineering
by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Brian Glunt
SWESC Great Lakes Public Affairs
September 29, 2025

No propellers can thrust their ship across oceans without the engineers who manufacture, maintain and repair the complex components of its engines. Ships cannot steer nor moor themselves to piers without boatswains. They cannot navigate across the roughest seas without the quartermasters trained to chart their courses. And they most certainly cannot sustain their structural integrity in some of the world’s harshest environments without specialists highly trained in hull conservation.

That is why every enlisted U.S. Navy engineman, quartermaster, boatswain’s mate, machinery repairman, hull maintenance technician, machinist’s mate, gas turbine systems technician (electrical and mechanical) and deck seamen learn their technical trade from the U.S. Navy’s finest instructors at the Surface Warfare Engineering School Command (SWESC) in Great Lakes, Illinois.

Some of these Sailors arrive directly from “boot camp” at the Recruit Training Command Great Lakes, while others return to SWESC, either from their current command or enroute to their next, to receive advanced training at one of SWESC’s “C” schools. In either case, these Sailors leave SWESC as Surface Warriors; ready to perform on ships operating around the globe.

SWESC averages nearly 1,500 students on deck at any one time. The staff is comprised of 10 officers and more than 350 enlisted personnel, including quartermasters, boatswain’s mates and Sailors from all surface engineering rates, ranging in pay grades from E5 to E9. The command also boasts more than 40 Department of the Navy civilians.

All assigned instructors have completed successful tours at sea and have earned the 805A Navy Enlisted Classification (NEC) by completing the Navy’s Instructor Training Course. Instructors qualify and are cross-utilized between 15 different schoolhouses where each instructor accrues between 21-40 instructional hours weekly.

Every Navy engineering rated Sailors begin their careers with Engineering Professional Apprenticeship Career Track (E-PACT), a 34-day course designed to teach the basic skills necessary to assimilate rapidly into a shipboard engineering environment upon arrival to their first ship.

While some students transfer to the fleet as undesignated firemen, most will continue to a more specific rate-based training in one of eight engineering “A” schools. These rating “A” schools range in length from 9 to 41 days of training. On average, a rated Sailor attending the engineering accession pipeline can receive approximately 40% classroom-based training and 60% hands on, where the knowledge gained in the classroom is applied.

Future quartermasters (QM) begin their careers attending the QM “A” School where they learn navigation fundamentals to include plotting on charts, celestial navigation, an introduction to Voyage Management System, and other skills needed to stand pay grade appropriate underway watches with minimal supervision. Graduates will require modest training prior to performing fully unsupervised basic watch station duties.

In April of 2021, SWESC welcomed Surface Professional Apprenticeship Career Track (SPACT) and boatswain’s mate “A” school to the command, offering junior Sailors the opportunity to receive hands-on training in basic seamanship skills before reporting to their first command. Each school teaches these skills by participating in-classroom training and labs utilizing the USS Whitehat facility, an onsite ship simulator. The students can learn everything from basic line handling skills to underway replenishment operations.

For returning fleet Sailors, SWESC offers a total of 51 “C” school and non-accession courses that result in the accreditation of 29 total Navy Enlisted Classification (NECs), with 8 new NECs in the works. SWESC Great Lakes is the only Naval Education and Training Command (NETC) learning site to offer courses for nondestructive testing and cargo/weapons elevator operation and maintenance.

SWESC Great Lakes also provides Level I equivalent firefighting training to more than 10,800 surface accession Sailors annually, including Surface Combat Systems Training Center (SCSTC) Great Lakes personnel, and staff members at the various commands across Naval Station Great Lakes as they transfer back to sea duty. The General Shipboard Firefighting Training Course is designed to provide instruction and evaluation to enlisted personnel in firefighting equipment and procedures. This course aims to prepare students in qualifying as members of a Shipboard Damage Control Organization/Team. This course satisfies the Level I five-year, live-firefighting requirement of Shipboard Survivability Training Level requirements and is the equivalent of the General Shipboard Fire Fighting training. This course also includes proper techniques and procedures for combating various classes of fires, instruction on personnel protective equipment, chemistry of fire, portable fire extinguishers, and the Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus.

Through all the vital training SWESC Great Lakes offers its Sailors, it is obvious the past and future of naval engineering begins here.

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