NSWCPD Engineers Receive Navy’s Top Scientists and Engineers Award

NSWCPD Engineers Receive Navy's Top Scientists and Engineers Award

By Gary Ell

Naval Surface Warfare Center Philadelphia Division (NSWCPD) engineers served amongst some of the best and brightest Navy and Marine Corps teams that were recognized June 12 at the Pentagon during the Dr. Delores M. Etter Top Scientists and Engineers awards ceremony.

The Honorable Nickolas H. Guertin, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition (ASN RD&A), personally recognized top scientists and engineers from across the Department of the Navy (DON) and highlighted their incredible accomplishments.

The award is named after former ASN RD&A, Dr. Delores M. Etter, who delivered a recorded message congratulating the award recipients. She encouraged all DON scientists and engineers to continue pursuing innovations that support America's fleet and warfighters, and to inspire future generations of scientists and engineers for DON science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) positions.

Both civilian and military scientists and engineers in the DON were eligible for these annual awards. All nominations were reviewed and scored by a panel consisting of senior executive leadership. Awardees were in the categories of Emergent Scientists and Emergent Engineers (no more than ten years of cumulative experience), Individual Scientists and Individual Engineers, Teams of Scientists and Engineers from a single command, and Teams of Scientists and Engineers collaborating across the Naval Research and Development Establishment (NR&DE), to include Department of Defense (DoD).

Several scientists and engineers from NSWCPD were recipients of the Dr. Delores M. Etter Top Scientists and Engineers of the Year Award for 2024, joining the top 0.001% of scientists and engineers within the Department of the Navy who have received this award. Those awarded include the SEA 05 Navy Deployed Additive Manufacturing Team, NAVSEA/NSWCPD. The team included NSWCPD's Scott Storms, Shaun Verrinder, and Jake Robbins. The team developed, tested, evaluated, and fielded additive manufacturing (AM) capabilities to afloat units and shore-based maintenance establishments.

The deployments of AM equipment have resulted in multiple Casualty Reports (CASREPs) corrected and over 5,000 parts printed shipboard since the first installation in 2019. In addition, as a result of the RDT&E deployments of AM, OPNAV has sponsored an outfitting program to continue deploying more AM equipment shipboard. The program kicked off in FY24 establishing the In-service Engineering Agent (ISEA) and the first outfitting installation are planned for FY25.

Also receiving the Dr. Delores M. Etter Top Scientists and Engineers of the Year Award for 2024 was the Columbia-class Shaft Life Risk Assessment Team, Program Executive Office Attack Submarines (PEO SSN) / NAVSEA / NSWCPD / Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). NSWCPD team members included: Richard Teichman and Kevin King. The team quantified the risk associated with the ability of the shaft to meet a 12-year lifecycle requirement and developed, tested, and implemented several design solutions to mitigate and retire a critical program risk.

NSWCPD employs approximately 2,800 civilian engineers, scientists, technicians, and support personnel. The NSWCPD team does the research and development, test and evaluation, acquisition support, and in-service and logistics engineering for the non-nuclear machinery, ship machinery systems, and related equipment and material for Navy surface ships and submarines. NSWCPD is also the lead organization providing cybersecurity for all ship systems.