PC duo earn m’gmt excellence award

PANAMA CITY, Fla. - Two Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City (NSWCPC) employees were recently awarded the 2019 Program Management Excellence award. Wayne Vickers, Navy Enterprise Tactical Command and Control (NETC2) program manager, and Brian Snellen, NETC2 systems engineer, manage the $23M budget for NETC2, a deployable Tactical Operations Center. Managing the program is challenging, but when a Category 5 Hurricane Michael made it even more difficult in October 2018. NETC2 provides units with a tactical operations center comprised of a phone, computer, video teleconferencing, email, and other collaboration support enabling operations in littorals, on land, or in remote shore-based locations. After Michael, their schedule was greatly impacted due to the loss of facilities, personnel, and communications. They used a strategy to overcome those challenges by reviewing schedules and finding an alternate delivery window to Gulfport, Miss. “Luckily, we were serving in Gulfport,” which experienced Hurricane Katrina. The Mississippi unit was “very accommodating” and “allowed us to conduct a double delivery three months later, which brought us back into schedule alignment ... (and) actually saved money by conducting one delivery instead of two.” The hurricane “could have had negative impacts on many individuals and unit readiness world-wide, but their leadership and program management acumen ensured delivery to ensure war-fighting dominance.” said Capt. Aaron Peters, NSWCPC commanding officer. (Source: NSWCPC 11/18/19)