Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division held their spring Engineer and Scientist Development Program graduation ceremonies on April 11 and 13 in China Lake and Point Mugu, California.

ESDPs complete three to five years of rotational tours, mentoring, and a minimum of 300 hours of training in addition to training toward receiving their Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act Level 2 certification.

A total of 34 graduates made up the spring 2023 ESDP class. In addition to the expected engineering and computer science degrees, graduates held degrees in math, physics, biochemistry and even neuroscience and astronomy.  

“I’m always amazed at seeing the backgrounds and seeing 20 different colleges and universities being represented today is great,” said Dan Carreño, NAWCWD executive director. Although many students came from California colleges and universities, institutions from Alabama to Wyoming rounded out the class.

Carreño asked the graduates to pass on the knowledge they have learned from the program.

“For those of you that have been mentored, remember that it’s going to be your turn now,” he said. “You have an opportunity now to influence that next class coming in … We are not going to out-buy our adversaries. We beat them on innovation, on ingenuity, and on the intellect of our people. You are all an example of that.”

Harlan Kooima, Research and Development Group director, closed out the ceremonies with a solemn reminder that graduations are a time of both celebration and reflection. They mark the end of a period of learning and the beginning of a career of responsibility and challenging work.

“The United States is being challenged every day,” he said. “By volume, 90% of the world’s commerce by volume travels by ships, and our U.S. Navy is trying to keep the sea lanes open so that goods and services will flow. Our Navy needs you.”

He went on to note that while we don’t have to be perfect, we do need to be better today than we were yesterday.

“NAWCWD – you – put the punch into the U.S. Navy. We’re the Navy’s integrators. That’s our mission, to make sure they have better capability that works seamlessly tomorrow, better than it does today. We need to raise our eyes to that mission. The Navy’s expecting it.”

“You have been given the privilege and opportunity to do some fantastic work,” he added. “We do this for a good and just cause, and together we’ll make a difference.”

Spring 2023 ESDP graduates are:

China Lake:

Patrick Arguello, Brandon Burkhardt, Andrew Cammenga, Stephen Castro, Juan Carlos Cordero-Perez, Kahra Fishburn, Todd Grenda, Dominic Hildebrandt, Laura Hutchinson, Samuel Keeter, Joshua Kennedy, Brianna Mount, Yasaman O’Brien, Octavio Perez Quezada, Megan Richter, Scott Salazar, Jia Yi Sinclair, Chanse Starmer, Bryan Tham, Giang Truong, Sydney Walton, and Nathan White.

Point Mugu:

Christopher Kappa, Ryan Lenart, David Mohler, Diane Phung, Tanvi Rane, and Ethan Skemp.