Courtesy Photo | Gabriel Soto speaks after receiving the Harry Diamond Fuzing Excellence Award in...... read more read more
Gabriel Soto and his friends built model aircraft in the late 1970s. Military ones. F-4 Phantoms, F-14 Tomcats, F-16 Fighting Falcons. You name it.
They glued extra weapons on them, more bombs, more rockets, until the aircraft carried impossible loads. In bedroom battles, nothing detonated by accident. Nothing ever killed the pilot.
Forty-five years later, 90 miles from that Barstow bedroom in China Lake, Soto makes sure real weapons never detonate until they're supposed to.
His mission is keeping the pilot safe.
September 2025 marked two milestones for the electronics engineer: 35 years of service at Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division and the nation's highest honor for lifetime achievement in fuzing.
Every year or so, Soto attends the National Defense Industrial Association's Future Forces Conference. He joins industry fuzing contractors, component vendors and representatives from all three service branches. This year was different.
He wasn't just an attendee. He was the 2025 honoree.
On September 30, Soto walked from the Hilton Hotel in Fort Worth, formerly Hotel Texas where President John F. Kennedy spent his final night before Dallas, to the Fort Worth Convention Center to receive the Harry Diamond Fuzing Excellence Award. The fuzing community recognized him for a lifetime of keeping America's warfighters safe.
"It's folks that you work with in the fuzing community giving that recognition," Soto said. "It's all the people I work with, some people I've known for a long time. That's what really makes it a really nice award."
Two days later, at the same conference where he received the award, Soto sat onstage with his Air Force and Army counterparts, answering the hard questions about fuzing safety from a standing-room-only audience.
The Guardian of Fleet Safety
Three tragedies. Three disasters. Three reasons his job exists.
The USS Oriskany fire in 1966 killed 44 people. The USS Forrestal incident in 1967, when a Zuni rocket fired inadvertently on the carrier deck, killed more than 100. The USS Enterprise explosion in 1969 killed 28 and injured hundreds more.
These disasters led to the creation of the Weapon System Explosives Safety Review Board. But when reviewers at China Lake identified safety concerns related to failure modes the board had missed in a laser-initiated device, the board recognized they needed specialists who understood the technical details of fuze design and failure modes.
"China Lake got the chairmanship of that panel because of the in-depth knowledge we had," Soto said.
NAWCWD has provided all four chairmen.
In 2010, when the previous FISTRP chair retired, the board needed someone who breathed fuzing. Someone who understood every failure mode. The position required a subject-matter expert in fuzing, and Soto was already nationally recognized as one.
Three years leading the Safe-Arm Development Branch and 17 years of R&D work in fuzing had prepared him for this moment.
The opportunity meant choosing a path.
"It was kind of a decision point," Soto recalled. "I had moved into management, or at least partially into management. So I was doing a little less technical work, and I had to decide whether I wanted to be more technical or more management-oriented."
Management or technical expertise. He chose technical.
"Even though the FISTRP chair position wasn't necessarily a hands-on position, it was very technical," Soto said. "It was a good opportunity to stay in technology and further my growth by understanding systems, reviewing all these designs and making sure they followed the standards."
Now, as the fourth FISTRP chairman from China Lake, every fuze, every safety device, every initiation system in the Navy crosses his desk for review.
"Since taking over the chair position, that is the majority of what I do," Soto said. "The big thing is keeping the fleet safe, protecting both personnel and assets."
His panel reviews every Navy munition against the safety standards. Without their recommendation for approval, weapons don't reach the fleet. They stand between warfighters and catastrophe, between a functioning weapon system and another Forrestal.
He also serves as Navy lead for the Joint Services Fuze and Initiation System Safety Authorities and the Tri-Service Fuze Engineering Standardization Working Group, two roles ensuring collaboration and standardization across branches.
What Fuzing Means to the Warfighter
In simple terms, a fuze keeps a weapon safe until it's needed.
Take the AIM-9X Sidewinder. The fuze prevents arming until specific conditions are met, such as ensuring a safe arming separation distance from the launch aircraft. This ensures an inadvertent function of the warhead will not result in damage to the aircraft or crew.
"Arming just means that the initiator is in a condition that will enable the warhead to function," Soto explained.
Two environments must be sensed. Each environment, such as acceleration, is intended to ensure the weapon gets away from the platform, keeping the explosive train safe until then.
"The safe-arm device is really what its name says. It's supposed to keep the ordnance safe throughout the life of the weapon," Soto said.
His work focuses on the safety side, not reliability. Safety means knowing the difference between boom and kaboom. Safety means deck crews go home. Safety means another Forrestal never happens.
"We're worried about device failure modes," Soto said. "How does something fail? Why does it fail that way? Can it survive what we call the lifecycle environmental profile of the munition?"
Here's what happens: A missile sits on an F/A-18's wing on a carrier deck, exposed to salt spray and jet exhaust and catapult launches shaking everything, with deck crews working inches away. The fuze must survive all of that without ever allowing the warhead to prematurely arm until the pilot releases it over the target.
"The requirements tell you that you have to test to these things and show that the fuzing system will survive that without having a safety failure," Soto said.
The responsibility is absolute.
Every morning, tens of thousands of Sailors wake up aboard America's carrier fleet. Soto's signatures keep their weapons from killing them.
"Any fuze, any safety device, any hand-in-place ordnance will be reviewed by the board I chair," Soto said.
His Best Work
Three achievements stand above the rest.
The Harry Diamond Award. Recognition from peers across all military branches and industry.
The Top Naval Scientist and Engineer of the Year Award in 2008, for the Anti-Swimmer Grenade project. A trip to the Pentagon for the presentation.
"That was definitely a highlight. That was incredible," Soto said.
His induction as a NAWCWD Associate Fellow in 2015.
He's earned thirteen patents in fuzing and initiation systems during his career. The technical side always called to him.
"My heart was really in the technical side," Soto said. "I really enjoyed the design side, the technology and looking at different technologies and how to make them smaller, make them better."
But his greatest contribution happens in five-minute conversations.
The door never closes. Thirty-five years ago, someone kept theirs open for him. Now he returns the favor.
"If they come in with a question and need help in terms of safety or design, I'm more than willing to help," Soto said. "I try to give them the same mentorship I got when I was starting out."
The boy who once loaded weapons on toy planes now ensures real ones work exactly when they should. And only when they should.
Gabriel Soto speaks after receiving the Harry Diamond Fuzing Excellence Award in September. (Courtesy photo)
CAPTION 1: Gabriel Soto speaks after receiving the Harry Diamond Fuzing Excellence Award in September. (Courtesy photo)
| Date Taken: | 11.17.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 11.17.2025 15:21 |
| Story ID: | 551421 |
| Location: | CHINA LAKE, CALIFORNIA, US |
| Hometown: | BARSTOW, CALIFORNIA, US |
| Web Views: | 29 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Soto earns lifetime achievement award for fuzing excellence, by Tim Gantner, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
