U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota visited U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground (YPG) on January 21.
Cramer, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Airland, came for an in-depth look at the post’s extensive mission testing counter-small unmanned aerial system (C-sUAS) capabilities.
“The committee and certainly the Department of War has taken base security especially to heart and has tried to incentivize as much private sector innovation as possible,” he said. “When I learned that Yuma Proving Ground was the tip of the spear on a lot of that testing, that is what prompted me to come here.”
Cramer received a briefing from YPG Commander Col. John Nelson, Technical Director Ross Gwynn, and other post senior leaders, then toured an instrumentation facility and one of the post’s airfields that specialize in UAS testing.
“What I have learned is very encouraging to me,” Cramer said. “Our Army facilitates real innovation at the speed of our adversaries, and we’re quite advanced at it.”
He also praised the dozens of YPG personnel he interacted with during his visit.
“There are a whole bunch of smart people—engineers, technicians, scientists—patriots all, and it is quite refreshing,” he said. “That’s what makes this place special: the demand comes from the military, but the innovation comes from the patriotic engineer that has dedicated their life to the warfighter. I thought the culture here was great.”