Released by the NAVAIR China Lake Weapons Division--

From a five-milligram, low-energy initiator to 81,000 pounds of propellant, safely harnessing power of energetic materials is a critical Navy technology. In every Navy weapon this material either burns or blows up.

Because sailors live at sea in close quarters with high-explosive weapons, munitions are an even greater concern to the Navy than for other military branches.

NAVAIR Vice Commander Rear Admiral Bert Johnston summed it up: "The difference with the Navy is this-we sleep with our ordnance."

After more than a decade during which the Navy's individual energetics sites followed a "stove-piped" approach to serving the warfighter, the time has come for a transformation. The Navy's energetics efforts have been reinvigorated with the creation of the Navy Energetics Leadership Board (NELB) and the Navy Energetics Integrated Product Team (EIPT).

The NELB and EIPT are forging a unified NAVSEA/NAVAIR energetics program that represents all four of the Navy's energetics laboratories: Crane, IN; Dahlgren, VA; Indian Head Divisions of the Naval Surface Warfare Center in MD; and NAVAIR Weapons Division at China Lake and Point Mugu, CA.

The NELB seeks to preserve the Navy's competency in energetics, foster collaboration among warfare centers. amd speak for the Navy energetics with a single voice.

The EIPT is the action arm. It is engaged in formulating clear, realizable vision for Navy' energetics future; defining a coordinated Navy energetics strategy; developing an energetics technology and requirements roadmap; and actively pursuing collaborative projects between the system commands.

To educate athe Navy's energetics community about the breadth of energetics capabilities, and train a new generation of leaders, the NELB has instituted an energetics leadership program. The "Naval Energetics: Collaborating for the Warfighter" program brings together 30 participants from Crane, Dahlgren, Indian Head, China Lake, Point Mugu and Patuxent River.

Among facilities that have been toured by program participants are Indian Head's Micro Electromechanical Production Facility, Dahlgren's rapid-fire 5-inch gun system,and China Lake's Weapons Survivability Laboratory and Skytop Propulsion Complex.

Speaking to the program participants recently, John Robbins, deputy head of the NAVAIR Weapons Division's Targets Department said, "We are asking you to change the way we work together. To collaborate, to trust, to do what's right. Not for you, not for the parochial interests of your respective organizations, but rather for the whole, for the Navy, for the Nation, and for the young men and women who go daily in harm's way to defend our freedom."