Month: February 2024

Source: United States Navy

The National 8(a) Association is a non-profit that provides education and guidance for small businesses including minority, aspiring, current and graduate 8(a), HUBZone, SDVOB, VOSB, SDB, WOSB, DBE, and teaming partnerships.

Secretary Del Toro stressed the Department of the Navy’s Office of Small Business Program’s (DON OSBP) proven commitment to aggressively expanding small business opportunity to partner with the DON on its significant procurement investments for goods and services.

“In fiscal year 2023, we spent $20.1 billion on contracts with small businesses, exceeding our target goal for the year by over 17 percent,” said Secretary Del Toro. “Furthermore, we exceeded our sub-category goals for service-disabled Veteran-owned, women-owned, and HUBZone, and came within 0.04% of meeting our small, disadvantaged business goal. And this year, we are well on our way to meeting our goals, and we’re not even at the halfway point, with billions of dollars committed to contracts with small businesses across all categories.”

Secretary Del Toro also discussed the importance the DON’s puts on supporting the small business community.

“The National 8(a) Association and other organizations like it play a critical role in educating, guiding, and supporting small businesses as they prepare to work with the federal government, and we are grateful for the role they play in our small business ecosystem,” said Secretary Del Toro. “From my vantage point as Secretary of the Navy, a healthy, diverse industrial base made up of companies of all sizes—founded by American entrepreneurs from all walks of life—is absolutely crucial to the success of our Navy and our Marine Corps.”

Secretary Del Toro reiterated his commitment to working with small businesses to provide the Navy and Marine Corps team with the support, systems, and platforms needed to confront the global challenges we face today.

“Strengthening maritime dominance is focused on ensuring our Sailors and Marines have the right mix of platforms and capabilities so that they are prepared to deter our nation’s potential adversaries, and, if called upon, fight and decisively win our Nation’s wars,” said Secretary Del Toro. “In terms of cutting-edge capabilities, we are working with small businesses to secure our advantages in technology areas such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, cybersecurity, and unmanned systems.

Before leaving the conference in Atlanta, Secretary Del Toro hosted a roundtable with about two dozen small business owners to continue the dialogue on how small businesses and the DON can support each other.

“For the companies represented here that are focused on improving the lives of our personnel, whether it be through delivering world-class education and training, or providing resources to support the health and resiliency of our Navy and Marine Corps communities, we welcome the opportunity to learn more about your offerings during or after this week’s conference,” said Secretary Del Toro.

Atlanta is the first leg a travel for Secretary Del Toro this week. Next, he travels to Puerto Rico, where he will participate in a U.S. Department of Commerce Minority Business Development Agency Business Roundtable and a joint U.S. Departments of Defense and Navy Business Roundtable. He’ll also have key leader engagements and national call to service events.

Secretary Del Toro’s full remarks from the National 8(a) Association Small Business Conference can be found here.

Source: United States Navy

“My goal as the Executive Director is to support the Surgeon General’s Lines of Effort in support of America’s warfighter,” McGinnis said. “In particular, I hope to establish stronger bonds with senior civilian leadership throughout the Pentagon and the services. I want to ensure that our expeditionary medical capabilities are properly resourced, not just to develop them, but to sustain these life-saving capabilities consistently.”

As Navy Medicine increasingly focuses on providing agile, scalable, trained, and certified medical units to the Fleet and Fleet Marine Force, there is no better time to have an operationally focused Executive Director helping to support the ongoing strategic efforts.

“His deep experience brings instant credibility to distributed maritime operations, and we’ll be able to leverage his knowledge of the defense healthcare system as we continue driving towards our North Star,” said Rear Adm. Via.

Born into a Navy family, McGinnis grew up around the world appreciating the Navy’s mission and the concept of service to the country. And when it came time to continue this tradition, he embraced the opportunity. “I wanted to emulate a family tradition and do that as a Navy physician,” said McGinnis.

After attending Johns Hopkins University, Dr. McGinnis was accepted into the Health Professions Scholarship Program (HPSP), which funded his medical education at the University of Virginia. He was commissioned as an Ensign in 1989 and served 34 years in Navy Medicine, retiring as a Captain in the Medical Corps in 2023.

His military service includes a broad spectrum of operational and executive positions, including U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, Fleet Surgeon, U.S. Pacific Fleet, COMNAVEUR-COMNAVAF-COMSIXTHFLEET Force Surgeon, and Commanding Officer, Naval Health Clinic Annapolis.

As Executive Director, McGinnis will advise the Surgeon General, Deputy Surgeon General, and Force Master Chief to ensure unity across BUMED’s business and planning programs, functions, and processes. As the Navy’s senior civilian healthcare executive, he is also responsible for the development and execution of Navy Medicine’s five-year Campaign Plan aligned to the Chief of Naval Operation’s priorities for “America’s Warfighting Navy.”

The Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (BUMED) established the position of the Executive Director in 2015 to increase collaboration across Navy medical functions, facilitate headquarters communication through “one voice,” and ensure continuity of command leadership.

Communication, engaged leadership, teamwork, and mentorship are among the chief tenets Dr. McGinnis aims to bring to his new role.

“These are qualities that I want to emphasize and exemplify as Executive Director,” McGinnis said. “I believe it is important to be proactive and energetic about communicating up and out, ensuring that everyone understands why we are doing what we are doing, and how we are getting there while being open to feedback from the Fleet, Fleet Marine Force, and the deckplates.”

Dr. McGinnis credits several mentors who played key roles in inspiring, shaping, and preparing him for this position. Among them, Vice Adm. C. Forrest Faison, Vice Adm. Raquel Bono, Rear Adm. Bruce Gillingham, Rear Adm. Christine Hunter, Rear Adm. Colin Chinn, Dr. Mike Malanoski and Mr. Joe Marshall – the latter two served as members of the Department of Defense SES community.

As he looks back on his military career, McGinnis acknowledges that his entry into senior executive and expeditionary/operational medicine owes much to Capt. (ret.) Fanancy Anzalone.

“I had the fortune of having a great commanding officer at Naval Hospital Naples, Italy in Captain Anzalone,” related McGinnis. “He had been Director of the Naval Aerospace Medical Institute (NAMI) during a previous tour and recruited a friend and me to take a look at the Residency in Aerospace Medicine (RAM) program. At that time, I had not been operational. RAM was a fantastic opportunity to get a master’s in public health and solidify my understanding of public health and preventive medicine through aerospace medical residency. I went through the training pipeline with future aviators and learned about the special physical demands placed on pilots. I look back at my senior medical officer tour aboard USS Nimitz as the foundational experience that motivated me to pursue an executive medicine career and set me on the course I’m on today.”

As McGinnis embarks on the latest chapter of his storied career, he is most excited to serve alongside some of the Navy’s most talented people. “From the most junior enlisted to the most senior officers and across our civilian workforce, we are in a special window where we have talented professionals all committed to the mission,” said McGinnis. “And I am excited to work side-by-side with everyone in this fantastic global organization and support them.”

Navy Medicine – represented by more than 44,000 highly-trained military and civilian health care professionals – provides enduring expeditionary medical support to the warfighter on, below, and above the sea, and ashore.

Source: United States Navy

Nowhere is that alignment more evident than with the Naval Innovation Exchange (NIX) program – a multidisciplinary approach to solving some of the most complex problems that the Navy faces today.

In one of the first research projects under the NIX Intelligent Autonomous Systems (IAS) team, U.S. Navy Lt. Austin Dumas and Lt. Cmdr. Hans Lauzen and U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Daniel Lim conceived an autonomous over-the-horizon (OTH) maritime solution – a capability that has the potential to be in the hands of warfighters as early as next year.

“It’s been exciting to work with this team,” said NPS Research Assistant Professor Dr. Sean Kragelund, who served as the primary advisor for Dumas, Lauzen and Lim. “The students and their advisors all bring a diverse set of skills and experiences to bear on this problem. It’s been especially remarkable to watch these students, in a very short time, coordinate with so many different stakeholders, from Navy S&T and acquisition personnel to operational forces, and work with our industry partners to develop this capability.”

The NIX construct, used in tandem with the Interdisciplinary Transition Team (ITT) as part of the NPS innovation process, allowed Dumas, Lauzen and Lim to quickly apply their research on a prototype that was successfully demonstrated in field exercises during the summer and fall. The three students were then able to brief the test results to major stakeholders such as the office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition (ASN RD&A) and the Chief of Naval Research, among others.

Dumas, a student dual-enrolled in the Space Systems Operations and Space Systems Engineering curricula at NPS, noticed a capability gap in his operational experience before coming to Monterey. To leverage the NIX program, Dumas was paired with Lauzen, a Surface Warfare and Information Professional Officer studying in the Space Systems Operations program, and Lim, a communications officer who is dual-enrolled in the Space Systems Operations and Systems Acquisition Management curricula.

“When you come to NPS with operational knowledge and background, you are able to view the education through that lens, which is unique,” said Dumas. “Furthermore, NPS provides the ability to partner with students with different operational experience and expertise, and with government organizations to accelerate that effort and do something highly relevant.”

Dumas added, “(NIX) allowed us to bring together multiple students from various curriculums and different backgrounds, which enabled us to utilize experience from operations and engineering to acquisitions. Most importantly, it helped us form a team of multi-disciplinary students and advisors to broaden the scope of our research, view the solution as a system of systems, and address the full scope of the desired capability.” 

The core of NIX lies in its dedication to accelerating project development for students, from mere ideation to prototype deployment and completion. 

Under the NIX construct, Dumas, Lauzen and Lim were able to rapidly conceptualize, prototype and experiment by utilizing new and pre-existing agreements with industry known as Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs). One of these CRADAs is with Saronic Technologies, a Texas-based company consisting of veterans, technologists, and world-class engineers who specialize in autonomous and unmanned vehicle technology.

The three students leveraged NPS’ CRADA with Saronic and were able to successfully demonstrate prototype low-observable unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) that enable over-the-horizon communications via resilient space-based architecture such as Starlink, Iridium and SATPAQ. 

“Within 14 months, we were able to accomplish something I had never seen before,” Lauzen said. “With the tools that NPS has allowed us to have, the CRADA partnerships with industry, the hands-on fleet experiment and operational testing that we’re able to participate in, we now have a product that is able to be delivered to the warfighter faster than it would take any other program office to create.”

The technology was successfully demonstrated during Navy exercises in the summer of 2023, as well as at NPS’ own Joint Interagency Field Experimentation (JIFX) event in October.

Following their demonstrations, Dumas, Lauzen and Lim were able to provide an in-depth brief on the results of their work to senior representatives from resource sponsors and stakeholders. Among those briefed on the students’ work were Vice Adm. Francis Morley, Principal Military Deputy, ASN RD&A, and Rear Adm. Kurt Rothenhaus, Chief of Naval Research.

Future experimentation utilizing the OTH autonomous system will take place during a U.S. Pacific Fleet exercise in early 2024. As a result, the potential exists for Dumas, Lauzen and Lim to see their innovative NPS research transition from concept to capability in less than a year.

“The NIX structure facilitates first-rate mentorship, offering us consistent and quality access to guidance from the school, warfare centers, and operational forces,” noted Dumas. “With an array of workshops and campus events, we’ve gained firsthand experience and interactions with industry, academia, and operational force representatives.” 

NPS’ NIX IAS team is funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) through the Consortium for Robotics and Unmanned Systems Education & Research (CRUSER). It not only provides financial support for student and faculty researchers, covering travel, conferences, equipment, and professorial support, but also ensures a holistic research experience.

“As part of the Naval Innovation Exchange, we’re able to bring a multidisciplinary approach to provide a solution,” said Lim. “We brought engineers, we brought operations, and we brought (Defense Management) students to come together to be able to not only curate on the idea, but to develop a capability.”

Dumas noted that the best thing about the NIX is its ability to not only design and accelerate a capability that is missing in the joint force, but also the ability to rapidly procure that capability and get it in the hands of the warfighter. 

“It’s an entirely different thing to know that when I go back to a unit, there could be a whole new capability that I helped propel,” said Dumas. “I think that’s the real, tangible difference that NPS is able to provide as far as relevance for warfighters.”

The Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) does not constitute endorsement of Saronic Technologies or its products and services by the Naval Postgraduate School, the Department of the Navy, or the Department of Defense.

Source: United States Navy

The SECNAV Energy Excellence Awards Program is designed to promote excellence in the areas of energy security, energy resilience, innovation, combat effectiveness, and program management.

After careful consideration of all nominations, the Secretary of the Navy is pleased to announce the 2023 Energy Excellence Award Winners:

Afloat (Large): USS Kearsarge (LHD 3)

Afloat (Small): USS Stockdale (DDG 106)

Afloat (Logistics): USNS Joshua T. Humphries (T-AO-188)

Installation (Large): Naval Station Norfolk

                                 Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center (MCAGCC) Twentynine Palms

Installation (Small): Commander, Fleet Activities Sasebo

                                 Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island

Technology Development and Acquisition: Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock

“Congratulations to the winners of the 2023 SECNAV Energy Excellence Awards for their work and accomplishments to advance the Department’s energy initiatives,” said Meredith Berger, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Energy, Installations, and Environment and Chief Sustainability Officer. “They have set the standard for the rest of the Navy and Marine Corps who can follow their lead in supporting the Department’s Climate Action 2030 efforts.”

A prepared force is a lethal force. In May of 2022, the Department of the Navy released Climate Action 2030 in which Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro recognized climate change as one of the most destabilizing forces of our time and charged the Department with building a climate-ready force.

A climate-ready force is one that can fight and win around the globe, while anticipating, preparing for, recovering from, and adapting to the evolving climate and security future. It is a force that does its part to combat the climate threat by reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, and sequestering carbon in terrestrial and coastal ecosystems, leveraging built and natural infrastructure to enhance resilience.

For more information and news on the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy,

Installations and Environment, visit –

Website: https://www.secnav.navy.mil/eie/Pages/default.aspx

Source: United States Navy

Snow Crab Ex is a two-week exercise designed to test and evaluate U.S. Navy EOD capabilities in a simulated Arctic environment and, ultimately, improve Navy EOD’s combat effectiveness. During the exercise, U.S. Navy EOD and Divers tested, evaluated, and refined tactics, equipment and operations in an austere environment.

“The Arctic region is undergoing a dramatic transformation, and our Navy EOD, diving and salvage forces are trained and prepared to deploy globally to support of the Fleet commanders. To this end, the EOD force will continue to develop and evolve our capabilities to contribute to U.S. national security in competition and conflict,” said Capt. Karl Haywood, commander, Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group (EODGRU) 2. “SnowCrabEx trained Navy EOD, diving and salvage forces to better operate and survive in the challenging Arctic environment. The training we conduct in austere environments simulates combat environments and contains inherent risk so that our forces are prepared to face any threat or challenge.”

U.S. Navy forces must be able to operate in the Arctic because “the United States is an Arctic nation, which instills responsibility for the stewardship and protection of this region,” according to the White House’s National Strategy for the Arctic Region.

During Snow Crab Ex, Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit (EODMU) 12 and Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit (MDSU) 2 exercised tactical control over EODMU 12 and EODMU 2, as well as MDSU 2.

“Snow Crab Ex is a valuable exercise to focus on tactics and equipment needed to operate in Arctic conditions,” said Cmdr. Garrett Pankow, commander, Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit 2. “The Arctic presents challenging conditions, and the lessons learned from Snow Crab Ex will improve Navy EOD and mobile diving and salvage teams’ readiness to operate quickly and efficiently anywhere, anytime, including cold weather environments.”

Navy EOD cleared simulated unexploded ordnance, secured critical infrastructure, learned critical arctic survivability and mobility skills, and effectively communicated between distributed operating units in a training environment, while also maintaining command and control (C2) of forces.

“The demolition ranges we typically have access to don’t allow the same range of capabilities. Being in a new environment, and the realistic use of live unexploded ordnance here, built on our previous training and is critical to building confidence and competence for our platoons,” said Explosive Ordnance Disposal Senior Chief Calvin Quinn, lead chief petty officer of EODMU 12. “Every place is different; every piece of ordnance is different. This exercise gave us real-life training on what we simulate all the time.”

Navy Divers also successfully completed ice dive training, completed arctic survivability and mobility training, and utilized specialized equipment like the VR Defender, an unmanned underwater vehicle that provides Sailors increased safety and dwell time when inspecting or surveying the underwater environment. The unique training environment at Camp Ripley allowed Navy divers to expand their capabilities for diving and salvage to an arctic environment.

“Ice diving operations at Snow Crab Ex gave us a unique opportunity to get hands on, real world experience and knowledge that you just can’t simulate in a pool,” said Navy Diver 1st Class Keenan Foley, a diver assigned to EODMU 3. “The diver’s motto is, ‘Improvise, Adapt, Overcome.’ Diving under the ice introduced new elements to adapt to during arctic salvage operations.”

The MDSU teams are uniquely qualified to support this type of mission. Foley and the other divers used dry suits designed to protect divers against hypothermia while submerged in 30-degree water. The team also used a dual manifold/dual regulator system to ensure they could continue to breathe from their tanks if one of their regulators froze over and a special tool that helped keep everyone safe underwater.

The Minnesota National Guard provided air support for portions of the exercise. Air Force EOD Technicians from the 148th Fighter Wing Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) Flight provided support to demolition training and operations.

The U.S. Navy routinely patrols on, above, below and around Arctic waters to ensure the security of commerce and demonstrate freedom of navigation. Exercises like Snow Crab Ex 24-1 allow our teams to assess their readiness, increase their experience in the region, test new technologies, and advance our understanding of the Arctic environment.

Other Navy Expeditionary Combat Command units that participated in Snow Crab Ex 24-1 included: EOD Expeditionary Support Unit (EODESU) 2, Maritime Expeditionary Security Squadron (MSRON) 4, Navy Expeditionary Logistics Support Group (NAVELSG) and Navy Expeditionary Intelligence Command (NEIC). All participating Navy units are headquartered at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek-Fort Story with the exception of NEIC, headquartered on Naval Air Station Oceana Dam Neck Annex and NAVELSG, headquartered on Naval Weapons Station Yorktown.

EODGRU 2 operates as part of Navy Expeditionary Combat Command and provides skilled, capable, and combat-ready deployable Navy EOD and Navy Diver forces around the globe to support a range of operations.

For the full collection of photos from SnowCrabEx 24-1, and news about U.S. Navy EOD and Explosive Ordnance Disposal Group Two, visit https://www.dvidshub.net/unit/EODG-2.