ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Marine Corps’ cyber networks are being defended and upgraded even as the COVID-19 pandemic forces ad hoc adaptation in their operation, a senior Marine Corps official said. 

“Our networks are good, and they are operating at a good capacity and are resilient,” said Gregg Kendrick, executive director of Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command, speaking April 17 in a webcast for Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space 2020: Virtual Edition. 

To register and then watch this Sea-Air-Space 2020: Virtual Edition webinar live online, click here. 

“We’re pleased with our effective efforts in our ability to support the force as it has gone to ad hoc telework or alternate work sites and maintain our capacity and, more importantly, our operational capability to support our warfighters and our commanders that are out there deployed in harm’s way.”  

Kendrick said the Corps is monitoring its networks differently in the current environment. 

“We do look at our virtual private networks and then we look at our physical and transport layer, our network stack from Layer 1 to Layer 4, so from that perspective we’re focused on those types of metrics and really watching our latency,” he said. 

“So, we are very focused on the security. Every decision we have made in regards to supporting the ad hoc telework option has really [been] focused. We’ve had a fundamental security look, and we’ve really looked at our modernization efforts to ensure that we are aware of any of the advanced persistent threats and/or capabilities that are out there to ensure that we have a good, resilient as well as available network.” 

Kendrick said his force is looking at “which applications are in use the most, which are stressed the most at the highest capacity, what exactly are our latent measures, … and our overall bandwidth [including] by bandwidth region. Everything [security metrics] is funneled through our enterprise security desk so that we can rapidly pull metrics and shift resources as needed to support our Marine warfighters.” 

He said Cyberspace Command is starting to see trends in the pandemic environment, “but we are definitely waiting for this to evolve and then we will be able to draw conclusions, but at the same time we don’t want to let a trend propagate to a point where we have to go into a different work cycle.” 

“The bad guys are always looking at what we’re doing, and they are looking to do harm,” Kendrick said. “We protect our workforce. We secure, operate and defend the Marine Corps enterprise networks.” 

Kendrick said that through the Corp’s new command-and-control network structure the service is bringing a “unity of command that provides a much clearer readiness picture of our network, our resiliency picture, and then a better overall visualization of the data flow from the end points all the way to the data centers and then back out where they need to go.” 

The executive director said the Corps is adopting Microsoft Office 365 to achieve a more efficient capability combined with a hybrid cloud architecture, aiming for higher velocity. 

“In the end state the adversary gets a vote,” he said. “They move at speed unconstrained by rules of engagement or the laws of nation states. We need to implement the best infrastructure, the best applications, the best operational processes as efficiently as possible so that we can modernize, provide the best capability to the warfighter, at the same time ensuring security from adversary actions and resiliency across the networks.”

Space is not benign — no longer just the domain of unmanned scientific probes and occupied by astronauts in capsules or space stations exploring and conducting research, panelists stressed during a webcast that was aired on April 16 as part of the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space 2020: Virtual Edition. 

“Space, internationally, is very important to our way of life. It’s of strategic importance. We see our adversaries starting to weaponize space,” said Rear Adm. Marcus Hitchcock, director of strategy, plans and policy at U.S. Space Command, the unified combatant command responsible for American military operations in outer space.

To register and then watch this Sea-Air-Space 2020: Virtual Edition webinar live online, click here. 

Other guests in the panel discussion, which was moderated by Francis Rose, included Derek Tournear, director of the Space Development Agency, and Christian Zur, executive director of the Procurement and Space Industry Council of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. 

“We’ve seen a massive explosion in everything space, at the national level and in our military,” Hitchcock observed, noting the establishment last year of the newest branch of the military, the U.S. Space Force. “Every morning we leap out of bed and we come in and stand the watch to maintain our space domain.” 

The admiral observed that space has already seen its share of incidents, such as the 2017 launch of a missile by the People’s Republican of China, a “Great Power Competitor” along with Russia, that shot down a satellite in low-earth orbit. “This is a very real example of our adversaries or potential adversaries developing counter-space offensive weapons that can test our supremacy.” 

A satellite recently launched by Russia also is believed to have the capability to damage or disable U.S. Military assets in orbit, Hitchcock added. 

To maintain America’s strategic high ground in space, Tournear said the U.S. needs to maintain its technological advantage but speed up the frequency of its launches of defense assets. 

“In the last National Defense Strategy, it basically said we have the new technology, we have the best digital base, but we do not have the speed, and our adversaries are able to get capabilities in orbit in three- to five-year timeframes at the longest. At the shortest, we can do it in 10 years [but] usually it’s closer to 15.” 

It’s the mission of the Space Development Agency to field U.S. capabilities to orbit faster, he added. 

Moderator Rose observed that the NASA-based model had “flipped over the past few years,” where instead of U.S. efforts in space being led by the vaunted civilian government agency, space efforts are being pioneered by private industry — scientific and commercial endeavors but most especially defense applications. 

Tournear countered that this development has led to companies building “hundreds of thousands” of satellites, commoditizing them and getting them to orbit quickly. “No longer does the government need to lead to make sure we develop the best technology,” he said. “We need to make sure we can get technology up there every two years.” 

Zur picked up the discussion from private industry’s perspective. 

He said the pairing of industry and defense technology for space started early, in the 1950s. Once the Defense Department started seeking technology for space, notably computer chips, costs per chip started going down. That trend has stretched into today, Zur said. 

Rose touched on the responsibility that commercial industry and governments hold to mind how they maintain low-earth orbit. Zur talked about space debris but also private industry’s role as caretaker. 

“While I could argue that there aren’t really enduring procedures that are accepted among all the players, and in large part militaries around the world have different objectives, we in the U.S. have kind of taken the lead in the commercial use of space. These norms and procedures have to be established, not only from a regulation standpoint, it’s simply best business practices. We’re just at the beginning stages of this.” 

Hitchcock agreed with Rose that it’s important for U.S. Space Command to know what commercial assets are in orbit, where they are and what function they are serving. The U.S. is “getting better at looking up and understanding what is in space,” he added. 

He described a new radar that recently went active that can map and track assets of all kinds — U.S. governmental, foreign and commercial. Older tracking counted some 25,000 objects in orbit, only 2,000 of which were actual satellites or other platforms, he said. “The rest of it was debris, trash. We think our understanding of what’s up there will increase tenfold as this ‘space fence’ comes online, and we might see as many as 250,000 different objects up there.” 

ARLINGTON, Va. — The scope of the COVID-19 pandemic shows the new domain that the U.S. military must prepare to operate in, according to the top commander of U.S. naval forces in Europe and Africa.

“That seventh domain is just simply germs. It’s the biosphere we operate in,” Adm. James Foggo III said April 15 during a webcast for Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space 2020: Virtual Edition. “And I think we’re going to have to take that into account in our preparations for deterrence and defense in the future.”

To register and then watch this Sea-Air-Space 2020: Virtual Edition webinar live online, click here.

Foggo, commander of Allied Joint Force Command, which is based in Naples, Italy, as well as U.S. Naval Forces Europe and U.S. Naval Forces Africa, said the challenges of a massive NATO exercise, Trident Juncture 2018, which involved 50,000 personnel, 70 ships, 10,000 ground vehicles and 165 different aircraft, taught him that logistics should be added to the five battlespace domains of land, sea, air, space and cyber. However, the coronavirus outbreak that has sickened 1.9 million people worldwide, killed more than 123,000 and devastated Italy shows that there’s now a seventh domain.

“It hit us earlier, here in Italy,” where the Joint Force has facilities at Aviano Air Base in the north, Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily and Gaeta, near Naples, where the amphibious command ship USS Mount Whitney, the flagship of the 6th Fleet, is based.

Foggo credited Microsoft founder, billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates for suggesting in a 2015 speech that, in addition to traditional wargames and tabletop exercises, pandemic planning take priority.

Foggo also cited a fast-spreading virus wargame, Urban Outbreak 2019, co-sponsored by the U.S. Naval War College, the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Lab, as “a start in preparation for the future and incorporation into our planning processes.”

The admiral stressed the importance of testing for COVID-19 to determine if someone is infected and whether persons they’ve come in contact with be isolated.

“Testing works in our favor,” Foggo said. “We can’t afford to take anybody off the line in a day of Great Power Competition, where we have adversaries, competitors and, most importantly, we have violent extremists who take advantage of any chink in the armor.”

In the future, “we’re going to have to plan ahead on how we’re going to protect the force against something like the coronavirus until we get a vaccine against COVID-19, and then beyond that there will be a next coronavirus, and I think we’ll be much better prepared for that in the future.”

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Navy’s top acquisition official said the service’s efforts to accelerate contract awards in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic are helping the defense industry sustain its economic health at all levels and positioning the Navy and industry to emerge from the crisis without falling behind on work and ready to resume normal operations. 

James F. Geurts, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, speaking during an April 15 webcast of the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space: Virtual Edition, said the Navy and the defense industry are working to keep on task and be in a position to accelerate “out of the crisis.”

To register and then watch this Sea-Air-Space 2020: Virtual Edition webinar live online, click here. 

“Ships still have to come out on time,” Geurts said, noting that the Navy can’t afford to lag once the world starts to recover from the crisis. 

Geurts said the Navy has moved up the award of some contracts to inject “a lot of money in the system” to “get funds in the contractor hands” and “bring that work to the left” — meaning getting in started sooner. An example is the award last week — months early — of LPD 31, the second Flight II San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ship. 

Accelerating contract awards enables shipyards and other contractors to stack a backlog of work and keep their workers employed. The contractors also can push funds to their lower-tier subcontractors to the same effect. 

Geurts said it was “counterintuitive … that the best way to secure [the health of the defense industrial base] was to accelerate going into a crisis. Most folks would want to slow down, wait and see, and that would exactly create the wrong conditions.” 

“The risk is being too risk-averse in our approach. The other risk is being reckless in our approach.” 

He said that all of stakeholders are going at the situation “deliberately but urgently and thoughtfully. A challenge for us will be [that] it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. This crisis hits different areas of the country, different sectors differently at different times. The key to success will be great networks, leveraging the data we have and building on a foundation of trust.”  

As the Navy worked to advance contract awards, Geurts said he saw his now “massively distributed,” largely teleworking work force shows greatly improved performance as it works to help the defense industry get though the pandemic. 

The Navy also is ordering spare parts sooner to build up the supply and to shore up the suppliers who provide them. 

Geurts said he confers with shipyard presidents or CEOs every other day to assess the status of work and provide opportunities to share lessons learned and to discuss best practices, ways to avoid disruption and how to speed up recovery.  

“It’s been awesome,” he said of the response from the defense industry.   

The assistant secretary said the Navy’s acquisition priorities have not changed in the pandemic, citing that work is proceeding on such programs as the Columbia-class ballistic-missile submarine and the next-generation guided-missile frigate. He stressed the Navy’s ongoing efforts to minimize delays and disruptions to the service’s programs.

ARLINGTON, Va. — The 100-year-old Jones Act is far from an outdated law that keeps shipping prices high and hurts the nation’s economy, a panel of maritime policy experts argued on April 14.

“The biggest misconception of the Jones Act is the cost impact, the final cost to delivered goods,” John McCown, founder of Blue Alpha Capital, a maritime financial services firm, said on a webcast for Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space 2020: Virtual Edition. “Many of the critics have distorted what that number is, cherry picked it, taken it out of context,” McCown added.

To register and then watch this Sea-Air-Space 2020: Virtual Edition webinar live online, click here.

The Jones Act — also known as the Merchant Marine Act of 1920 — bars foreign-built, foreign-owned or foreign-flagged vessels from conducting coastal and inland waterway trade within the United States and between the United States and some of its territories such as Puerto Rico. The law also generally applies restrictions that effectively prohibit Jones Act-compliant ships from being overhauled at foreign shipyards. Ship crews must be composed of U.S. citizens or legal U.S. residents.

Opponents say it’s time to repeal the law because it has led to higher shipping costs, which pass along higher prices to vendors, retailers and consumers. They also maintain higher costs have driven the commercial shipbuilding industry overseas, leading to a smaller pool of qualified U.S. merchant mariners.

That claim has turned the Jones Act into a scapegoat for “all sorts of economic ills,” McCown said. He noted that after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico in 2017, critics claimed the Jones Act was strangling Puerto Rico’s economy and, without the law, there would be a 15% drop in consumer prices. Such a price cut “translates to $9 billion a year,” which, McCown said, was a ludicrous estimate many times the total annual revenue of the Jones Act.

U.S. Navy and Coast Guard officials have defended the law, saying that without it, there would be no pool of U.S. noncombat ships — or trained American seafarers to man them — in a war or other national emergency. If cost becomes the deciding factor in maritime trade, leading to elimination of the Jones Act, then commerce on U.S. coastal waters and internal waterways like the Mississippi River would be taken over by another nation, most likely China, the second-biggest economy and shipbuilder in the world, and a “Great Power” competitor, proponents of the law argue.

Given medical supply shortages in the current COVID-19 pandemic, dependence on foreign vessels and foreign crews could pose not just a national security risk, but economic and homeland security risks if the U.S. remains dependent on foreign supply chains, especially for medical equipment and pharmaceuticals, noted former Oklahoma Rep. Ernest Istook, a senior fellow at the Frontiers of Freedom, a conservative think tank. “If they decide to do something that might cut us off, then we are at their mercy,” he added.

ARLINGTON, Va. — U.S. strategic sealift fleets need recapitalization and some increased manning to achieve the readiness that the nation needs to sustain its maritime power, the U.S. maritime administrator said April 14.   

“The readiness is suffering,” a fact that sealift stakeholders recognize, Maritime Administrator Mark H. Buzby said during a webcast that is part of the Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space 2020: Virtual Edition.  

To register and then watch this Sea-Air-Space 2020: Virtual Edition webinar live online, click here.

Buzby pointed out that rusting ships, obsolete equipment, unavailable parts and repairing and replacing ships are the materiel challenges faced by the Maritime Administration (MARAD) and the U.S. Navy’s Military Sealift Command (MSC).  

MARAD’s Ready Reserve Force of 46 ships and MSC’s 15 sealift ships all need recapitalization, Buzby added. 

He said the federal government is taking three approaches to recapitalizing the fleets and that a combination of those “will help us renew the fleet”:  

• Extending the service lives of some existing ships to possibly 60 years. 
• Replacing 25 to 26 ships with new or converted used vessels. 
• Procuring built-for-purpose sealift ships “from the keel up.” 

Recruiting and retaining enough mariners remains a challenge as well, Buzby said. Commercial mariners in the U.S. Merchant Marine — including those in the Ready Reserve Force, on Maritime Security Program ships available for mobilization and the declining U.S.-flag merchant fleet — and the government’s civilian mariners who work for the MSC are part of the pool that man the sealift ships. 

He said that 24 ships in the Ready Reserve Force are steam-powered, operated by a shrinking pool of technicians qualified to operate and maintain the obsolete propulsion system.  

Buzby said the mariner pool is “enough for a steady state today” but inadequate for a substantial mobilization requirement.  

Of help would be to place more merchant ships “under the U.S. flag so it gets the pool … where it needs to be,” he added. 

Building up the U.S.-flag merchant fleet is a considerable challenge, he said, because competitors such as China that have state-run enterprises can undercut the U.S. in terms of lower-cost shipbuilding and manning and can therefore compete more effectively for cargo business. 

“We’re asking our merchant marine to play on an unlevel playing field,” he said. 

ARLINGTON, Va. — The U.S. Coast Guard, already facing longer term readiness and funding issues, is shifting manpower and equipment to meet the new challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic, the commandant of the Coast Guard told Navy League’s Sea-Air-Space 2020: Virtual Edition on April 13.

With the novel coronavirus also forcing the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, Army and Air Force to come up with new ways to shield the force while still protecting the nation, Adm. Karl Schultz said his primary focus is on “maintaining a ready, healthy workforce to accomplish the Coast Guard’s primary missions” to facilitate the marine transportation system.

To register and then watch this Sea-Air-Space 2020: Virtual Edition webinar live online, click here.

See: As Part of Investments, Coast Guard Creates Major S.C. Base  

“Right now, we’re focused on people, readiness and enabling the economic prosperity and security of the nation,” Schultz said, noting the Coast Guard’s role as part of the Department of Homeland Security and its mission.

In addition to safeguarding the nation’s 355 seaports and 25,000 miles of commercial waterways as well as conducting maritime search and rescue and counter-narcotics operations, the constantly moving COVID-19 challenge has added new obstacles like offloading tens of thousands of cruise ship passengers, some of them ill with the virus. Coast Guardsmen did so April 2, helping to escort the cruise ships Zaandam and Rotterdam to port in Port Everglades, Florida.

Schultz also noted that there are between 75 and 100 commercial vessels in U.S. waters with as many as 100,000 crewmen on board who may need Coast Guard assistance at some point during the crisis.

Before the coronavirus outbreak, the Coast Guard was facing a readiness challenge with aging ships and aircraft,  deteriorating infrastructure ashore and an information-technology system on “the brink of catastrophic failure,” the commandant said in his State of the Coast Guard address in February. 

Schultz said thousands of Coast Guard personnel are now teleworkers because of social-distancing rules, but thousands more are still front-line operators in the air and on the water. “This is really showing just how critical this C5I [command, control, communications, computers, cyber and intelligence] issue is,” Schultz said. “Clearly there’s a money piece to this,” he added. “We’ve got to stop patching old systems.”

When he took command of the Coast Guard in June 2018, Schultz said his focus was on people — getting better facilities and equipment for them, an improved retirement system and recruiting for a more diverse force representative of the nation.

“People remains the absolute center of gravity for Coast Guard readiness,” he said in a live-streamed question-and-answer session during Sea-Air-Space 2020: Virtual Edition.

“But the focus right now is [a] ready Coast Guard, men and women, to get into the fight and get after these COVID-19 challenges that are in our wheelhouse,” he added.

The Sea-Air-Space 2020: Virtual Edition event was created after the annual live exposition had to be canceled due to a prohibition against large gatherings in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii — A Sailor assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt who was admitted to the intensive care unit at the U.S. Naval Hospital Guam on April 9 died of COVID-related complications on April 13, the U.S. Navy confirmed.

The name of the Sailor is being withheld for 24 hours after the crew member’s family is notified.

The Sailor, who tested positive for COVID-19 on March 30, was removed from the ship and placed in an isolation house on Naval Base Guam with four others from the Theodore Roosevelt. Like other Sailors in isolation, he received medical checks twice daily from Navy medical teams.

At about 8:30 a.m. on April 9, the Sailor was found unresponsive during one of those medical checks. While Naval Base Guam emergency responders were notified, CPR was administered by fellow Sailors and onsite medical team in the house. The Sailor was transferred to U.S. Naval Hospital Guam, where the Sailor was moved to the ICU.

USS Theodore Roosevelt arrived in Guam on March 27 for a scheduled port visit for resupply and crew rest but remains there while its crew members are treated or housed. As of April 12, the Navy reported 945 servicewide cases of COVID-19 — a majority of those, 735, are Sailors, including 550 from the Theodore Roosevelt itself.

The captain of the carrier, Brett Crozier, who later tested positive and went into quarantine himself, drew attention to his Sailors’ plight with a March 30 letter to Navy leadership.

The four-page letter was leaked and ran the next day with a story in the San Francisco Chronicle, drawing worldwide media attention to the ship and setting off a series of events that saw the captain relieved of his command and the acting Navy secretary resigned after criticizing Crozier in a profanity-laced speech in front of his crew.

In an April 13 statement, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said, “We mourn the loss of the Sailor from USS Theodore Roosevelt who died today, and we stand alongside their family, loved ones and shipmates as they grieve.”

He continued: “This is a great loss for the ship and for our Navy. My deepest sympathy goes out to the family, and we pledge our full support to the ship and crew as they continue their fight against the coronavirus. While our ships, submarines and aircraft are made of steel, Sailors are the real strength of our Navy.”

NAVAL AIR STATION PATUXENT RIVER, Md. — The CH-53K King Stallion aced an air-to-air refueling test this week, successfully demonstrating long-range logistics support capabilities for the U.S. Marine Corps, Naval Air Systems Command said in a release. The 4.5-hour test was accomplished over the Chesapeake Bay with a KC-130J aerial refueling tanker. 

“The aircraft went to the tanker this week and it was very successful, proving it is a long-range vertical logistic workhorse,” said Marine Col. Jack Perrin, H-53 heavy lift helicopters program manager. 

According to the CH-53K test team, the wake survey test assessed the performance of the aircraft when flying behind the tanker in strong, turbulent air. The aircraft’s crew successfully plugged the drogue, a funnel-shaped basket towed behind the KC-130J. These tests were performed at increasing closure rates to ensure the CH-53K can handle the forces on the refueling probe when contacting the drogue during aerial refueling. 

“The aircraft was able to meet the desired performance for all engagements,” Perrin said. “The ‘K’ is the long-range enabler that we need now and into the future.”  

The CH-53K King Stallion continues to execute within the reprogrammed CH-53K timeline, moving toward completion of developmental test, leading to initial operational test and evaluation in 2021 and first fleet deployment in 2023-2024. 

“The successful air-to-air refueling test reinforces the superior capabilities of the CH-53K heavy lift helicopter and its ability to carry more Marines, cargo and equipment over longer ranges and in more challenging environments than any other rotorcraft in the world,” Bill Falk, Sikorsky program director, CH-53K, said in an April 10 release.

“As the only fully marinized heavy lift helicopter, it will allow the Marines the operational flexibility and reach to fly over open waters to complete long-range missions in support of expeditionary advanced base operations.” 

WASHINGTON — Sarkis Tatigian, who began his U.S. Navy career at the age of 19 during World War II, passed away earlier this week, leaving behind a nearly 78-year legacy of service to the Department of Defense, Naval Sea Systems Command said in an April 7 release. 

At the time of his death, Tatigian, the longest serving civil servant in the history of the DoD, was serving as NAVSEA’s small business advocate. 

“Mr. Tatigian truly lived a life dedicated to advocacy and the service of others,” said NAVSEA’s executive director, James Smerchansky. 

“His decades of work oversaw the expansion of the small business industrial base and more than $100 billion in contracts awarded to diverse, small businesses. As we bid fair winds and following seas to Mr. Tatigian, NAVSEA will greatly miss his presence, but we will never forget the positive impact he made on this command and the entire U.S. Navy.” 

Tatigian’s civilian career with the Navy began in July 1942 as a junior radio inspector at the naval aircraft factory in the Philadelphia Navy Yard and the Navy Office of Inspector of Naval Aircraft in Linden, New Jersey. 

He left his position as an inspector in March 1943 and entered the uniformed Navy as an active-duty Sailor. In June 1944, he started working as an aviation electronics technician’s mate in the development of the Navy’s first guided anti-ship munition, the ASM-N-2 “BAT” glide bomb, which later became an operational weapon used by the fleet at the end of World War II. 

In 1946, he left active duty and returned to the Navy department and civil service with the Bureau of Ordnance in Washington, working on the Navy’s first generation of guided-missile systems. From there, he moved on to his life’s passion, helping small businesses, as a small business analyst for the bureau. While in the position, Tatigian developed a small business mobile exhibit that traveled coast-to-coast, visiting all state capitals and cities with populations exceeding 400,000. For his organizational efforts on the exhibit, Tatigian received congressional recognition. 

In June 1979, Tatigian was appointed NAVSEA’s associate director of the Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization Office. The office was eventually renamed the Small Business Program Office, where he continued to serve as an advocate for small business. 

In 2012, it was announced during a ceremony honoring Tatigian’s 70 years of service that the Navy’s Office of Business Opportunities Director’s Award would be renamed the Sarkis Tatigian Small Business Award. 

The award recognizes outstanding performance by a field activity in creating an organizational climate resulting in the advancement of small business opportunity through exceptionally-managed small business programs and challenging initiatives and who has made significant contributions to the command and the DON small business program. Because of his contributions, Tatigian even won the award that bears his name. 

In 2017, NAVSEA celebrated Tatigian’s 75th anniversary of civil service. A unique service pin was specially made to mark the occasion as one celebrating that many years of service had never been given before to an employee. 

Tatigian, explained upon his 75th anniversary, why he was driven to continue to come to work each day at NAVSEA.  

“I was retirement eligible in October 1973,” Tatigian said. “But when you don’t have something to wake up for, that’s when you start to decline. And, if you love what you do and derive a sense of personal worthiness, it’s not really work.”