PANAMA CITY, Fla. –
As a Navy veteran, Evan Sarantos, understands the importance of what force generation, communication and capabilities bring to the warfighter. He has brought that same passion and experience as Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division’s (NSWC PCD) Expeditionary Sea Base (ESB) Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence (C4I) Project lead systems engineer.
Born in California, he was raised in South Africa and returned to the U.S. to finish high school. He enlisted in the Navy in 2006 and would later discover this area upon graduating from Florida State University Panama City’s Computer Engineering Program.
Beginning in 2017, Sarantos worked in the command’s Landing Craft Air Cushion Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Navigation (C4N) Program. He took advantage of NSWC PCD’s New Professional Program, which allowed new engineers to rotate through different branch areas and gain exposure to other projects. He discovered the command’s Joint Interoperability and Irregular Warfare Division (Code E20), built connections and ascended to his current position to impact the fleet.
“Amazing things happen when you group a bunch of scientists, technicians, and engineers together and drive them towards a common goal,” said Sarantos. “I love the people I work with here in Code E20.”
This ESB C4I mission is essential to supporting the Force Behind the Fleet as a crucial element for effective modern warfare in complex and dynamic environments.
ESB is a flexible and mobile platform used for supporting a wide range of military operations to project power. C4I serves as the nervous system of military operations that provides commanders with situational understanding for decision-making and the infrastructure needed to communicate and execute those decisions to their forces.
In his role, he supports C4I delivery to new ships and is responsible for everything that leads to that delivery event, which is called system operational verification testing or SOVT.
“We build our solution set here in Panama City, then it’s shipped cross-country to…National Steel and Shipbuilding Company Shipyards in San Diego. Items delivered are immediately craned onboard a ship that is still under construction in a graving dock,” said Sarantos. “We then begin our on-ship installation portion of delivery and will have to stop work at a certain point, so they can flood the area and move the ship to its final dockside position before sea trials. All of this takes a massive amount of communication, coordination, and scheduling. It really puts into perspective what we, as NSWC PCD employees, accomplish and what is achievable when so many smart and talented individuals come together to work towards a shared objective.”
This collective effort is essential to deliver modern and ready capabilities that enable the sailors to execute their mission, helping the Navy achieve and sustain combat surge ready forces.
“We install the C4I system onboard a naval warship, and [this] tool is necessary for operational readiness. When we deliver a new ship, we are able to be a part of the construction, the installation of our solution set onboard, and the taking it out to sea for the first time,” said Sarantos. “You could say our installation of C4I equipment is the starting point of force generation because our ultimate goal is to have a ship ready for sailors to come aboard and start meeting operational requirements. I believe what we do directly contributes to force generation and it’s an extremely gratifying feeling, seeing what our team built being used to defend our nation out there in the fleet.”