INDIAN HEAD, Md. –
Naval Surface Warfare Center Indian Head Division (NSWC IHD) employees Frank Tse and Scott Bumgarner were honored with top civilian service awards, May 12. Tse, Systems Engineering Department chief engineer, was awarded the Department of the Navy (DON) Meritorious Civilian Service Award, and Bumgarner, Lean Six Sigma Black Belt engineer, was honored with the Navy Civilian Service Achievement Medal.
The DON Meritorious Civilian Service Award is the third highest Navy civilian award and recognizes DON civilian employees for meritorious service or contributions resulting in high value or benefits for the Navy or the Marine Corps. The Navy Civilian Service Achievement Medal is the fifth highest Navy civilian award and honors DON and Marine Corps civilians whose sustained performance or specific achievement equates to the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal awarded to military personnel.
Tse serves NSWC IHD as a subject matter expert in rocket propulsion. For more than 15 years, he served as leadership of science and technology programs funded by the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering with an annual budget of $30 million to improve insensitive munitions response and to increase the range and speed of weapons. He represents the Naval Sea Systems Command as the Associate Technical Project Officer for the Data Exchange Agreement between the United States and Norway for missile technology. Tse solved complex and critical issues impacting the fleet through his participation on dozens of national critical failure investigation teams, including the review of USS Iowa (BB 61), culminating in recertification of the ammunition for the 16-inch guns in preparation for the first Gulf War. He also gained extensive national and international experience serving as a member or chairman of organizations and committees including Joint Army-Navy-NASA-Air Force Propulsion Committee and the Technical Cooperation Program between U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia.
Bumgarner served as the command’s special projects manager and strategic planner from 2009 to 2020, where he drove senior leadership strategy, coordinated external messages and led strategic and tactical initiatives. He directed the command to craft a 10-year FY 2016 to FY 2025 growth strategy, which covered five goals and two supporting plans. The scope of this plan included up to 35 simultaneously active initiatives. Within the first five fiscal years, the command grew by 467 personnel and 187 direct work-years towards the 400 work-year target. He also led the conversion of inventory and implementation of the Operating Material and Supplies Enterprise Resource Planning module including securing external funding of all wall-to-wall inventories. Bumgarner currently serves as an engineer for Lean Six Sigma Black Belt.
NSWC IHD — a field activity of the Naval Sea Systems Command and part of the Navy’s Science and Engineering Establishment — is the leader in ordnance, energetics, and EOD solutions. The Division focuses on energetics research, development, testing, evaluation, in-service support, manufacturing and disposal; and provides warfighters solutions to detect, locate, access, identify, render safe, recover, exploit and dispose of explosive ordnance threats.