Battle damage assessor returns to NAWCWD as vice commander

Official Statements

• Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division, November 10: “In December 2013, three Air Force CV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft flew into gunfire over Bor, South Sudan, on a mission to evacuate Americans. They made it about 400 miles to Entebbe, Uganda.

  The formation took 119 hits, the Air Force reported. Four passengers were wounded. All survived.

  A Navy officer leading the Joint Combat Assessment Team in Afghanistan flew to Africa to study the hits. The team investigates battle damage to U.S. aircraft so engineers can make the next ones harder to bring down and safer for the people aboard.

  That officer, Capt. Steve Bussell, became vice commander of Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division on Oct. 1. The command is a Navy research and test center for weapons and warfare systems, with main sites at Point Mugu and China Lake.

  Bussell began his civilian career at China Lake around 2002. He returns as an active-duty officer with a field view of how survivability testing protects aircrews.

  He said data from his team fed an urgent request for passenger armor. Air Force Special Operations Command submitted the request after the attack.

  The answer was the Advanced Ballistic Stopping System, a removable kit that shields passengers from small-arms fire. Naval Air Systems Command fast-tracked its live-fire testing in 2014. The manufacturer delivered 16 kits that September.

  Seeing his team's work turn into equipment on the aircraft ranks among his most memorable moments, he said. He hopes it keeps saving lives.

  That field work draws on China Lake. Assessors train at the Weapons Survivability Laboratory there. Bussell said it keeps a boneyard of shot-up aircraft.

  "Through live fire test and evaluation, we are able to train our assessors ... to figure out what types of damage different weapon systems cause so we can help make our aircraft more survivable," Bussell said.

  At China Lake, Bussell also led a Navy Reserve unit that trained new assessors.

  In his new job, Bussell looks inward. The commander and other senior leaders work with partners outside the command. He focuses on NAWCWD itself: its people, facilities, training and satellite sites.

  First, he wants wins on aging infrastructure at Point Mugu and China Lake. He cited China Lake's range roads and the runway and taxiway on San Nicolas Island, part of the Navy's offshore test range. Those roads and runways carry the testing that gets weapons to the fleet.

  Within his first year, he plans to visit every satellite site. Many sit far from Point Mugu and China Lake, and he said they don't always get the thanks they deserve.

  He has seen the strain, too. Much of the workforce runs at a pace it cannot hold for long, he said. Leaders at every level will need to decide where NAWCWD can accept risk to ease that load.

  That means learning to say no.

  "We'll always support the warfighter," Bussell said. "I get that, but we can't sustain that at a level where it's a detriment to the health and welfare of our workforce."

  He holds himself to the same rule. He said he still takes on too much. He wants everyone, himself included, to keep family ahead of the job.

  Bussell's path to the vice commander's office began in a Marine Corps avionics shop in Beaufort, South Carolina. The Jacksonville, Florida, native enlisted in 1995 as an avionics technician. He wanted to be around jets, and avionics put his hands on them.

  Between 1995 and 2000, he deployed twice with the 7th Fleet and once in support of the Kosovo campaign. The Marines turned down his officer application twice.

  After earning a degree from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, he spent a little over a year in industry. That job brought him to China Lake to test the Super Hornet's Integrated Defensive Electronic Countermeasures, a self-protection jamming system that includes a towed decoy.

  "One of the guys asked me, 'Hey, do you want to become a government civilian?'" Bussell said.

  Bussell eventually said yes. In the system safety engineering branch at China Lake, he helped with weapons safety for the DDG 1000, a planned Navy destroyer.

  A ramjet propulsion project followed, aimed at stretching the range of a missile that homes in on enemy radar. Steve Florian, now NAWCWD's chief engineer, mentored him. Bussell learned what keeps rocket motors, and the pilots who fly with them, safe.

  Soon after, a chief told Bussell his degree might qualify him for a direct commission. He applied. The Navy Reserve commissioned him as an ensign and aerospace engineering duty officer, a specialty focused on aircraft and weapons engineering.

  His first job was airframes division officer at the Weapons Test Squadron at China Lake, now Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 31. Sailors still did the squadron's maintenance then. A senior chief taught him how to be a Sailor.

  As a Joint Combat Assessment Team member, he deployed to Iraq in 2007 as lead assessor and investigated more than 50 battle damage cases. In 2013-2014 he led the team in Afghanistan, the deployment that sent him to Africa. His team completed 53 assessments there.

  Back on the civilian side, mentors pushed him to learn how the Navy works from Washington. Dan Carreño, now NAWCWD's executive director, encouraged him to go east. Brad Harlow, who retired as NAWCWD's deputy technical director, pushed hardest.

  Bussell spent about 15 years in Northern Virginia as a Navy civilian. He learned how budgets, requirements, program management and Congress shape the work done at centers like NAWCWD.

  His most recent civilian job was on the staff of the chief of naval operations, the Navy's top officer. As a deputy branch head in the Air Warfare Directorate, he managed naval aviation science and technology programs. Their budgets topped $700 million across the Navy's five-year plan.

  Through those years, he remained a Navy Reserve officer. Today he is on active duty.

  As vice commander, he wants military and civilian staff more closely aligned. He points to the Tactical Engineer Development Program, which teaches NAWCWD civilians how the fleet operates.

  "Without the smart people at NAWCWD, we wouldn't have the great capabilities that are giving us the technical advantage and tactical advantage right now in the fleet," he said.

  He said he keeps an open door and tries to answer email quickly. He asks only that people keep their supervisors in the loop.

  Bussell and his wife live in Ventura. From his front porch, he can see Channel Islands National Park, which they plan to visit by ferry.

  Off base, he wants closer ties with the Ventura County and Ridgecrest communities and with other area commands. He sees local community colleges and schools as feeders for the engineers, scientists, logisticians and skilled trades the base needs.

  He sets one standard for his time at NAWCWD.

  "We're not going to be able to change everything," Bussell said. "But if we can make this place a little better than we found it, then we're good."