CRANE, Ind. –
A Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division (NSWC Crane) employee received the Department of the Navy (DoN) Meritorious Civilian Service Award, which is the third highest Navy Civilian Award.
Dr. Jay Marble, the Chief Engineer for Live Virtual Constructive (LVC) Environments at NSWC Crane, was recognized for his efforts leading LVC from 2014-2020. He has now been selected to serve as an Office of Naval Research Global (ONR-G) Science Director, a position where there are 20 total in the world.
He says this LVC had humble beginnings - ten years ago, he started the work while he was a contractor.
“It means the world to me,” says Dr. Marble. “When I look back on the last ten years of hard work, Crane lifted me up. It’s why things are going so well at this moment…it comes down to the Crane family believing in me enough, supporting me, and helping make this happen; it has made me what I am.”
LVC is a form of modeling and simulation (M&S) testing for military systems. Different military weapon systems, platforms, and equipment communicate together in a variety of ways. When the Navy wants to test how these systems on aircraft, submarines, and surface ships work together, they conduct a variety of testing to assure effectiveness.
Typically, the Navy conducts ‘live’ integration testing, which is time consuming, requires many people to be involved, and is expensive. LVC saves the Navy time, manpower, and is much more cost effective.
Live testing means real people are operating real equipment. Virtual testing means real people are operating simulated equipment. Constructive testing means both the people and equipment are computer generated.
Dr. Marble says he worked for five years on LVC before it started to become successful.
“It was known as ‘Dr. Marble and his video games.’ The perception started off as ‘silly,’ but graduated to ‘cool’ in 2016 when we showed we could connect a SLQ-32 at Crane with combat systems at another Warfare Center. It was a landmark year and we demonstrated distributed testing could save money. We became ‘value added’ when we proved the concept and were able to make it work.”
A few years later, LVC was able to expand.
“In 2018, we had our big break,” says Dr. Marble. “We were able to establish a lab and bring more people onboard. By the end of 2020, the team worked hard to establish a control center, which was our original goal to establish.”
LVC works through a secure defense research and engineering network and connects systems that are disparately located.
The award citation reads, “As the Navy Modeling and Simulation Naval Integrated LVC Environment Surface Warfare Execution Lead (NILE), [Dr. Marble] significantly and positively impacted the fleet, the Warfare Centers and the Naval Sea Systems Command. [He] flawlessly coordinated with site managers throughout the Warfare Centers to guarantee that all aspects of NILE exercises were understood and properly executed. [His] meticulous planning and vignette design cultivated success and efficiency throughout the LVC development process.”
In addition to being selected as an Office of Naval Research Global Science Director, Dr. Marble received the 2021 United States Navy-United States Marine Corps Electromagnetic Spectrum Individual Excellence Award.
“Ten years of perseverance, hard work, and backing from Crane leads to this success story. Follow what inspires you. Now we are a systems of systems lab, a simulation center. It has taken vision, and now the lab has tremendous capability. Perseverance is what it takes, and sticking to it through various stages of funding. Keep going; keep at it.”
About NSWC Crane
NSWC Crane is a naval laboratory and a field activity of Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) with mission areas in Expeditionary Warfare, Strategic Missions and Electronic Warfare. The warfare center is responsible for multi-domain, multi- spectral, full life cycle support of technologies and systems enhancing capability to today's Warfighter.