Rear Adm. Patrick H. Brady, Commander of the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR)

Rear Adm. Patrick H. Brady is Commander of the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR). SPAWAR is the Navy’s Information Dominance Systems Command with the mission to make the Navy’s Information Dominance vision a reality. Through the development, delivery and sustainment of warfare capabilities in the fields of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; cyber warfare; command and control; information and knowledge management; and meteorology and oceanography; SPAWAR provides the Navy and Navy partners Information Dominance capabilities necessary to accomplish their missions. Rear Adm. Brady was recently selected for the 2011 HENAAC (Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Awards Corporation) Engineer of the Year Award from the Great Minds in STEM organization.

Each year, the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) hosts the International RoboSub competition in our acoustic research pool in San Diego. The International RoboSub competition is sponsored by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International and the Office of Naval Research. This year I toured this very intense competition with my son and had an opportunity to see it through his eyes.

College teams from around the world test their autonomous underwater vehicles by running them through an underwater navigation course while accomplishing various demanding tasks along the way, like dropping a marker in a box or passing through different elevated gates. The vehicles varied in size and complexity, from basic to very advanced, but one thing that was common was the excitement and enthusiasm of the participants as they prepared for their robot’s turn in the pool.

SAN DIEGO (July 13, 2011) Students from China's Harbin Engineering University perform in-water checks on their autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) during the 14th annual International RoboSub Competition at Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific. The contest, co-sponsored by the U.S. Office of Naval Research and the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), challenges teams of student engineers to design AUVs to perform realistic missions in a simulated ocean environment. (U.S. Navy photo by Rick Naystatt/Released)

The competition reinforced for me the value of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) outreach. We’re facing a real challenge in our country to produce the number of graduates with technical degrees we need to remain competitive in the coming years. Events like RoboSub are fun and inspire our kids.

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