Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division recognized three teams and one individual at the 2025 Innovation Awards March 4, 2026, at China Lake.
The awards recognized innovations ranging from a centralized web portal that saves $428,000 a year to tools that give the Fleet the ability to strike targets at long range.
Navy Capt. Jon Rugg, NAWCWD vice commander, opened the ceremony by noting that demand for the command's capabilities is growing, even as the workforce faces smaller teams and constrained funding.
"Our warfighters need us," Rugg said. "It's a present day reality. The demand for lethal, effective, and ready capability is not a future problem set."
The problem runs deeper than workload. Rugg pointed to Executive Director Daniel Carreño's assessment of the acquisition challenge.
"Weapons cost too much, take too long, and are irrelevant by the time they get here," Rugg said. "We can't just work harder. We've got to work smarter."
Guest speaker Erick Went, chief technology officer at Matter Labs and director of Future Labs and TechGrid, returned for a second year to speak on the pace of technological change.
Went brought the mission back to the people behind it.
"Your number one job, the job that brings people home safe, the job that will help us accelerate to the pace of technology and relevance is innovation," Went said.
Even the trophies came from the workforce.
Josh Cotterell designed and built them in NAWCWD's Innovation Lab. The lab, which the Department of War featured earlier this year, gives employees access to 3D printers, laser cutters and CNC machines to build prototypes in days instead of months.
The awards cut across missions and disciplines. What connected them was simpler: each team closed a need no one asked them to close.
Thomas Dowd, director for Ranges/Targets Operations, Instrumentation and Labs, presented the first two awards.
The Sea Range Support Division Fusion Page Team received the Process Transformation Award.
They built a centralized web portal for Sea Range support services. The portal replaced a scattered system of emails and walk-in requests, cutting costs by an estimated $428,000 annually.
Dowd also presented the Catalyst Award, recognizing leadership of the Operations Development team within
Pacific Targets and Marine Operations.
The team delivered more than 500 targets across six operational periods supporting Replicator, a Department of War effort to field large numbers of low-cost autonomous systems. The award winner also brought in a U.S. 3rd Fleet liaison during Gray Flag, an annual large-scale test event at Point Mugu, now standard practice.
Gerardo Garcia, Spectrum Warfare Department director, presented the final two awards. Before reading the first citation, he reflected on more than three decades at NAWCWD and the growing threat from low-cost drones.
"We need to get our men and women back here safely. This is where you all come in. This is where we need the innovation from our workforce," Garcia said.
The Machine-assisted Analytical Rapid-repository System Transition Team received the What's the Future Award.
The team integrated the Digital Image Exploitation Engine, a targeting tool used across the military, into MARS, a cloud-based intelligence database that replaces a system from the 1990s. The integration brings target location, damage estimation and weapons selection into one platform.
The Precision Targeting and Fires Team took the Integration Excellence Award.
Twelve members delivered a Quick Reaction Capability for long-range fires. It filled an urgent gap in the Fleet's targeting process from detection to strike. The team built planning and execution tools and stood up a training center for Fleet personnel within six months.
Rugg's closing words were about what comes next.
"If we wait until a weapon is 100 percent of a written requirement, it might not even meet 50 percent of the warfighter's actual need by the time it gets to the fleet," Rugg said. "Technology moves fast. We have to innovate faster."
| Date Taken: |
03.20.2026 |
| Date Posted: |
03.20.2026 13:15 |
| Story ID: |
561025 |
| Location: |
CHINA LAKE, CALIFORNIA, US |
| Web Views: |
121 |
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0 |
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