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Home : Media : News
NEWS | June 15, 2020

NSWC Panama City personnel earn 15 Warfare Center Awards

By Cierra Camper NSWC PCD Public Affairs

Individual personnel and collaborative teammates at Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division (NSWC PCD) have been selected to receive 2020 Warfare Center Awards.

In a message to the Warfare Center workforce, Rear Adm. Kevin Byrne, commander, and Dr. Brett Seidle, executive director, Naval Surface and Undersea Warfare Centers, recently announced the recipients.

The 843 members of the Naval Surface and Undersea Warfare Centers workforce were represented well through the 119 team and individual nominations, 53% more nominations than the previous year. Of the 64 awards given across the Warfare Center Divisions, 15 of those awards were teams or individuals from NSWC PCD.

NSWC PCD more than doubled the number of nominations from the previous year, and nearly doubled the amount of wins.

Robert Walker, NSWC PCD technical director, applauds the performance of the NSWC PCD team for receiving these prestigious awards.

"I am proud of the NSWC PCD team's accomplishments and efforts in receiving these well-deserved awards," said Walker. "The numerous wins for the NSWC PCD team signifies the commendable actions of our personnel across our business and technical departments, and recognizes our command on the national stage."

The Warfare Center Awards were established in 2005 to recognize employee achievements in six categories: the Alan J. Dean Award for Talent Management, the Information Security Award, the Innovation Award, the John C. Mickey Collaboration Award, the Knowledge Sharing Award, and the Technical Support Services Award.

Of the winners, 79 individuals from NSWC PCD make up 15 wins:

NSWC Panama City's Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Outreach Team wins the Alan J. Dean Award for Talent Management
For significantly expanding STEM outreach within a community struggling to rebuild after Hurricane Michael. Through programs, including Science Brothers shows, Invention Convention, and FIRST Lego League, and new educational partnership agreements, their team continued to increase the number of students and educators reached while building the foundation for future talent, and strengthening Panama City Division's workforce.
Recipients: Myranda Chapman, DeAnna Pedersen, Kinsey Taylor, Daniel Flisek, James Prater, Jr., Christopher Voorheis, Paige George, Gavin Taylor, and Nicole Waters

Cynthia Ratliff wins the Alan J. Dean Award for Talent Management
For substantial contributions in the redesign of an outdated onboarding curriculum, increasing training compliance while streamlining numerous training processes, and encouraging a rigorous training program to close leadership competency gaps at multiple levels within the Panama City Division.

The Risk Management Framework (RMF) Reviewer Comment & Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) Team wins the Information Security Award
For substantially streamlining the RMF process through a data-driven analysis resulting in formal documentation as an SOP. Their standardized comment process addressed a major finding of the metrics team. The team’s efforts eliminated the inefficiencies of addressing non-actionable comments, realizing a cost avoidance of 5.6 to 9.3 million dollars, every three years.
Panama City Division Team Recipient: Daniel Jermyn 

Panama City's Single Sortie Detect-to-Engage Team wins the Innovation Award
For innovation and creativity in the integration of technologies into an innovative suite of systems removing the man from the mine field during both the detection and neutralization of mine target. Their efforts integrated fleet-proven sensor technology prototypes and commercial systems into a viable system-of-systems for the autonomous detection and neutralization of mines while improving the use of artificial intelligence in addressing the mine countermeasure challenge.
Recipients: David Davila, Jason Niemczura, Brett Thach, Justin Grimes, Chris Palmer, Willis Walker, Adam Logan, Gabriel Perez-Figuerola, Kelly Williams, Marc Miller, and Jesse Routh

Holly Gardner wins the Innovation Award
For creativity and innovation in developing an on-line, secure technical program management database and reporting tool that improves the quality of work products and decreases the labor costs associated with programmatic monthly reporting by a minimum of 40 hours per month.

Panama City's Diver Augmented Vision Device Team wins the Innovation Award
For innovation and creativity in the development of an innovative system incorporating see-through head-up display technology into a military diving helmet. The team’s efforts will revolutionize military and commercial diving for salvage, ship husbandry, underwater construction, scientific research missions, and significantly improve diver situational awareness.
Recipients: Dennis Gallagher, Richard Manley, Allie Williams, William Hughes, and Brian Wentworth

The Live, Virtual, Constructive (LVC) Modeling and Simulation Team wins the John C. Mickey Award for Collaboration
For successful collaboration on an informed technical assessment working towards a common, interconnected, and interoperable Naval Integrated LVC Environment, as a principal resource to enable the exercise and assessment of system-of-systems pertinent to emerging warfare constructs. The team’s efforts led to a partnership with Navy Modeling and Simulation facilitating the management and prioritization of the Naval Enterprise Modeling and Simulation portfolio of investments using this methodology.
Panama City Division Recipient: R. Dale Rhinehart

The Project Z Team wins the John C. Mickey Award for Collaboration
For substantial contributions in the development and demonstration of a Subsea and Seabed Warfare Capability through collaboration between NUWC Newport, NSWC Carderock, NSWC Indian Head, and NSWC Panama City Divisions.
Panama City Division Recipients: Brunti Givens, Dr. Jermaine Kennedy, Dr. Kwang Lee, Dr. Daniel Stemlicht, Dr. Patrick Tam, and Bryan Todd

The Cyber Defense of Unmanned Maritime Systems Team wins the John C. Mickey Award for Collaboration
For embracing a One Team approach, resulting in exceptional advancement in the development of an end-to-end cyber-hardened autonomy solution, suitable for transition into operational use.
Panama City Division Recipients: Jesse Ardonne, Dr. Matthew Bays, Patrick Currie, Joshua Davis, Keith Farney, Pamela Stampnick, and Dr. Joshua Weaver

The In-Service Engineering Agent of the Future Team wins the John C. Mickey Award for Collaboration
For substantial contributions achieved through significant collaboration between the ten divisions hosting a major campaign for the Warfare Centers, the Office of Naval Research, and more than 100 businesses and government agencies to strategize on targeted technologies for fiscal years 2020 and 2021. The team’s efforts resulted in productivity improvements to rapidly develop and demonstrate technology in response to a joint emergent operational need statement.
Panama City Division Recipient: Karl Morris

Lorene Adams wins the Technical Support Services Award
For successfully orchestrating the completion of an exhaustive list of unmanned underwater vehicle family of systems mine countermeasure tactical product deliverables while meeting the expectations of the operational community of the Navy Explosive Ordnance Division through direct support to the Naval Expeditionary Combat Command.

Olivia Farr wins the Technical Support Services Award
For achieving unparalleled contracting efficiencies including reducing turn-around and review times to a fraction of what is considered average and collecting lessons learned to ease the transition time for future employees. Farr’s negotiation skills led to a cost savings of 1.85 million dollars in the General Services Administration award for self-contained breathing apparatus gear.

Panama City's SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team wins the Technical Support Services Award
For successfully upgrading the entire MK8 MOD1 electronics system to resolve obsolescence issues, while maintaining in-service engineering agent services to the fleet.
Recipients: Steven Albertson, Austin Graham, Timothy McTrusty, Tim Alexander, John Gwin, Jeannie Millaway, Clayton Brookins, Michael Hodges, Nicole Newsome, John Chandler, Bobby June, Lee Noble, Bobby Dixon, Seungjin Lee, Brandon Sheffield, Chad Dunham, Tung Le, John Simonsen, Harry Evans, Ryan Mabry, Josh Stanford, Navy Diver 1st Blake Flohre, Dane Maglich, and Kevin Townsend

Panama City's Mine Hunting Unmanned Surface Vehicle In-Service Engineering Agent Team wins the Technical Support Services Award
For timely development of a reliability and maintainability plan for the mine hunting unmanned surface vehicle, to ensure no degradation or lapse in support of the forward deployed assets. The team’s efforts improved the drawing package, rapidly responded to issues from the overseas team, and developed engineering change proposals to improve availability.
Recipients: Brock Bailey, Robert Gudgel, Richard McNaron, Jim Brackett, Steve Kantor, Luke Ridley, David Dillinger, Daryl Kunkel, Frances Rose, and Mike Elrod

Michael Kolbe wins the Technical Support Services Award
For an unparalleled leadership of the re-instituted Mine Warfare Readiness and Effectiveness Measuring Program, including training with subject matter experts to ensure requisite data collection and installation, linking thousands of files to the database in just weeks. Kolbe’s unprecedented accomplishments set a high bar in the mine warfare community, including recovery of a jettisoned AN/AQS-24B for HM-15, avoiding 3.5 million dollars in recuperative costs for this asset.