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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Tech Bridge bringing innovation to Eastern North Carolina

Last week, I went to the first Industry Day of the new Eastern North Carolina Tech Bridge. The Tech Bridge is an initiative aimed at creating partnerships between the military, private business, academia, and local governments to put innovative technology in the hands of warfighters. There are 17 in the U.S. and overseas, and an 18th is starting up in Philadelphia.

In the case of the ENC Tech Bridge, the initial partners are Craven County and Fleet Readiness Center East, the Naval Aviation maintenance and repair facility at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point in Havelock that keeps military jets and helicopters flying. 

This is one of the largest manufacturing and technical services facilities in North Carolina. If you have driven to the beach down U.S. 70 through Havelock on your way to Beaufort or Atlantic Beach, it is on your left. You can’t see much from the highway, but it is massive, with 4,000 military and civilian workers spread over 147 acres and 119 structures.

The engineers and artisans at Cherry Point know how to solve problems. FRC East, known for years as a Naval Air Rework Facility (NARF), has been solving problems since 1943. They also know how to reach out to industry. The military can solicit proposals with Small Business Innovation Research grants. 

A Tech Bridge is intended to be more than that. The key word is “bridge.” It is supposed to create a permanent set of links between FRC East, companies and academic researchers. It is intended to connect particularly with what are called “non-traditional” companies — companies that haven’t worked on military contracts. 

What I was listening to last Wednesday at Industry Day was a first step in the bridge-building process.  FRC East engineers were explaining what they do to an audience of private industry folks and academics.

Over time, a lot of conversations will take place. These industry folks and academics will hear enough about this problem and that, and lights will go on. They will say we’re working on something that could fix that; we never thought it might have a military use.

These will not be conversations for the sake of conversation. We have a Navy and Marine Corps for U.S. maritime dominance. Our warfighters’ technology needs to be better than China’s. That was the point of what I was watching in the Havelock Tourist & Event Center.

The stakes for ENC

Eastern North Carolina doesn’t have as many of the high-paying jobs that make Raleigh-Durham and Charlotte so prosperous. FRC East is one of the most important employers in the East. Average pay is $72,000 a year, which is 25% higher than the state’s median household income. The idea for the Tech Bridge came from folks who understand what FRC East means to the region.  

More than a year ago, three key players — retired Navy Capt. Keith Wheeler, head of East Carolina University’s Office of National Security and Industry Initiatives;  Jeff Wood, Craven County’s economic developer; and attorney James Norment, a lobbyist for Allies for Cherry Point’s Tomorrow — approached the commanding officers of FRC East and MCAS Cherry Point and said these Tech Bridges were popping up around the country near military installations. Craven should have one near FRC East.  

The commanding officers liked the idea. Craven County’s involvement was crucial because the Naval Expeditions Agility Office (NavalX) in charge of Tech Bridges requires a local partner. 

The initial focus of this Tech Bridge will be on additive manufacturing (3-D printing) and maintenance, repair, and overhaul. FRC East, among other things, is a big MRO facility. And there’s a lot of engineering, research and development focused on how to do “sustainment” — the 80% of the total cost of weapons systems over their lifespans — faster and cheaper. They are open to ideas on how to do that.

Robert “Yogi” Kestler

For example, inspecting a proprotor blade on a V-22 Osprey is time-consuming. A couple of years ago, FRC East engineers spotted a military-sponsored research project somewhere else that could cut 80% of the time off the inspection. They brought it to Cherry Point. FRC East engineer Robert “Yogi” Kestler was relating the story to the crowd as an example of how the depot doesn’t have a not-invented-here culture. 

“As you can see with the situation we’re facing in the world today, we have to be more agile,” said Kestler, who is the lead engineer on FRC East’s Advanced Technology and Innovation (ATI) team. “We need to bring technology forward, faster.”

Jamaine Clemmons

The word you’d hear a lot last week was “transition,” which means taking a good idea and getting it into the hands of warfighters or those who support them. “At the end of the day,” said Jamaine Clemmons, who leads the ATI, “if we don’t transition, it doesn’t matter.”

At the formal kickoff on Jan. 27 in New Bern, the guest list gave a good indication of the importance of Tech Bridges in the higher echelons. At the event, 14 miles up the Neuse River from Cherry Point, were Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro, Frederick Stefany, deputy assistant secretary;  William Taylor, deputy assistant secretary (air-ground programs);  Lt. Gen. Eric Fick, program executive officer of the F-35 Lightning II joint program office; Rear Adm. Joseph Hornbuckle, commander of the Navy’s nine fleet readiness centers around the country and Japan; Russell Blauw, the Marine Corps assistant deputy commandant for aviation (sustainment); and Capt. Benjamin Van Buskirk, director of NavalX.

Capt. James Belmon
Capt. James Belmont

Last week’s event was a lower-key affair. But one prominent speaker was the new commanding officer of FRC East, Capt. James Belmont. New initiatives can sink beneath the waves unless an organization’s top leadership is engaged, communicating that something is important, so Belmont’s words were significant.

“This Tech Bridge is the exact thing we’ve been looking for,” Belmont told his audience.  “This gets everybody in a room together that has different ideas and maybe helps build the better mousetrap.” 

“I’ve been doing this for almost 30 years”’ said Belmont, “and I know what a wrench is and I know what a bolt is and I know how those two go together . . .  But to bring in [artificial intelligence], to bring in the additive manufacturing, to get us to that next level, to get us closer to our adversaries, to figure out what is the next fight going to look like . . .  It’s not going to be with bullets, it’s not going to be with rockets.  It’s going to be with technology.”

Also significant was the choice of Jeff Nelson, a career FRC East executive, to run the Tech Bridge. He was born at the naval hospital at Cherry Point, the son of a Marine. He came to the depot at 21 in 1987 as a tool and parts attendant and has steadily risen through the ranks while earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Today, while director of ENC Tech Bridge, he is also FRC East’s organizational innovation leader. He knows the problems that need solutions. Like how to keep track of tools that you don’t want to be left in an engine, including tools that are very small or otherwise difficult to tag with common digital tracking solutions. That’s a problem that Tech Bridge wants help with right now. Another one is how to more accurately measure the liner that lubricates a bearing, so it doesn’t get prematurely replaced, impacting readiness, when a V-22 vibration problem may have another cause.

As the result of the Industry Day outreach, FRC East received two proposals for the bearing liner measurement issue and one for small-tools tracking, which are being evaluated, according to FRC East spokesman John Olmstead.  

Tech Bridges typically are located in commercial space off base to make them more accessible for industry and academic collaboration. Wood, of Craven County, told me in an email Monday that “We do have a vision of it having its own facility with labs for research and development along with collaboration space.” The hope is for that to happen “in the next 3-5 years,” he said. The ENC Tech Bridge is “a key component to our economic development strategy.”

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