NEWPORT, R.I. — A new generation of maintenance experts is being forged to ensure surface combatants remain mission-ready and deployable in the classrooms of the Surface Warfare Schools Command Fleet Engineering Directorate (N77) schoolhouse at Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia.
SWSC’s Advanced Engineering Instructor (AEI) program, a specialized 66-day training pipeline, was developed to address a critical fleet need: reducing maintenance availability delays and fundamentally improving how shipboard engineering teams integrate with shipyard project managers.
"This course exists from an honest look from our Navy as a whole at issues with the maintenance process," said Lt. Cmdr. Christopher West, the AEI course manager. "I think [AEI] is one attempt to fix that, adding planners and thinkers into the maintenance process, specifically to our availabilities and that planning."
The AEI curriculum targets senior enlisted engineers, surface warfare officers, engineering limited duty officers, and chief warrant officers. The intensive program pushes students through instructor training, a common core focused on yard periods and maintenance availabilities, and specialized instruction in gas turbine, diesel, steam, or hybrid propulsion systems. On graduation, students earn the AEI Additional Qualification Designator or Navy Enlisted Classification for their permanent record.
The program operates on a core philosophy designed to fundamentally change how a command approaches maintenance, said Lt. Dylan Williams, the Common Core lead at the AEI schoolhouse.
"The motto that we like to go by is planner, thinker, teacher," Williams said. "Planner: inserting themselves in every part of the planning process, reviewing the work packages, being at all of those planning meetings. Teacher: using that sense of community that you built... to distribute that wealth of knowledge throughout your command. And then acting as a thinker: finding ways to innovate and [develop] new, creative ways to solve problems as the process goes on."
When students graduate from the course they are designated as Advanced Engeering Instructors, with the ultimate goal of placing an AEI on every ship in the surface fleet. By embedding a specialized expert within the crew, ships are armed with the advanced knowledge required to ensure maintenance jobs are accurately written, long-lead materials are ordered, and timelines are aggressively met.
This deep level of integration aims to solve the historic challenges ships face during major availabilities.
"Every ship is going through different cycles, different phases, different events," West said. "Having an AEI who's integrated in every ship, who knows their ship and is able to provide a personal level of expertise on what the ship's going through, where the ship's out in the lifecycle and advocate for their individual work package will be a big impact."
Lt. Victor Ubri, who manages the production tours of AEI graduates for Naval Surface Force Atlantic, emphasized that the operational impact of these highly trained professionals goes far beyond the shipyard.
"AEIs are those experts in the engineering field set to ensure that ships come out of the availability on time," Ubri said. "We’re trying to keep the commanders and their warships off the pier due to a maintenance availability delay and out in the front lines, downrange, protecting our nation."
SWSC's mission is to ready sea-bound warriors to serve on surface combatants as officers, enlisted engineers, and enlisted navigation professionals in order to fulfill the Navy's mission to maintain global maritime superiority. For more information on the AEI program, visit https://www.dvidshub.net/news/494604 .