NAWCAD Director Urges More Business Partnership
NAWCAD Executive Director Leslie D. Taylor pitched listeners at a March 29 Patuxent Partnership briefing on the advantages of bringing their businesses product prototypes to Naval Air Station Patuxent River for testing. “We do like to partner with industry,” she said. “That’s what I want to impress upon you.”
NAWCAD has evolved into a sophisticated, diversified research and development center with T&E as its historic underpinning and continuing strength. Ms. Taylor wants to reach businesses “outside the gate” with projects compatible with NAWCAD’s mission that could be taken for a spin at Pax River’s sprawling facilities.
Ms. Taylor, with a degree in civil engineering, planned to be an environmental engineer, but shifted course at Pax. “This was all too cool to pass up,” she said.
Appointed NAWCAD executive director in April 2015, Ms. Taylor is also deputy assistant commander for Test and Evaluation (T&E) for the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR). She previously led the Integration and Interoperability/Integrated Warfighting Capability Enterprise Team at NAVAIR.
Her invitation to product developers to engage with NAWCAD comes directly from her experience in integrating technology, systems, and resources. She described Pax River’s engineering buildings as total lab environments, lauding them as ideal settings for evaluating the performance of promising new initiatives. Of particular note, she says, are the simulation and modeling capabilities available.
“The complexity of battle space dictates that to detect threats to the war fighter, we need those simulation environments,” she said.
NAWCAD’s mission areas include anti-submarine, anti-surface, electromagnetic, and air warfare, and C4ISR: command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. One project, Magic Carpet, is flight control software that helps guide pilots to an aircraft carrier’s deck. “Our younger pilots love it because they believe so much in technology,” she said.
Geography is a huge asset to NAWCAD’s operations. In addition to Pax River, NAWCAD operates additional facilities with key resources for mission support. At Lakehurst, NJ, “they are very busy there right now with automated landing systems,” she said. St. Inigoes, MD, resources include “air traffic control, special communications systems – they protected the Super Bowl, for example – and integrating communication among emergency response vehicles. NAWCAD at Orlando, FL, contains “the Navy’s training systems division.”
“This region allows us to test in realistic conditions the conditions the war fighter would be exposed to. We have littoral locations with proximity to the Atlantic Fleet, which has lots of large-force training exercises,” Ms. Taylor said. “We’re trying to partner better with the fleet.”
Section 219 funding allows workers to hone in on specific R&D areas, and NAWCAD has initiated a top-down push to focus on these targets: live-virtual constructive, automation and autonomy, air vehicle propulsion concepts, sustainment, game-changing materials, and advanced sensors, navigation, and timing.
NAWCAD’s tech transfer program has seen 103 collaborations, 63 patents, and the creation of 1,400 jobs. The most recent patent was for an anti-corrosion technology, Ms. Taylor said. NAWCAD also has partnerships with the University of Maryland/College Park, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, the College of Southern Maryland, and Morgan State University.
Workforce development is much on her mind. In response to a question about the graying of the American work force, Ms. Taylor said, “Like every other large organization, we have an aging workforce. Many of us were hired in the Reagan era during the buildup because of the Cold War. Then we had a number of hiring freezes. When hiring resumed, we were competing for the same talent available to businesses outside the gate.” She is now hiring directly out of college and worked to develop “NAVAIR University” – an on-the-job training program for young engineers to orient them to the mission and its practices. “It’s not just classroom work – it’s experiential as well.”
The NAWCAD mission to support the war fighter is conveyed in its blend of innovative practices and skilled workers: “Everyone flies in a clear envelope,” Ms. Taylor said. “We clear the envelope here.
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