MRAP Program Manager receives Meyer Award

MCB QUANTICO, Va. -- Earning a first-time Department of Defense award is always nice, but when it’s named for the leader who mentored your dad, yourself and your sons, it’s extra special. That’s exactly what happened to Paul Mann, joint program manager for the Mine Resistant Armor Protected vehicle program at Marine Corps Systems Command, located here. He is the first recipient of the Rear Adm. Wayne E. Meyer Memorial Award, presented at the Pentagon in September.

‘‘No other individual in our department has made a bigger impact for the warfighters in Iraq and Afghanistan than Paul Mann,” said Sean Stackley,assistant secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition. ‘‘His efforts and the vehicles his team delivers have directly led to the saving of countless lives and our ability to accomplish our objectives in this time of war.”

‘‘Paul Mann and the entire MRAP team have done an outstanding job,” said Brig. Gen. Michael Brogan, commander, MARCORSYSCOM. ‘‘That and Paul’s professional relationship with Adm. Meyer made him the perfect selection for the inaugural presentation of this new award. We are very proud of Paul and his entire team. This is a great honor.”

The Meyer Memorial Award, created this year to honor extraordinary members of the acquisition community, is named for the father of the Navy’s Aegis weapons system who passed away in September. Meyer was a ‘‘Senior Advisory Group Chairman” on three major projects Mann led from 1996 to 2005. Mann’s last day with the admiral was in Bath, Maine, in October 2008 at the christening of a Navy guided-missile Aegis destroyer named for Meyer. The commissioning of USS Wayne E. Meyer (DDG 108) took place Oct. 10 at Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia.

‘‘Admiral Meyer visited my father in the early 1970’s when dad was a master chief fire control technician in the Navy, ‘‘said Mann, a resident of Stafford. ‘‘Dad and I both served as civil servants delivering Aegis ships and training their crews to use their missile systems. Adm. Meyer was, is and will always be the‘Father of Aegis.’ His genius and love for the Navy cannot be overstated.”

Mann’s program management philosophies mirrored Meyer’s in setting the benchmark for anatmosphere of urgency, cooperation and mutualsupport. The MRAP program is the highest priorityacquisition program in the Department of Defense. It started in October 2006, and under Mann’s leadership the program devised and executed a rapid acquisition strategy through competitive prototyping, delivering the first vehicles to theater just months after the program’s start. Since then, the program has delivered more than 16,000 MRAP trucks along with the support necessary to test, field and sustain the vehicle fleet around the world.

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— Navy Commander Victor Chen, Public Affairs Officer for the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition,contributed to this article.