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safe, or keeping a diver safe, inspecting infrastructure, in-

Please give a description of the business unit specting vehicles – things that are tedious, those tend to be you lead and your responsibilities.

great things for unmanned systems. One obvious area is mine I run the Maritime and Strategic Systems (M&SS) warfare. It is a nasty business, and in addition to keeping sail- line of business for General Dynamics Mission Systems, part ors safe, it also can do a lot more. You have a stand-off dis- of General Dynamics Corporation. M&SS is a pretty broad, tance that is tremendous, and you can do things persistently large, and steeped in the traditional maritime business that that would have been very hard to do with a man in the loop. has been on a strong and sustainable growth curve for 20 plus We’ve taken some major strides in maturing the technologies years. Basically we do electronics – especially mission sys- so that now it’s gone from pretty good theory to real practice. tems – system integration, and product development for many From oceanography to inspections under the Polar maritime programs. And then the word “strategic” that’s in ice cap, to pipeline monitoring, to ship hull inspection and that acronym, as well, “strategic” meaning “nuclear” so think searching for lost vessels, unique applications continue to

Navy nuclear. I have four businesses – Navy Air, Navy Sur- emerge. Simply put, the technology is just getting better – and face, Navy Undersea, and Strategic. In total we are about it’s getting better quick. Twenty years down the road my an- 3,000 people in about two dozen locations across the country. swer today will feel incredibly short-sighted. At least that’s my hope.

OK, let’s start broad. Looking at the world of Looking at the last ? ve years, what do you see

UUVs, AUVs, unmanned systems, by broad geo- is the most signi? cant technology advance that graphic region or market, where do you see op- has really helped to take the tech to the next portunities in the years ahead and why? level?

Let’s rewind roughly 20 years, back to the mid-late That’s an interesting question. So I’m going to give 1990s, and think about UAVs. If you would have asked about you the “GD answer” in the sense of what has mattered to

UAV business (and looking ahead), would they have told you: us, as opposed to the world of UUVs. We are largely a de- fense company, although our interest from a UUV standpoint • “We see a private company delivering packages to is defense and commercial. There is no question that the most your doorstep using drones.” important things that we have been doing is to turn theoretic, fairly scienti