00;00;00;06 - 00;00;02;20 Alex Technically speaking. 00;00;02;22 - 00;00;05;18 Chelsie Welcome to our technically UN technical Technology talk. 00;00;05;20 - 00;00;07;25 Alex A NIWC Atlantic production. 00;00;07;28 - 00;00;15;00 Joe And an award winning podcast with your hosts, Chelsea Holloway and Alex Jackson. 00;00;15;03 - 00;00;20;18 Chelsie Alex, we are back. 2025 New Year. I've got some new goals this year. You got new goals? 00;00;20;19 - 00;00;27;29 Alex Yes, I have a couple new goals. I'm trying to be more intentional in the things I do and wanting to take a little bit more of calculated risks. 00;00;28;01 - 00;00;48;27 Chelsie Okay. Intentional calculated risk. So there's some nice goals. My minor a little less, less in depth. You know, I just I still don't have my social media apps on my phone, so I'm giving myself kudos for that. That's going well. I only get on, when I'm on the desktop, so I only get on, like, Facebook and Instagram, like once a month at most. 00;00;48;28 - 00;00;49;29 Chelsie So I'm going to keep that going. 00;00;49;29 - 00;00;50;18 Alex That's really good. 00;00;50;19 - 00;01;09;22 Chelsie Yeah, I'm going to keep it going. And keep doing that. Which is actually become pretty easy. And then another one I've got is more of like a mindset. So I guess it's a little philosophical to match your intentional, but it's I'm so good. I'm one of those people that can focus on everything that can go wrong, you know, and make a plan ABCd, right? 00;01;09;22 - 00;01;20;19 Chelsie Yeah. No, no more. 2025 is the year that I'm trying to focus on what goes right. Like, think it could go? It could go right. It could go right this way. Just, you know. 00;01;20;20 - 00;01;23;26 Alex That's definitely the way we have to go. Make sure you have that mindset. 00;01;23;26 - 00;01;25;03 Chelsie It might help. It might help. 00;01;25;06 - 00;01;25;15 Joe Right. 00;01;25;15 - 00;01;27;10 Chelsie Not left. Right. Exactly. 00;01;27;11 - 00;01;27;22 Alex That's right. 00;01;27;22 - 00;01;43;10 Chelsie Do not left. That's right. So that's the goal for 2025. We're starting this year off strong. We've got a great episode ahead of us. We're going to be talking about how Network Atlantic is involved with the installation of the technology that exists on Navy ships and submarines. 00;01;43;10 - 00;02;04;24 Alex Coming up, we speak to two experts who tell us about the installation and modernization of Navy technology on vessels. Then we speak with Chief Joshua Mitchell for our military moment, who talks to us about the work he does for our air traffic control team. So get comfy, turn up that volume and let's get started. 00;02;04;26 - 00;02;24;22 Chelsie So we're going to jump right into our chat, Alex, with, Mr. Ashley McGee and Mr. Eric Herman. And they were so good at explaining the depth of what we do with the technology on these ships and submarine. So, let's jump right into it with that interview. Thank you both so much for joining us on the podcast. 00;02;24;23 - 00;02;27;11 Chelsie Can you please introduce yourselves? 00;02;27;13 - 00;02;52;16 Eric Yes. My name is at home, and I'm the, competency manager for installation, planning and execution. Due to a little bit of personal, thing about myself. Just so you know, I am hearing impaired and both usage, but I grew up having to learn how to speak through many speech therapy sessions. So you might hear an accident in my voice. 00;02;52;16 - 00;02;54;23 Eric So I hope to be understandable. 00;02;54;25 - 00;02;56;10 Chelsie Thank you so much for sharing that. 00;02;56;13 - 00;03;01;16 Ashley I'm Ashley McGee. I'm the competency supervisor for a new construction installation planning. 00;03;01;16 - 00;03;07;19 Alex Can you please explain what it means when we say installation and modernization for the fleet? 00;03;07;21 - 00;03;42;09 Eric So yes, installation and modernization for the fleet. And so what that means is we were tasked with delivering, integrating and installing systems on board Navy ships, submarine and shore station and throughout the world. And so when we say modernization, that's the term that we use to refer to new capabilities, a new system on the platform, in the fleet that, Worf out of the Navy, Seal of Marine Corps. 00;03;42;11 - 00;03;46;02 Chelsie What do you guys mean by systems? What does that entail? 00;03;46;05 - 00;04;15;05 Eric So systems, you know, it can be software or hardware. You know, though, for the technical part of that, we put on board ships. And so knowing some of the systems and capabilities that we install, some I just want to name a few. And so are see, for our system, you might have heard of canes, you might have heard of Navy Malta Bantam one of the global can command and control system. 00;04;15;07 - 00;04;19;10 Eric Those are some well known C4 systems that we install. 00;04;19;17 - 00;04;26;07 Chelsie And C4, which is command control communication. And what's the other one. 00;04;26;10 - 00;04;32;06 Eric C4. You got that? Command and control communication and computer and intelligence. 00;04;32;07 - 00;04;57;12 Chelsie Jupiter and intelligence. That's it. So from what I'm getting from you is when you say installation and modernization for the fleet, you are literally building and configuring these like large types of racks and technology and then installing them into, like various vessels such as ships and submarines for our fleet. And modernization just means you're like you're keeping it up to date. 00;04;57;12 - 00;04;58;28 Chelsie Is that is that right? 00;04;59;01 - 00;05;25;15 Eric Yeah. That's right. Yeah. Just to expand on that, if if you've read the CNO navigation plan and you're familiar with it, talked about 33, the very first target is to ready the fleet by installing system capabilities on the Navy ship and get them delivered on time with high quality. And so there you go, Jacqui. What we're doing. 00;05;25;17 - 00;05;47;19 Chelsie In these systems, like you mentioned, they control everything on these ships or help with the navigation, the communications, just and and just updating their like daily life like, so they can get paid. These systems are involved with all sorts of technology on this ship to support that project. 00;05;47;19 - 00;06;11;00 Ashley 33 or, you know, I'd like to add on to that, you know, you think, you put it in simple terms, like your iPhone, it has constantly has updates to all the applications on it. And, you know, and if you're using the iPhone, it's 3 or 4 versions, out of date, you know, you feel like it's an antique because it doesn't do some of the newer technology. 00;06;11;02 - 00;06;33;12 Ashley And they add systems, software and hardware on their ships, and submarine and shore sites are no different. You know, they're they require constant updates, new. And, you know, when you marry that up to the, purchasing and procurement and ship design, you know, you think about how old a system might be. It can become out of date very quickly. 00;06;33;12 - 00;06;47;06 Ashley So our objective, you know, as Eric, laid out when you mentioned project 33, is to keep up with the rest of the world on vulnerabilities for systems so that our ships have secure communication systems. 00;06;47;06 - 00;06;53;23 Alex So not only do you all install and modernized ships, but you also work with new construction as well. 00;06;53;25 - 00;07;23;09 Ashley Yes. We have teams that all of our major shipbuilding, partners and the fleet concentration areas, we have personnel that are assigned permanently at the shipbuilders so they can be there throughout all of the stages of the shipbuilding process. And they work, and in connection with the Nancy folks and the supervisor of shipbuilding, to help us achieve the Navy's 2025 shipbuilding plan. 00;07;23;11 - 00;07;40;11 Ashley And in that way, it allows us to support the larger Navy goals that the CNO has outlined in the the 2024 Nav plan and the project 33, so that we can compete with other nations and remain a key naval power. 00;07;40;11 - 00;07;44;10 Alex Can you explain what the 2025 Navy shipbuilding plan is? 00;07;44;17 - 00;08;09;16 Ashley The CNO shipbuilding plan that's approved by Congress? You'll find it on the, the, OMB website if you Google it. I guess if you stood it down in a nutshell, you could say that it's, it's a 30 year shipbuilding plan. So it details how much money we should forecast for over the three decades. What's the end strength of our navy going to be about? 00;08;09;16 - 00;08;14;11 Alex How long does it take from start to finish in building a ship and having it ready for the fleet? 00;08;14;14 - 00;08;34;29 Ashley The time that you would lay the keel until the time that the ship is operational and the fleet, there's several milestones that our team coordinates, but overall, a rough, rough, magnitude is about five years. Five years. When you're talking about the simple analogy of your iPhone, if your iPhone was five years old, you feel like it's way out of date. 00;08;35;07 - 00;08;46;02 Ashley So when this ship comes out of that, the next thing we want to do before we send it out to the fleet is to give it one more modernization, to bring it up to speed with everything cutting edge. 00;08;46;02 - 00;09;02;21 Chelsie And with the new 2025 shipbuilding plan, it sounds like you guys are going to be pretty busy basically moving forward to not only modernize, but keep up with the new construction. That's great. So tell us a little bit about your engineers and scientists. What what is their day to day? 00;09;02;23 - 00;09;32;05 Eric About 240 of us, not only a lot of them and charge of them, but a lot. And in the Norfolk area at the shipyard. But we do have a lot of them embedded at the different shipyard throughout the country employed down in Pascagoula, mobile, Alabama, move port, even open and go out in Connecticut, where I live in the submarine base, we have some even all the way up to Wisconsin in the shipyard. 00;09;32;07 - 00;10;09;24 Eric And over in Bloomington, Washington. Sure. They're embedded up there, the shipyard, installing systems every day on this ship. You know, you ask about the daily life of these installations move, you know, and typically they they have on the hard hat, they have on their steel toed shoes, the safety glasses everyday working with the sale of, you know, working with the naval supervisor of a shipyard, the type command of the commanding officer of the ship to get the installation done. 00;10;10;01 - 00;10;25;28 Chelsie That's an exciting experience, most likely for these engineers and technicians or or schmoe, as you said, which is subject matter experts. They get to actually work alongside with the sailors, it sounds like, on the ships, on the submarines that that's pretty exciting. 00;10;26;01 - 00;10;57;17 Eric Yeah, it is it it's rewarding to some degree, you know, even for myself, you know, being an engineer right out of college, I have no military background, but we do have a lot of vets. And the command and on our team, in my opinion, I think is the next best thing to being in the military. If you haven't been in the military, you know, you get to work with the sailors every day and you feel like you're contributing to the nation by by working. 00;10;57;17 - 00;10;58;23 Eric In addition, 00;10;58;25 - 00;11;21;13 Ashley You know, I retired from the Navy after 28 years, but, I feel like we're right there with all of the environment where I've been working, you know, about 40 years. It's definitely, it's a familiar place to be down there with the sailors, and it it's very much in tune with the deck plate. And as a hiring manager, getting out to the sides, it's very, very nice. 00;11;21;15 - 00;11;34;24 Ashley You know, one of the CNAs, I think she mentions is our workforce, and, leg lets us stay in tune with our workforce. It lets us know, good candidates for future jobs. And it, kind of is a it's a win win for us. 00;11;34;24 - 00;11;45;29 Chelsie What are you looking for in a good candidate? Whether it's, a Navy sailor, currently or a civilian, what are some traits and some qualities that you want in an engineer or technician? 00;11;46;02 - 00;12;12;08 Ashley First and foremost, we're looking for, person that, knows the systems and understands the system, and the administration is required, to put it together. And they should be well-spoken and able to brief at various levels of the chain of command. They should be able to talk to, someone on a deck plate about a technical issue and be able to communicate with, the leadership of other organizations, you know, for team building and collaboration. 00;12;12;08 - 00;12;25;28 Ashley And because everybody wants to feel like their job is important. And at the end of the day, we all have to play in the sandbox together. So, so those things I'm looking for as a hiring manager, when I'm, when I'm interviewing a candidate. 00;12;26;00 - 00;12;53;26 Chelsie And the skill set is, is really important also because you made the comparison to an iPhone earlier, putting a system on a Navy ship might be a little bit more life or death oriented than it is, like an app on an iPhone. So it's it's a very important and fulfilling role. And I'm really glad that now Atlantic is, you know, employing so many talented people that so many places across the country to support this effort. 00;12;53;28 - 00;13;23;05 Eric You know, there a lot of smart people out there, and we can provide the feedback when we install systems on the ships and submarines and how they operate and how they work, and feed it food about to the engineers and follow when they design it and implement some of the technologies, like, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and getting those capabilities out to the fleet. 00;13;23;12 - 00;13;29;09 Chelsie Well, thank you so much for chatting with us and explaining all of this. It's been really insightful. Thank you. 00;13;29;13 - 00;13;31;26 Eric Thank you. 00;13;31;29 - 00;13;49;00 Chelsie Alex, I didn't realize we had so many engineers and technicians spread out across this country outside of even our main areas, which are like Norfolk and Charleston in the Naval District, Washington area. But we've got people in Connecticut, Washington State, Alabama, we have them in Wisconsin. 00;13;49;00 - 00;13;50;16 Joe I didn't know that I was in the Navy. 00;13;50;17 - 00;14;11;18 Chelsie Yeah, that's true. Yeah. And some of these places are for submarines and others, like who knew? Right, Joe? Like Wisconsin. So I thought that I thought that was really impressive. And it was really inspiring the way Eric spoke about how working on his team is the next best thing to being active duty in his mind, because they're on the ship side by side with those sailors. 00;14;11;18 - 00;14;14;00 Chelsie So I thought it was really great chatting with them. 00;14;14;00 - 00;14;33;20 Alex It was, and I really enjoyed that. We got to hear that perspective of the Navy. Oftentimes you think of the sailors out at sea and and working on ships, but this is sort of before the ships are even out at sea. So it was really neat to hear that perspective as well. And with that, it's time to move into our military moment. 00;14;33;23 - 00;14;48;01 Alex I recently sat down with Chief Joshua Mitchell, who told us about his experiences in the Navy and working in our Air Traffic Control division. Thank you, Chief Mitchell. Thank you for joining me today. Keith, please tell us what you do for North Carolina. 00;14;48;03 - 00;15;14;26 Chief Mitchell Hey, Alex. Happy to be here. And I've been on board, and I work Atlantic just a little bit less than two months. I'm an air traffic controller. I work at an affiliate within. I work, and we design and, analyze terrain for instrument flight rules. Just as the easiest way to to break it down. So for all the Navy and Marine Corps air stations and, in and outside of the United States, we do terrain analysis to keep instrument firewalls safe. 00;15;14;29 - 00;15;16;05 Chief Mitchell It's easiest way to say. 00;15;16;08 - 00;15;18;10 Alex How long have you been in the Navy? 00;15;18;13 - 00;15;21;03 Chief Mitchell March. I will be in the Navy 14 years. 00;15;21;05 - 00;15;27;22 Alex And what has been your most favorite experience in terms of, being active duty? 00;15;27;24 - 00;15;46;02 Chief Mitchell That is just is ever evolving. So you're continually challenged. I'm an ambitious person, and I think that if I didn't have challenges or goals to set or to work towards that, I would get bored. And, the Navy and military as a whole definitely offers you those opportunities to challenge yourself. 00;15;46;04 - 00;15;53;17 Alex Could you share some advice on what you would give to someone who's interested in joining the Navy, or may not have known what you can do? 00;15;53;19 - 00;16;15;10 Chief Mitchell I would say go in with an open mind. Probably if you're new to the military and looking at coming in, whatever preconceived notion you have of how it's going to be, it's probably not accurate. It's going to be different, probably than how you perceived it. And, I would say go in with an open mind and that there's going to be highs and there's going to be lumps like anything. 00;16;15;12 - 00;16;25;19 Chief Mitchell And it's not all sunshine and roses, but you're definitely going to have experiences in the military that you're not going to have in the civilian world with the travel and just the things that you're going to be exposed to. 00;16;25;21 - 00;16;39;12 Alex And as you've moved up in rank over the years, what has been the most rewarding to you in terms of helping lead other Navy sailors? And you've been become a leader yourself. 00;16;39;15 - 00;17;10;27 Chief Mitchell The most rewarding to me is to take a young person, that came right out of high school and came in the military, so hasn't had a lot of exposure out in the world. And maybe they don't even know what their talents are, their skill sets are. And, especially for somebody that's lacking confidence and to present them when the challenge and maybe they're reluctant to take on that challenge, but through training and learning and teaching themselves that they can rise to the challenge and become successful, and especially whenever they didn't think that they were going to be able to do it. 00;17;10;27 - 00;17;24;28 Chief Mitchell And then when you see somebody overcome adversity and challenges and achieve something that they didn't even think that they could do, and to see that confidence grow, and then for them to turn it around and to to teach back to other people of them, I think that's the most rewarding. 00;17;25;01 - 00;17;31;22 Alex And what has been one of your most favorite, duty locations or tours that you've gone on? 00;17;31;24 - 00;17;50;17 Chief Mitchell Well, I was at I was on the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier, and San Diego was my first duty station and, did a Westpac deployment there and went around the world. So for the travel aspect of it, that that was neat, right? And Vietnam nuclear powered aircraft carrier and going we went to Australia. I got five days in Australia with the Hong Kong with India. 00;17;50;19 - 00;18;11;02 Chief Mitchell I love living in San Diego. The weather is great. I see why people want to be there. Then I was stationed at, Kingsville, Texas in South Texas, a completely different experience. I'm from Texas, so I enjoyed being there. And my most recent tour that I just finished was at Naval Air Station Fallon, Nevada, which is kind of in the middle of nowhere in northern Nevada. 00;18;11;05 - 00;18;33;08 Chief Mitchell But it's where Top Gun is. And being an air traffic controller and working at Naval Air Station with the Navy's premier fighters and fighter pilots and really large airspace, I would say professionally, that was a really rewarding experience, and it was just a lot of fun. I mean, you'll be in the control tower in a single day, C in F-5 in F-15 and F-16 in F-22 and in F-35. 00;18;33;08 - 00;18;36;26 Chief Mitchell All the Navy Marine course, Premier fighter. So that's just cool. 00;18;36;28 - 00;18;40;22 Alex I've heard you mention that you did a tour with the Blue Angels. 00;18;40;24 - 00;19;00;16 Chief Mitchell I didn't get to do a tour with them. I just was in the right place at the right time. And, I did get to ride on Found Albert. And that's one of those things. I had no idea that that was going to happen. I was at Pensacola and Air Show was going on. I took a tour of the control tower and the Blue Angels were doing their show, and they called up to the control tower and said, hey, does anybody want to go for a ride with an angel? 00;19;00;16 - 00;19;16;27 Chief Mitchell So I just located my shoulder, put my hand in the air, and, ran across the airfield and got there for the debrief. And, next thing I know, I'm in Fort Albert in the C-130, and we're doing zero gravity, and the Marines are hooting and hollering. And I woke up that morning and did not know that was going to happen. 00;19;16;27 - 00;19;21;13 Chief Mitchell That's kind of unexpected things that you know, that you can encounter in the Navy. That's a memorable experience. 00;19;21;13 - 00;19;26;02 Alex That's impressive. Yes, it was cool. Is there anything else that you'd like to add? 00;19;26;04 - 00;19;45;27 Chief Mitchell I would just say, speaking to, you know, the kind of the recruiting part of it and young people, if they're, you know, thinking about, joining the military, I don't think that a sense of duty and a sense of obligation is there, maybe like it was in past generations. And that's okay. We haven't really been highly, actively involved in wars. 00;19;46;00 - 00;20;07;00 Chief Mitchell But you're still needed. You're still needed. And, opportunities are there. Like, from myself, I've gotten two reenlistment bonuses. I got all of my college student loans paid off. I got money for adoption assistance. So, yeah, there'll be a lot asked of you, but opportunities are there for financial rewards and for advancement and for training. So like I said in the beginning, I'm just going to have an open mind. 00;20;07;00 - 00;20;08;24 Chief Mitchell It can be very rewarding. It's what you make of it. 00;20;08;29 - 00;20;10;27 Alex Thank you, Chief Mitchell, for joining me today. 00;20;11;00 - 00;20;14;18 Chief Mitchell Thanks for having me on expression. 00;20;14;20 - 00;20;26;12 Chelsie I love that, Alex. What a great interview. He seemed like a really, really awesome guy. I really liked his advice about how if you join the military, you need to go in with an open mind and get rid of all those preconceived notions. 00;20;26;14 - 00;20;36;21 Alex Absolutely. He shared how passionate he is about working with the sailors under his leadership, and it was great just to hear about his experiences working for Network Atlantic. 00;20;36;26 - 00;20;42;15 Chelsie All right. Before we come to an end of this episode, Alex, do you have any predictions for 2025? 00;20;42;16 - 00;20;52;04 Alex Yes, I think we're going to get some more snow here in the Charleston in the southern region of the country, before spring gets here. So I'm excited to see that. 00;20;52;07 - 00;21;08;29 Chelsie A second major snowfall for you, because you just had one in Charleston and that was rare. That would be pretty exciting. My my predictions are I think the Chiefs are going to win the Super Bowl. It's right now, we're airing this and it's it's before they've hit the Super Bowl. It's going to be Chiefs versus Eagles. 00;21;08;29 - 00;21;16;12 Chelsie I think the Chiefs are bound to win again. We'll see. We'll see. And I think Mr. Beast is going to buy TikTok. They're going to try obviously. 00;21;16;14 - 00;21;18;06 Alex And who is Mr. Beast. 00;21;18;08 - 00;21;39;13 Chelsie So if you don't know who Mr. Beast is he is a really famous YouTuber and he's super rich. And he also is, has a brand new show out, I think, on Amazon Prime that's like a game show that's gotten really popular. And so he's throwing his name in with a whole bunch of millionaires, billionaires to try and buy TikTok. 00;21;39;13 - 00;21;50;08 Chelsie So it's very interesting to see this YouTuber make it to the point where now they're going to buy this social media app. So we'll see. But there's my predictions for 2025. 00;21;50;08 - 00;21;53;01 Joe I'd love to see if either of you are actually clairvoyant. 00;21;53;02 - 00;22;04;27 Chelsie Yes, we'll see. But to learn about anything that we've mentioned in this podcast as it pertains to now, Mike Atlantic, of course, check out our social medias under nav or our Network Atlantic website. Links are in the description. 00;22;04;29 - 00;22;17;29 Alex And that wraps up another episode in the new year. Thanks for listening. If you have a deeper story that you think should be included in this podcast, please contact us at our Public Affairs email address, which is listed in the description. 00;22;18;01 - 00;22;35;04 Chelsie Naval Information Warfare Center Atlantic, also known as the islet, is the East Coast branch of the Naval Information Warfare Systems Command. Within the Department of the Navy, we develop a range of technologies that provide state of the art capabilities to the United States military.