NEWPORT – Naval Sea Systems Command Vice Adm. Thomas Moore gave a speech at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division Newport on April 11, stressing the need for employees to have outlets than work, telling the group he participates in golf and yoga.
“We really are in an era of great power competition, and what NAVSEA is doing now has never been more important, but I need you to find some balance,” Moore said to the standing-room-only crowd, according to a NAVSEA news release. “Work can’t be everything.”
Balance, he said, helps people recharge their batteries.
The four concepts Moore asked attendees to consider:
- Be willing to challenge all the assumptions out there today. Why am I doing something this way?
- Be willing to think differently about problems.
- If you really want to change, you better be willing to accept some risk every now and then.
- You’re not going to get five or 10 times better if you’re not willing to stop doing some things that you’re doing today.
Challenging assumptions, being willing to accept risk and getting better is also crucial, as it relates to global competition.
“The current path isn’t going to get us there,” he said. “The gap between us, Russia and China is closing. If that doesn’t scare you, it should.”
Moore emphasized the importance of independent technical authority.
“The only way we won’t have war is to make sure we’re so far out in front of everyone on every level. In that great power competition, it’s about winning and we’re going to win,” he said.
In addition to speed and innovation, that also means making the assets we have today more reliable, Moore noted. He used the space shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003 as an example.
“When we look at Columbia, we really allowed the costly schedule and the production voice to override the engineers,” Moore said. “No one was allowed to stand tall and say, ‘We have to look at this before we bring the shuttle back.’ ”
In addition to his talk, Moore toured some of NUWC facilities, heard about electro-magnetic warfare improvements and recorded a podcast.
NUWC Division Newport is part of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, providing research, development, test and evaluation, engineering, and fleet support for submarines and autonomous underwater systems.
Susan Shalhoub is a PBN contributing writer.
