From the Seabed to Space: Engineers Describe STEM Career Possibilities with the U.S. Navy
“Most people think of the Navy as a war fighting operation, and certainly that's one of our primary missions. But the Navy not only serves to protect freedom around the world,” J. Carey Filling told Sandra Lee Heyman Foundation STEM Career Awareness Fellows this month as part of a three-person panel of Navy engineers meeting with the high school students. He asserted, “Without the Navy you wouldn't be getting your packages from overseas and your Internet wouldn't be traveling under the underwater cables of the ocean. The Navy provides humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. As we say in the Navy, we operate from the seabed to space.”
Filling should know, considering his long career around the U.S. Navy, first as a contractor before joining the civilian side of the service, and now as a senior manager serving as Director for Surface Ship Design and Systems Engineering with the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA). With a BS in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering from the Webb Institute of Naval Architecture, and an MBA and an MS in Supply Chain Management & Information Technology from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, Filling made it clear that there were a host of options available in the Navy for students interested in a full range of STEM disciplines. And he placed a high value on internships throughout his college years to help him figure out what he might really be interested in.
Dr. Nur Yeasin, one of about 45 ship design managers working for Filling, is Ship Design Manager for the LHA 9 Amphibious Assault Ship in NAVSEA’s Amphibious & Unmanned Warfare Engineering Division. In that role, Yeasin guides the design for the ship which she called “the masterpiece for an amphibious ready group.” Weighing 45,000 tons and 855 feet long the LHA-9 can accommodate up to 2,816 people along with all of their equipment and all of their vehicles. These ships also take can accommodate up to 20 fighter jets. Yeasin’s journey to the LHA-9 began in Istanbul, Turkey, where she was born and raised and focused on coding and computer science in high school. She fully expected computer engineering would be her future career. Her next step, an internship at IBM headquarters in Istanbul, seemed to confirm her path.
After coming to the United States to be with her family, Yeasin attended Northern Virginia Community College before transitioning to George Washington University for a B.S. degree in electrical engineering degree with a minor in systems engineering and management. “Halfway through my undergraduate degree, after I took all of the computer science classes during my first two years, I took this one course on circuit theory. We made a boombox during that class, and putting it together and then hearing the sound and being able to present what I did to the entire class was just an amazing experience for me. So I gravitated towards electrical engineering.” It became clear to her that math was an essential part of electrical engineering…and she loved math.
Discovering that she had a strong interest in systems engineering, Yeasin decided to pursue a master’s degree in that field. “That’s when I became involved with the Navy. I saw all the endless possibilities with that degree, and I ended up with a doctorate in engineering management.”
Dilip Ghate was raised by a family fully engaged in STEM, but like his colleagues on the panel, he had no specific family ties to the Navy. It was his high school friends who introduced him to the Navy. While on an ROTC scholarship at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Ghate earned his BS in Physics. To fulfill his 4-5 year commitment to the military, he joined the Navy, serving on two destroyers out of San Diego and a command ship out of Japan. Along the way, he earned his master's degree in electrical engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, before ending up in Washington, D.C. After 20 years – the last 10 of which he spent as an engineering duty officer – Ghate was eligible to retire and moved from active military service to the civilian side of the Navy. He now serves as the Deputy Group Director for Surface Ship Design and Systems Engineering.
Ghate stressed to the fellows that his shipboard experience has helped tremendously as he works on ship designs, equipped with a much better sense of the crew’s needs and how things actually function while deployed at sea. “My Navy time gives me significant depth in terms of how the ships are used and how they operate, which is critical to any STEM field. If you're going to go design something, you need to know how the user uses the thing that you're trying to make,” Ghate added.
Yeasin related her own experience about the importance of understanding the ship’s residents. As a junior engineer, she accompanied the senior ship design manager on a very large amphibious transport ship. “The first thing he did as soon as we stepped onto the ship was to ask the sailors what they like and don't like about the ships. That's when I knew that this was the job that I wanted to do. It’s the human factor. Every day we make decisions, and they are going to either make or break someone's six or seven months at a time at sea, away from their families.” She added, “It's just an amazing job where you get to touch 2,816 lives at a time.”
Filling related that naval architecture and engineering had much in common with aerospace engineering. “The difference is that aerospace majors deal with different fluids in air or space. Obviously, in the world of naval architecture, we're on the sea. hitting waves or underwater and, obviously, we have different propulsion plants. In the world of the Navy,” Filling said, "we have gas turbines – similar to aircraft – along with diesel engines and nuclear powered steam turbines propelling our ships. We include mechanical engineering and electrical engineering, which are really good system engineering degrees. And we can teach pretty much any of those folks the parts of a ship.” He added, “In our office we have mariners. We have folks who are engineers. They typically get on the-job experience. In any undergraduate degree, you're not going to learn everything you need for a career. So being a good system engineer is really what you need.”
Ghate pointed to other STEM specialties that are a necessity in the Navy. “Since ships are operating in a marine environment, we have paint and coatings experts. We have material scientists, because like any other engineering field. We're trying to reduce weight and find high-strength properties for less weight that's more sustainable, more maintainable. There are a lot of things that you wouldn't initially think of as belonging to naval architecture. But they are critical components to putting a ship together,” he said.
Responding to several questions from the fellows, Filling described the process and offered tips about applying for admission to the very competitive military service academies, including the U.S. Naval Academy. He highlighted the importance of demonstrating leadership experience and commitment. Filling also described the ROTC process and paths, comparing that option with other ways to work in STEM fields in the Navy.
The guests each offered final advice to the fellows:
Ghate: “As with all things, keep an open mind. Don't limit yourself to just one thing. And don't limit yourself by thinking I want to do X, and then only X. You'll really shut yourself out of a lot of possibilities. At the age you're at right now, your interest could change within six months to a year, or two years. That's totally okay. We have people whose interests change in their 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s. Just keep your mind open.”
Yeasin: “Don't give up on a STEM career. It gets very, very hard during college, but it is worth it. And surround yourself with good people, good examples. Just follow your heart, and one way or another you will find what you like to do. During my electrical engineering degree, I even took tourism classes. I enjoyed it very much, and I actually did get a job at Ritz-Carlton Hotels. I did that for 10 years, as I was also pursuing my engineering career. You're young, you can do anything you want, and you don't have to do just one thing. Enjoy your future.”
Filling: “Don't be afraid to ask for help, seek mentors, seek tutors because everyone finds a particular class that's troublesome – but you can get through it with help. Find friends to help. The other thing I will say about this career [with the Navy] is that every day when we come to the office, there's a new problem to solve and there's something new that's broken in the fleet. I get to learn about a new system that I may not have been an expert in. But suddenly, by the end of the day, I've learned something new. So that's what makes this career great. Every day you expand your knowledge. You never stop learning, which is awesome. It's not repetitive. Every day is new and exciting. So that's why I would say, pursue a STEM career, because you're going to grow each day, not only once you get your degree, but every day thereafter.”
The Sandra Lee Heyman Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization established in memory of Sandra Lee Heyman, a long-time mathematics teacher at the elementary, middle school, high school, and community college levels. The 18-month long Fellowship is aimed at promising high school students who have the opportunity to meet with STEM leaders, visit prominent institutions in the Washington, D.C., area, and access peers and mentors to support career exploration in STEM fields. There are multiple ways to support the Fellowship program, and donations to the Foundation are tax deductible.