NSWC Philadelphia Chief Technologies Officer Offers Historical Lecture as Component of National Engineers Week > Naval Sea Systems Command > Saved News Module

03.17.2023  –  

Naval Surface Warfare Center, Philadelphia Division Chief Technologies Officer (CTO) Dr. Eugene “Michael” Golda gave a lecture about NSWCPD’s history as a element of National Engineers Week on Feb. 22, 2023.

NSWCPD Chief Engineer Adam “Scott” Freedner helped kick off the lecture with his opening remarks.

“The theme of this year’s celebration is ‘Creating the Future’, and I couldn’t consider of a extra fitting way to describe the efforts and accomplishments of our engineers right here in Philadelphia and across the Nation. Collectively, we bring present and future warfighters the systems and merchandise necessary to expand the benefit more than our adversaries,” Freedner stated.

He added, “Whether it be maintaining the nation’s present carriers, submarines, and surface fleet on point, supplying significantly-necessary method modernization or researching, creating, and testing systems for the future. Your efforts are recognized across the Navy enterprise.”

Freedner also recognized NSWCPD’s longest-serving engineer Dan Miller and the newest engineering employ Chris Heckman as element of the event’s opening remarks.

Golda started his lecture by dedicating his presentation to the memory of Capt. David Brant McGuigan (Ret), initially Commanding Officer of the Naval Ship Systems Engineering Station (NAVSSES), the predecessor organization of the Philadelphia Division.

“Capt. McGuigan extra than everyone was a ferocious champion of this organization. He stood up the Naval Ships Systems Engineering Station when it was nothing at all extra than a single block on a PowerPoint presentation down at headquarters and he place collectively a group that established a lot of the traditions we do not even consider about currently but are a element of our DNA,” Golda stated.

He continued, “The way we appear at supporting the fleet. The way we appear at innovation. The way we appear at accepting challenges. These can be traced straight back to Capt. McGuigan.”

Golda connected the theme of this year’s National Engineers Week to NSWCPD’s previous as he began his speech.

“I know that this week’s theme is ‘Creating the Future’, but we [NSWCPD] have been producing the future because we had been established back in 1910,” Golda stated.

The CTO shared with these present in the Melville Space in Creating 77L and these attending practically the history and significance of the room’s namesake.

“In the late 1880s, the United States Navy was not significantly to appear at … The Navy couldn’t make a choice irrespective of whether they would gamble on machinery propulsion or if they had been going to stick with these sails due to the fact it was tradition … In 1887, the President [Grover Cleveland] reached deep inside the Navy engineering neighborhood and chosen a fairly junior officer and promoted him to Admiral, Adm. George Wallace Melville,” Golda stated.

He added, “At that point, Melville who had been a Civil War combat veteran, was currently an internationally acclaimed arctic explorer, and was also an exceptional engineer. He took command and moved the Navy into the modern day era.”

Melville’s drive to innovate is a founding principle that nonetheless exists in the NSWCPD. The drive to innovate was instrumental in several breakthroughs all through the 20th century and continues revolutionizing naval machinery technologies in the 21st century, according to Golda.

A single of the lots of NSWCPD breakthroughs was the move to oil-powered ships from coal-powered ships and the several advances necessary to retain these new, oil-fired boilers operating safely and effectively.

“They [NSWCPD engineers] took a appear at the greatest way to atomize that fuel, to turn it into a mist so it would burn successfully, and that resulted in the initially Philadelphia patent. The patent application was submitted in July of 1915 and awarded March 1918. We continue to be a patent-primarily based organization defending Navy intellectual home,” Golda stated.

The story of NSWCPD is filled with the engineering advances produced by previous and present Navy engineers functioning to additional the Navy’s missions. Sharing that heritage to encourage an revolutionary spirit is what keeps Golda coming back to give these lectures and understand extra in the approach.

“To quote Capt. McGuigan, ‘We just do not push the paper from one particular side of the desk to the other.’ We do actual engineering, hands-on engineering, wrench-turning engineering. If a ship in the fleet requires assists with its machinery, this organization will place people today on a plane 24/7 365 to go anyplace in the planet to assist that ship,” Golda stated. “I consider that says so significantly about the people today of NSWCPD. To be capable to speak a small about what the group right here has achieved is normally a pleasure … It was definitely a lot of entertaining to understand extra about who we are and what we’ve completed.”

Machinery Analysis, Logistics, and Ship Integrity Division Head Dawn Ware gave the event’s closing remarks as she celebrated her impending retirement immediately after 35 years with NSWCPD.

“Engineers are innovators, so be brave and take that leap of faith that will stretch you and place you on a journey to new and rewarding adventures. You will finish up like I have, in locations you would have by no means dreamed you would be,” Ware stated.

NSWCPD employs about two,800 civilian engineers, scientists, technicians, and assistance personnel. The NSWCPD group does the analysis and improvement, test and evaluation, acquisition assistance, and in-service and logistics engineering for the non-nuclear machinery, ship machinery systems, and associated gear and material for Navy surface ships and submarines. NSWCPD is also the lead organization supplying cybersecurity for all ship systems.