In a ceremony at China Lake ON Aug. 29 in front of family and friends, Brad Harlow was presented a Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Award by Rear Adm. Scott Dillon, NAWCWD commander.

“In recognition of your critical role in the transformation of the Weapons and Energetics Department to have a clearly established vision towards improving speed to the Fleet, while increasing in-house weapons development capability, and rapidly advancing knowledge transfer to the workforce’s most critical skill areas,” the award citation read. “With 35 years of diverse technical experience in weapons development and business management, you have been an influential leader in the development of vital weapons systems and the advancement of many technologies.”

The citation went on to state that Harlow’s leadership for the 21-inch Standard Missile rocket motor program, which successfully underwent testing just eight months after its design, and the standup of the technically diverse team to execute the Fleet Supersonic Training Target program on an accelerated timeline exemplified his skills.

Dillon said during the presentation that during past stops in his career, those he worked with always knew who had won the NMCS award because it was such a rare achievement, and it comes after significant accomplishments over many years.

When presenting the award, Dillon said that it’s one thing to be a technical expert. “But it’s another thing entirely to move those efforts forward, to produce some sort of a concrete result, to deliver on the efforts that the organization has been putting in over the years, and to see your work translated into a product that makes a big difference to the fleet.”

For his part, Harlow was humble in his comments accepting the award.

“I often say that I’m never the smartest person in the room; haven’t been for my entire 35 years,” he said. “I’ve been surrounded by really talented people. The thing that I do is just make them maybe a little bit better. I’ll never be accused of being the expert, or being the person that’s really responsible for any of these things. I just played a small role along the way.”

Dillon countered.

“Don’t let him understate the significance of this accomplishment,” Dillon said. “This is a big deal, and we’re proud of you for earning it.”