The day prior, on April 3, the Navy League held a day-long STEM Expo where different exhibits demonstrated ideas and mechanics in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
“This STEM Expo is designed to attract young men and women in our underserved communities,” said Mike Stevens, retired master chief petty officer of the Navy and current CEO of the Navy League of the United States. “We want to introduce them to STEM in a maritime space. We’d love to one day see these young men and women become the shipbuilders of America, the aircraft designers of America that support the sea services.”
Day one of the SAS Expo started with a Chiefs Leadership Panel where Adm. Mike Gilday, chief of naval operations (CNO), spoke alongside Gen. David Berger, commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, and Adm. Karl Schultz, commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard. The panel discussed what maritime forces were doing to deal with growing threats of all types, evolving changes, and challenges faced in the post-pandemic world.
“What it boils down to is fielding and investing in a combat creditable force that can deter,” said Gilday. “If you look at the investments we’re making in the force that we’re fielding this decade, whether it’s [in the] light amphibious warships or unmanned [technology], the transitions are really what we’re hoping come alive in the 2030s. This is an evolutionary process, and I think the budget reflects that.”
The CNO spoke on technologies equipped on Navy vessels and how the budget gives life to key innovations. He addressed the warfighting front but didn’t leave out the elements that aren’t vessels.
“In the human weapon systems, the investments we’re making in Ready Relevant Learning and live virtual constructive training are significant, in fact, groundbreaking,” said Gilday. “In the space and cyber domain, we’re making investments in afloat targeting cells that are groundbreaking in terms of what they deliver to the fleet commander in terms of being able to create effects downrange.”
The panel of Navy Autonomy and Advanced Autonomous Technologies expanded on the production and development of unmanned surface and undersea vehicles. Rear Adm. Casey Moton, Program Executive Office, Unmanned and Small Combatants, moderated the panel and discussed the mission and functions of the new autonomy directive, how autonomy is integrated, and the implementation path ahead of the technologies.
“Some amazing things are going on around us in terms of technology,” said Moton. “If you think about advanced computing, artificial intelligence, advance networks, and communications, all of these things are happening at the same time. I believe they are going to change the way we operate in the same way naval aviation changed the way we operated 100 years ago.”
Moton said he believes in Gilday’s vision of the Navy becoming a hybrid fleet of manned and unmanned vessels. This is a vision already being manifested. Moton said the unmanned systems that has fielded will become more capable and extensions of the battle force.
“They’re going to become the eyes and ears of the fleet,” said Moton. “They’re going to enable our Sailors and ships to become much more effective as a team. Sailors that work in oceanography already know we have a fleet of unmanned systems out there. Over the next 5 to10 years, I believe you’ll see the Navy transform into this hybrid fleet the CNO talks about.”
Day two kicked off with a women’s leadership panel where women leaders from the Navy, the Marines, and Coast Guard discussed milestones and accomplishments women have made across the services within recent decades. The panel held a conversation about gender equality and how the services are strengthened by women holding high-ranking positions.
We talked about envisioning a future where women and men fit and what that might look like in each service,” said Navy Capt. Emily Bassett, president of the Sea Service Leadership Association. “We talked about simple things someone can do to make that happen such as mentoring young women. Specifically, what we wanted to get out was to come to the joint women’s leadership symposium where we’ll do what we did today but for a full two days.”
The 100 Years of Aircraft Carrier Operations panel brought together aircraft carrier commanding officers from USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69), USS George Washington (CVN 73), USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74), and USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) to discuss the heritage and evolution of carriers as well as how their presence provides warfighters options with multi-mission capabilities and the future of carrier aviation.
“Each of the speakers talked about their Sailors,” said Capt. Paul Lanzilotta, commanding officer, USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78). “We talked about how important and resilient Sailors are. One speaker spoke about the WWII generation won the war for the United States and how our current generation of Sailors are no different, if not better.”
Lanzilotta talked about the Sailors aboard his ship, saying he wants them to continue the emphasis on excellence. He said they can look forward to a little more technology in their lives, and his Sailors are much more knowledgeable about networks, computers, and digital control of things happening on the flight deck. Even though technology continues to build, he has something he’s looking forward to in Sailors.
“My hope is the Sailors that we have working on all the gear that we have today come up with the next layers of ideas,” said Lanzilotta. “The ideas that take us to that next level. We have a lot of youth, a lot of expertise, [and] I’m eager to hear their ideas because I know that this old guy doesn’t have all the answers.”
During the Future of Naval Innovation panel, Rear Adm. Lorin Selby, chief of naval research, spoke about outsourcing to the private sector. The discussion addressed the need for new ways to introduce new capabilities to warfighters in both real and virtual experiments. The speakers addressed approaches to bring industry, academia, and government to the table to focus on solving both Sailor and Marine problems with speed and at scale.
Selby asked the questions and then provided his advice on the matters. Questions like how do we go faster? How do we move technology faster from an idea, from a company into the hands of the Sailor?
“It’s less about the thing and more about the process of moving the technology faster,” said Selby. “How do we do that? Contracting, different approaches to experimentation, and ways to bring the warfighters in earlier to play with the technology. We can look into, maybe, making the technology less hardware-centric and make it more software-centric and more about the data that you get from the device.”
During the discussion, Selby continued to focus on reimagining naval power. He said Sailors in the fleet are eager to adopt the technology they’re seeing in their personal lives, as part of the future of the Navy.
“Whatever device that you have, you have apps that you can get whenever you want; and when you’ve got that app, it gets updated routinely while you sleep. They want to have that kind of ability, to have that type of device in the fleet,” said Selby. “I think they are hungry to adopt technology that’s already adopted in the commercial sector. So, for that technology, we have to learn how to be fast followers of the industry. Instead of thinking we have to invent it ourselves, we need to adopt what they’ve already developed and start using it. That’s a different mindset.”
On day three, one of the major highlights of the expo was the Navy Shipyards of the Future panel. The panel discussed how the Navy is looking to modernize its public shipyards and update critical manufacturing infrastructure. The day concluded with the Sea-Air-Space luncheon with retired Adm. John Richardson and retired Adm. James Stavridis discussing international security issues and the impact of climate on national security.
The Sea-Air-Space Expo is the largest maritime exposition in the U.S., and it was a good opportunity for first-time attendees to see the capabilities and camaraderie between our military branches.
“This is my first time coming to Sea-Air-Space,” said Cmdr. Rey Cabana, an operations research analyst attached to Naval Supply Systems Command. “I’m excited to see everything from all of the industrial partners we have worked with throughout the years so it’s good to see what they do for us in the Navy.”
2022 Sea-Air-Space Expo concluded and left those who attend looking forward to seeing the advancement in technology from the sea services and seeing what next year brings.