Q&A with Capt. Dan Covelli: Commanding Officer of the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division.

* Capt. Dan Covelli is the commanding officer of the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division, which serves as the Navy's technical center of excellence in research, development, acquisition, on-site testing and sustainment of training solutions. The organization, located in Orlando's Central Florida Research Park, boasts a workforce of more than 1,250 personnel. In an email, Covelli answered questions from National Defense Managing Editor Jon Harper to provide an update on NAWCTSD's activities and its partnerships with industry. The following Q&A has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

For our readers who might not be familiar with NAWCTSD, can you give a brief overview of the organization's primary mission and responsibilities?

NAWCTSD provides training systems development for a wide spectrum of military programs, including aircraft, surface ships, submarines and specialized requirements.... We provide these solutions via four product lines: training systems, training content, training services and intellectual services. Through frontend analysis and curriculum development, NAWCTSD integrates the science of learning with performance-based training applications and evaluation of training effectiveness.

To what extent does the Defense Department's renewed focus on great power competition and high-end threats inform your activities?

The various training requirements provided to NAWCTSD... are informed by the changing Navy doctrine that reflects the evolutionary threats addressed within our National Security Strategy. Live, virtual and constructive technologies are central to addressing these fleet readiness training requirements at the tactical and operational level of war, and NAWCTSD is a significant materiel developer of DVC capabilities.

A key change we have seen over the past several years has been a shift from platform-centric warfare to a more integrated, mission-focused approach to training. Coupled with this has been the need to ensure a distributed mission training capability is available so that readiness training can be conducted from individual platforms' home stations. In short, NAWCTSD will continue to develop platform simulators, enabling technologies, and a multidomain LVC infrastructure so tftat the synthetic training environment can deliver integrated mission capabilities that enable the fleet to compete, deter and win.

What are some of the key types of training system technologies that you're interested in?

We are interested in capabilities like advanced human performance measurement and assessment, advanced analytic...