Following the opening keynote address from James “Hondo” Geurts, assistant secretary for Research, Development and Acquisition (ASN (RD&A)) with the U.S. Navy and 2020 Wash100 Award recipient, Potomac Officers Club’s (POC) 2020 Navy Forum continued with an expert panel full of significant names of consequence to the development of the collaboration and innovation for the Navy.
If you missed the event, you can still register to watch the footage in Potomac Officers Club’s Event Archive.
Wash100 Award winner Susan Lawrence, managing director and lead of Armed Services for Accenture Federal Services, served as the moderator for the panel. She set the stage for the discussion featuring Capt. Frank Futcher and Capt. Matt Farr of the Navy, Capt. Ricardo Vigil of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and Maj Gen. Greg Masiello of NAVAIR.
To begin the panel, Lawrence introduced Maj Gen. Greg Masiello, program executive officer for Air Anti-Submarine Warfare, Assault and Special Mission Programs for the NAVAIR, who started the discussion by expanding on Geurts point of being “in the business of execution.”
Maj. Gen. Masiello detailed that innovation is pivotal to all the Navy’s programs, but they’re all different depending on the circumstances. “The principals are the same, it’s how we apply them,” he said. He stressed the importance of affordability, establishing a culture of excellent as well as industry and international engagement.
“We have a lot of challenges, which means we have a lot of opportunities to work and improve,” Masiello explained.
Capt. Matt Farr, global executive director in the Office of Naval Research (ONR), detailed the importance of innovation and collaboration to ONR’s work and building the future capabilities of the Navy and US Marine Corps.
Capt. Farr broke down all the work that ONR is doing across multiple sectors, which includes international science, military to military engagement, experimentation, scientific advising, foreign comparative tests. All these different areas work together to develop the latest technology solutions that includes artificial intelligence, machine learning and augmented reality.
NavalX Director Capt. Frank Futcher continued the conversation with a look into NavalX’s role in the sector as a “super connector” for small business. He explained that NavalX attempts to understand the numerous programs that are available to assist companies and help them grow.
Capt. Futcher also mentioned tech bridges from James Geurts’ keynote address. He elaborated that NavalX capitalizes on the US Navy’s large research and development enterprise to form a national network through tech bridges.
“Our tech bridges are being stood up anywhere there is a warfare center,” Futcher explained. He revealed that 12 have been made as of the event with more coming in the future. Futcher also clarified the US Navy’s need to use emerging technologies in real-time to test and learn the capabilities to drive innovation and collaboration to form new partnerships and improve agility.
Capt. Ricardo Vigil, commanding officer for the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), provided his invaluable insight into NRL’s maritime applications of new and improved materials, techniques, systems, ocean and atmospheric environment, space sciences and other related technologies.
He reiterated that NRL produces over $1.2 billion of work towards the Navy’s future capabilities and technological innovation across 18 different divisions. Capt. Vigil elaborated on the work NRL does with a “bottom’s up approach to research” in the areas of battlespace environment, electronics, undersea warfare, chemistry, space sciences and information technology.
Visit Potomac Officers Club’s Event Archive to watch the 2020 Navy Forum in full and learn all that James Geurts and the expert panelists had to offer regarding the Navy’s current capabilities and initiatives, efficiencies and challenges, and how to all divisions of the service branch can work together to improve the future of warfare.
Potomac Officers Club will host the 5G Summit on Oct. 27, 2020 as its next event to continue the discussion on the impact that innovative technologies and 5G integration are having on the private and public sectors, the steps the federal agencies have taken to remain up to speed with the rapid advancement of technology, and the future programs.
Hon. Ellen Lord, undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment at the Department of Defense (DoD) and four-time Wash100 Award recipient, will be featured as the keynote speaker. Don’t miss out on this must see event! Register here for the 5G Summit on October 27th.
