PANAMA CITY, Fla. –
Two Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division (NSWC PCD) employees were recently awarded the 2019 Program Management Excellence award.
Wayne Vickers, Navy Enterprise Tactical Command and Control (NETC2) program manager, and Brian Snellen, NETC2 systems engineer, manage the $23 million budget for NETC2, a deployable Tactical Operations Center.
Managing this vital program was already challenging but a Category 5 hurricane made it even more difficult.
“After Hurricane Michael, our schedule was impacted greatly due to loss of facilities, loss of personnel, and loss of communications,” said Vickers. “One strategy we used to overcome our challenges was to review our schedule and find another delivery window to the same unit that we missed due to the hurricane disruption. Luckily, the unit we were serving was in Gulfport, Miss., a base who experienced similar devastation during Hurricane Katrina. The unit was very accommodating and allowed us to conduct a double delivery three months later, which brought us back into schedule alignment. We actually saved money by conducting one delivery instead of two.”
NETC2 provides units with a tactical operations center comprised of a phone, computer, video teleconferencing, email, and other collaboration support enabling operations in littorals, on land, or in remote shore-based locations.
“Brian and Wayne work to provide a communication capability for Navy units that are vital to humanitarian assistance, disaster recovery, and warfighting efforts,” said Capt Aaron Peters, NSWC PCD commanding officer. “The hurricane could have had negative impacts on many individuals and unit readiness world-wide but their leadership and program management acumen ensured delivery to ensure warfighting dominance.”