The Potomac Officers Club’s 2024 Navy Summit presents an exciting opportunity to gain exclusive knowledge about one of the service branch’s top priorities: 5G.
During this event, you will have the chance to hear from a variety of keynote speakers and panelists from across the Navy and industry. One panel session, titled “5G in Navy Mission Sets: Challenges and Opportunities,” will take a deep dive into the potential 5G holds for Naval operations as well as the ways in which the service branch is addressing difficulties associated with the development and implementation of related technologies.
Keep reading for a preview of what you will hear about during the panel.
Meet the “5G in Navy Mission Sets: Challenges and Opportunities” Panelists
Dr. Rob Spalding
Dr. Rob Spalding currently serves as CEO of SEMPRE – a defense technology company he founded in 2019 – and as a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, where his work focuses on U.S.-China relations, economic and national security and the Asia-Pacific military balance.
He began his career in the U.S. Air Force and has held multiple high-level positions within the service branch as well as other Department of Defense organizations and the Department of State. His areas of expertise include national security policy and Chinese economic competition, cyber warfare and political influence.
Outside of his role at Hudson Institute, Spalding is a senior adviser at the Center for American Defense Studies, a research professor at the Institute of World Politics and a board member at the Jamestown Foundation.
CAPT (Ret) Bryan Lopez
Bryan Lopez is a retired Navy captain who is now director of emerging technologies for the Department of the Navy Chief Information Officer.
He has extensive Navy experience, having served as commanding officer, executive officer and director for enterprise cyber security for the Naval Information Warfare Systems Command. He is also a member of the DOD Acquisition Corps and the Navy’s Space Cadre and holds certifications in system engineering and program management from the Defense Acquisition University.
CAPT Andrew Gibbons
CAPT Andrew Gibbons currently serves as senior military acquisition advisor for the assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition. He carries over 35 years of Navy experience and has served in numerous roles throughout his time in the service branch.
Prior to assuming his current position, Gibbons served as deputy chief engineer for space capabilities within the Naval Information Warfare Systems Command. He has held several program manager roles within the Program Executive Office for Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence.
Lt. Col. Benjamin Pimentel
Lt. Col. Benjamin Pimentel is a U.S. Marine Corps communications officer and electronics engineer who is currently the technical lead for Expeditionary and Tactical Programs FutureG within the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. He has served in several operational assignments, most recently as Aide-de-Camp to the commanding general of the III Marine Expeditionary Force.
Pimentel has previously spoken at Potomac Officers Club events, including the 2024 5G Forum in May, during which he highlighted four key priorities for the DOD’s FutureG Office in an insightful keynote address.
Jennifer Thomas
Jennifer Thomas, chief financial officer of Ericsson Federal Technologies Group, will moderate the panel. She will bring extensive private sector leadership experience to the discussion.
Prior to joining Ericsson, she spent five years at Insight, where she served in multiple executive roles, most recently as director of finance and operations. Before coming to Insight, she was a program manager at BAE Systems, and earlier, she was executive vice president of Modern Marketing Concepts, Inc. She began her career at Booz Allen Hamilton, where she worked for over 15 years.
Navy 5G Endeavors
Research and Development
The DOD is still working to deepen its understanding of 5G technologies, and bringing its goals to fruition requires continued investments into research and development initiatives. Earlier this month, the Navy secured a $1.8 million investment from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering’s FutureG Office to create a formal and sustained graduate-level education research program at the Naval Postgraduate School focused on 5G and FutureG.
Through the Active-Duty Open-Source Development initiative, the NPS seeks to upskill individuals that may be responsible for planning, installing, operating and maintaining 5G and FutureG networks in expeditionary environments. It is also intended to support the development of relevant technologies that could improve military wireless communication and data transport capabilities.
Contracts
The Navy is looking to industry for help as it moves forward with its 5G journey, and it has already awarded multiple contracts this year. In January, the service branch issued a $10 million award to Booz Allen Hamilton to develop, implement, test and operate a private 5G cellular network and asset tracking system in Guam. The technology is expected to enhance communication, logistics, maintenance and the security of operations in the Indo-Pacific region.
More recently, the Navy awarded EchoStar an indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract under the U.S. Naval Supply Systems Command’s Spiral 4 wireless offerings purchasing program. Through Spiral 4, the Navy and wider DOD hope to acquire 5G-enabled devices, primarily smartphones but also tablets, Internet-of-Things technologies and more.
OCONUS Operations
Connectivity is key for modern Naval operations, and ensuring networks are strong enough to support the exchange of vast amounts of information is now a requirement, especially when it comes to operations reaching beyond U.S. borders.
David Simpson, a retired Navy rear admiral who now serves as a professor at Virginia Tech’s College of Business Leadership and Cybersecurity Programs, said during the Potomac Officers Club’s 2024 5G Forum in May that the conflict in Ukraine demonstrated the necessity of operating successfully in multiple domains simultaneously. Spectrum flexibility, he said, can help military forces achieve this goal.
Striking a balance between network latency and security is another factor in using 5G outside the continental U.S., specifically regarding edge operations, said Paul Remick, a senior account manager at Amazon Web Services who also spoke at the event.
Why You Should Attend
5G is an evolving DOD priority, and there are numerous opportunities for continued progress as the military hones its capabilities and works to deploy new 5G technologies across the service branches. During this panel discussion, you will get an inside look at the Navy’s approach to developing cutting-edge 5G tools as well as related challenges.
Don’t miss out on the chance to get exclusive insights into Navy 5G programs, register for the 2024 Navy Summit on the Potomac Officers Club website.
