Military leaders, government officials and representatives from local businesses, educational institutions and advocacy organizations gathered at the New Bern Riverfront Convention Center Jan. 27 to celebrate the official launch of the Eastern North Carolina Tech Bridge.

Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro served as keynote speaker at the event, which also included remarks by Rep. Greg Murphy, Fleet Readiness Center East Commanding Officer Col. Thomas A. Atkinson and several other local dignitaries.

The Eastern North Carolina (ENC) Tech Bridge is the latest addition to a Navy Program designed to bridge the gap between the Navy and emerging entities like startups, small businesses, academia, nonprofits and private capital that aren’t traditionally part of the Navy’s development and acquisition process. This opportunity for partnership will help the Navy meet the challenges facing the nation’s Sailors and Marines, Del Toro said.

“The work that you do here today and into the future as part of this Tech Bridge will contribute directly to our strategic operational and tactical objectives, and to the Navy being able to fulfill our mission,” he explained to the audience of local leaders, academics and businesspeople. “That’s the role you play.”

Del Toro said the innovation ecosystem created by the Tech Bridge program will help support his three basic concepts for strengthening the Navy and Marine Corps: strengthening the Department’s maritime dominance around the globe, empowering the Department of the Navy’s people through a culture of warfighting excellence, and building even stronger alliances with the United States’ allies and partners.

The Tech Bridge framework allows the Navy to collaborate with nontraditional partners and accelerate the innovation timeline in ways that traditional acquisition methods do not. This structure eases the collaboration process and allows the Navy to leverage the speed and efficiency improvements these nontraditional partners have experienced in recent years, ultimately putting assets in the hands of the nation’s warfighters significantly faster, at a more economical rate.

“It’s critically important,” Del Toro explained. “We have, in government, the responsibility to provide a valuable return on investment for the American taxpayers’ dollars, and that responsibility demands that government, industry and academia all come together to make it work.”

“It requires a strong partnership between industry and government for us to come together, understand each other’s challenges, and bring together the best ideas that we all have to offer for the benefit of the American taxpayer,” he added. “Ultimately it’s all for the benefit of our Sailors and Marines to protect our nation.”

Murphy agreed the collaboration between diverse organizations within the ENC Tech Bridge initiative will develop solutions that help make a difference for the nation’s military.

“We have educational aspects, we have the business community, we have engineers, we have folks from other resources, and then we have our brilliant military minds that are coming together to allow us to use those synergies to help put together resources and then subsequently real material items to help give our men and women the resources that they need to, as Ronald Reagan said, keep our peace through strength,” he said.

The Department of the Navy’s Naval Agility Office (NavalX) spearheads the Tech Bridge initiative, with the goal of rapidly delivering innovative capabilities to service members across the globe. The ENC Tech Bridge has been in the works for about a year, Atkinson said. When the idea was first explored, he felt the program would be a good opportunity to enlist the support of the local community and institutions of higher learning to help solve challenges faced at Fleet Readiness Center East (FRCE).

“We want to harvest the innovative solutions and diverse talents of this region,” Atkinson said. “We want to be part of an ecosystem that strengthens our partnerships with the state and local governments, universities and entrepreneurs in the area.”

The ENC Tech Bridge will focus on advanced manufacturing, and maintenance, repair and overhaul technologies. These areas of emphasis line up with FRCE’s core lines of effort, Atkinson said.

“Additive manufacturing technology shortens overhaul cycles and provides engineering solutions for repairs not previously possible,” he explained. “Best commercial practices improve our processes and warfighter responsiveness; both reduce our cost. We at FRC East want more of that.”

Ultimately, the partnership between FRCE and Craven County that led to the establishment of the Tech Bridge reflects the strong commitment between the military and local community, said Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point Commander Col. Mikel Huber, who spoke during the event.

“I think we will see immediate gains from what we do within this partnership as we bring minds from the military, from industry and from academia together to do some incredible things,” Huber said. “But the most important thing from my perspective is what this means to the relationship that we have here in eastern North Carolina between our military and our community. That relationship … is stronger here than any place I’ve ever seen in my career, and this effort, specifically, is just another one of those things to cement that relationship and make it stronger.”

The mutual benefit to both the military and local community made establishing the ENC Tech Bridge an especially attractive idea, Atkinson said.

“Establishing a NavalX Tech Bridge promises us access to a vast and diverse ecosystem spanning the world, with connections to some of the best laboratories and innovation centers,” he said. “But even more so, we want to be part of this Tech Bridge to help fulfill our objectives of generating readiness, creating value and contributing to the long-term growth and wellness of this local community.”