organization, those same skills might be applied to search-and-rescue technology abroad.
ESEP offers participants the opportunity to build upon their areas of expertise while exploring new, challenging work in a similar but different environment or field of study. Chacon, a biologi- cal agent detection expert for ECBC who is matrixed to the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Bio- logical Defense, spent most of her Army career studying ways to detect airborne biological threats, such as weaponized pathogens. But when she arrived in Santi- ago, Chile, for her ESEP assignment, she learned that airborne biological threat detection was not the Chilean army’s pri- ority. Instead, the Chileans needed help with a more pressing concern: identifying and protecting against water-, food- and vector-borne biological agents.
Te new work opened Chacon’s profes- sional horizons, exposing her to a wide range of testing environments that she had not worked in previously and to acquisition management. Te Chileans were keen to use commercial off-the-shelf technology to meet their biological agent needs,
and they tasked Chacon with
finding and recommending devices from commercial vendors in and around Chile.
“Chile has a lot of different environments, from deserts to mountains, tundra to the oceanfront,” Chacon explained. “Te Chileans were interested in cost-effective, highly mobile biological agent detection technology that could be used in a wide range of conditions.”
Chacon engaged with Chilean industry and her contacts back in the U.S., finding commercial technologies and meeting with the Chilean vendors to determine whether the devices met the Chilean army’s needs. She briefed senior Chilean
leaders, advising them on the available equipment and making recommenda- tions on which devices not only identified the desired agents, but also could be used in a variety of environments.
Upon her return to the U.S. after a year in Chile, Chacon found that the skills and knowledge she had developed in Chile were highly applicable to her new role. “Te Chileans wanted to use our technology for bio threat detection in soil and water, even though it wasn’t designed for that. Now I’m working within the U.S. Army to further develop technology specifically for that purpose.”
Adapting to change and exploring a
new area of research also helped build Chacon’s confidence. “When I went [to Chile], I thought I could speak Spanish, but I learned I couldn’t speak ‘Chilean,’ ” Chacon recounted. “Now I’m more flex- ible and able to adapt to any situation. I used to be nervous conducting briefings and doing public speaking, but now that I’ve experienced briefing senior Chilean leaders in Spanish, doing the same in the U.S. is much easier—after all, at least it’s in English!”
STRENGTHENING DIPLOMATIC TIES ESEP also enables diplomacy through personal contact and military-to-military cooperation. Strengthening alliances and attracting new partners is one of the top priorities spelled out by Secretary of Defense James Mattis. “History is com- pelling on this point: Nations with strong allies thrive, while those without stagnate and wither,” he wrote in an Oct. 5, 2017, memorandum. “We will continue to work with our allies, partners, and coalitions … to reinforce the safety and security that underpins peace and economic prosper- ity for all nations.”
David Quinn, team lead for the Aero- mechanics Division at the U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Research, Devel- opment and Engineering Center (AMRDEC), found that his ESEP experience, working to help the French air force validate new software for the Airborne Warning and Control System electronic flight bag, was akin to a diplo- matic mission.
“In many ways, I felt like an ambassador every day, going to work, going to the market, paying bills as an American in France. It was way more than a technical exchange—it was building relationships, and it was very enlightening to experi- ence the culture and real people of France, not as a tourist but by working side by side,” he said. Since his return to the U.S. in 2015, Quinn has participated in AMRDEC’s work on the Rotary Wing Aeromechanics and Human Factors Inte- gration Technologies Project Agreement with France. Te network of contacts he
It is the only DOD program that affords civilian scientists and engineers the opportunity to embed within a foreign partner’s laboratories and test centers and work side by side with experts around the world.
ASC.ARMY.MIL
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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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