Elvis Acosta serves as the acting Technical Director of Naval Surface Warfare Center, Corona Division. He provides technical leadership for more than 4,000 Navy civilians, Sailors and support contractors executing more than $1 Billion annually to carry out NSWC Corona’s mission of providing transparency to warfighting readiness through data analytics and assessment, engineering the Fleet’s Live Virtual Constructive environment, and assuring the accuracy of measurements. As a Senior Scientific Technical Manager, he oversees the technical direction of programs conducted to support surface ship weapon and combat systems, interoperability, acquisition mission assurance, readiness assessment, and metrology engineering.
Acosta began his career at NSWC Corona in 2001 as a sensor analyst. In 2005, he led the operational assessment of the AN/SPY-1D(V) and was then selected as the Advanced Technology Project Lead in 2006 and detailed to the Government Program Manager role in 2008. In 2009, he transferred to the AEGIS Ballistic Missile Defense Branch to perform the duties of a Combat Systems Analyst. In 2011, he was selected as the AEGIS Integrated Air & Missile Defense (IAMD) Branch Head and, shortly thereafter, was given the role of AEGIS Matrix Manager for the installation. In 2013, he was selected as the AEGIS Enterprise Assessment Division Head.
In 2016, he was selected to be the Performance Assessment Department Head, where his department provided data-collection, data transfer, data storage, rapid analysis feedback, and assessment products to the Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and Missile Defense Agency (MDA) for land-based testing, at-sea exercises, and real-world events. In this role, Acosta had a department consisting of approximately 340 government employees and over 200 contractors in support of Test and Evaluation (T&E) with an annual budget of ~$100M.
In 2021, Acosta was selected to serve as Deputy Technical Director, where he assisted with the overall management and oversight of the Command’s mission and eight technical capabilities. In 2024, Acosta was detailed to Naval Sea Systems Command (Echelon II) as the Digital Transformation Advisor to Commander, Naval Sea Systems Command. In this role, Acosta reported directly to the three-star Admiral and Tier III SES Executive Director. Over the course of the detail, Acosta functioned as the Project Manager for the design and development of executive level dashboards (called APEX Force Generation and Readiness Generation) that integrated enterprise data to inform leadership.
Acosta graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Minor in English from Loyola Marymount University in 2001. He went on to obtain a master’s degree in systems engineering in 2009 from the Naval Postgraduate School. Acosta is Level III Certified in Test & Evaluation within the Defense Acquisition Community and a graduate of the 2023-2024 Cohort for the Department of the Navy Bridging the Gap Program. He is also a 2024 recipient of the Navy Civilian Service Commendation Medal.