Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division opened two “Innovation LaunchPads” with ribbon-cutting ceremonies June 8 and 12 in Point Mugu and China Lake, California.

Innovation LaunchPads are makerspaces where employees can gather to foster creativity, critical thinking, and innovative collaboration across codes.

“The maker movement is all about bringing together a community of technical and creative people who help one another do better,” said Richard Chairez, NAWCWD’s innovation lead. “The Innovation LaunchPads give our workforce a place to do just that.”

Through the sponsorship of the Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, 80 rising sixth and seventh graders got the opportunity to participate in a four-day ‘coding camp’ June 11-14 to explore and develop their skills in science, technology, engineering, art and math.

Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division hosted 20 students from high schools across Ventura County during STEM Camp on June 22 in Point Mugu, California.

The event was the last day of a weeklong Science, Technology, Engineering and Math camp hosted by Naval Base Ventura County.

Students completed a project that required them to engineer a marble track with multiple stops. A successful track would allow the first marble to “pick up” three more at stations throughout the track, without triggering release early or skipping any pick-ups.

Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division recognized 25 graduates of Project Management 101 during a ceremony Aug. 30 at China Lake. Twenty-one graduates were recognized at Point Mugu bringing the program total to nearly 600 graduates since its inception.

A Sept. 20 ceremony recognized 53 Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division employees for completing step one of the Professional at all Levels program at China Lake. An additional 28 graduates at Point Mugu were recognized Sept. 13.

PaaL is a three-step leadership program that combines a series of cohort sessions with personal and group coaching. The first step of the command-developed program teaches participants about leading themselves and others while steps two and three teach how to lead teams and organizations.

Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division broke financial and hiring records in fiscal year 2018, hiring more, contracting more, and taking more new orders than ever before.

Overall new orders came in at $1.78 billion, approximately $100 million more than budgeted for FY18, according to Merrie Giles, NAWCWD comptroller. The additional new orders required additional hiring, pushing total end-strength to 6,035 personnel, 39 more than anticipated.

In the end, NAWCWD closed out FY18 with 412 more employees than in FY17. But that’s not the whole story.