The ceremony welcomed new NavalX Director Capt. Casey Plew, who took the reins from Capt. Benjamin Van Buskirk. Vice Adm. Frank Morley, principal navy deputy to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Analysis, Growth and Acquisition (ASN RDA), and Rear Adm. Lorin Selby, chief of naval analysis, attended the occasion.
“NavalX is a useful element of ONR that conjures up and empowers the naval workforce to quickly ship high-impact capabilities throughout the Division of Protection [DoD], by connecting them with stakeholders throughout the acquisition ecosystem and by leveraging the innovation pipeline,” stated Selby. “These stakeholders embrace the Naval Analysis and Growth Institution, the Division of the Navy [DoN] and companions in business and academia.
“It’s my pleasure to welcome Capt. Plew and to say thanks and properly completed to Capt. Van Buskirk,” he continued. “Capt. Van Buskirk has completed an excellent job in increasing the capabilities and rising the affect of NavalX, which has confirmed itself as a disruptive power for good inside ONR and the DoN as a complete.”
NavalX serves the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps as an innovation and agility cell, supporting and connecting initiatives throughout the DoD. The group permits collaboration; accelerates the tempo of discovery, studying and experimentation; and fosters the naval workforce’s capability for innovation and agility. It provides Sailors, Marines and DoN civilians useful instruments, coaching and assets for fixing issues and translating concepts into actionable options.
This enables naval organizations like ONR to higher serve warfighter wants by linking people who promote modern concepts with consultants who can experiment with these concepts, put money into them or assist flip them into one thing tangible for the Navy and Marine Corps.
Certainly one of NavalX’s most essential strategies for doing that is its Tech Bridge community, which spans 18 nationwide and worldwide areas. The community is designed to bridge the hole between the DoN and rising entities like startups, small companies, academia, nonprofits and personal capital that aren’t historically a part of the navy growth and acquisition course of.
“Capt. Van Buskirk has completed an excellent job of taking NavalX from a start-up atmosphere to a longtime group with codified processes and procedures for innovation,” stated Plew. “I sit up for constructing on the dear work he’s completed by utilizing these processes to bolster innovation partnerships, discover game-changing concepts and applied sciences, get them into necessities for acquisition, and finally ship them as capabilities to warfighters.”
Previous to assuming the position of director, Plew was at NavalX supporting the transition and mixing of the ASN RDA agility cell efforts with the ONR technology-acceleration cell efforts. Earlier than that, he served as commanding officer of Naval Floor Warfare Middle, Dahlgren Division, in Virginia.
Plew has a bachelor’s in historical past from Oregon State College, a grasp’s in nationwide safety and strategic research from the U.S. Naval Warfare Faculty, and a grasp of enterprise administration from the Naval Postgraduate Faculty.
He succeeds Van Buskirk, a naval aviator with intensive expertise in know-how innovation.
Throughout his tenure as NavalX director, Van Buskirk oversaw spectacular progress, together with increasing the Tech Bridge community to 18 areas. Most lately, the London Tech Bridge celebrated its grand opening in June.
Van Buskirk additionally led the transition of NavalX from a small, unbiased group reporting to ASN RDA to an entity underneath ONR’s command construction. Although nonetheless small and reporting to ASN RDA, Van Buskirk stated being part of ONR provides NavalX a finances, the power to rent individuals, and entry to ONR’s authorized and contracting departments.
“Capt. Plew is the perfect individual to scale up NavalX and develop its capabilities throughout the acquisition world,” stated Van Buskirk. “He has twenty years of expertise as an acquisition skilled, has been a useful resource sponsor, has overseen massive budgets and has served as commanding officer of a warfare middle. He brings a useful perspective that can assist NavalX attain the subsequent stage.”
