ASNE DAY 2002

Citation

DR. COLEN KENNELL

has demonstratedexceptional lead-

ership and superb techni-cal acumen in establishingand leading innovationcells that were focused onadvancing the state of theart and developing innov-ative design concepts in key technologyareas including high speed sealift; small,high-speed naval combatant ships; andadvanced sea basing concepts. In each keyarea Dr. Kennell’s teams evaluated a widerange of system concepts, assessed theadequacy of critical technologies to sup-port those concepts, defined and rankedthe research and development needed tobring the critical technologies to thedesired state of readiness, and developed acomprehensive technology developmentplan to serve as a roadmap for the matu-ration of critical technologies to reducethe technical risk for design and construc-tion of preferred system concepts.

In carrying out his innovative and far-ranging research, Dr. Kennell has not onlyachieved remarkable advances in technol-ogy, but he has also significantly refinedand improved the technology develop-ment process. He has led his innovationcells in a collaborative way that hasenhanced the knowledge and understand-ing of team members, encouraged creativi-ty and communication, fostered the devel-

opment and improvementof design and analysistools and instilled anemphasis on system levelunderstanding with a biastoward implementation.

These notable achieve-ments add to a long anddistinguished record of

nurturing highly innovative research anddevelopment teams and producing cre-ative results that have fostered revolution-ary improvements in the design and con-struction of advanced naval vehicles. Dr.Colen Kennell has earned a reputation asthe Navy’s leading technical authority foradvanced naval vehicles and he is trulymost deserving of the ASNE SolbergAward for 2003.

PresentationRear Admiral Jay Cohen, USN

Thank you Admiral. There are so manydistinguished guests here this evening andas a member of ASNE, and the Brand XSociety, and a life long naval architect andnaval engineer my gift to the Societytonight is not to speak extemporaneously.So, Dr. Kennell, Mrs. Kennel, and his twolovely children, Amanda and Brian, itgives me the greatest pleasure to introduceDr. Colin Kennell, winner of the ASNE’s2003 Solberg Award. As many of youknow already Dr. Kennell throughout his33 year career with the Navy has been a

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The American Society of Naval Engineers takes great pleasure in presenting The Solberg Award for 2003 to

Dr. Colen Kennellfor his significant engineering research and development accomplishments in the design of advanced, high-speed naval vessels and sea basing concepts

[ S O L B E R G A W A R D ]The Solberg Award, presented annually since1967, is given to an indi-vidual who has made asignificant contribution tonaval engineering throughpersonal research duringthe past three years.Admiral Thorwald A.Solberg’s greatest fortewas the pursuit of basicand applied researchleading to solutions forshipboard problems. Hislong career as a navalengineer, culminating inhis appointment as Chiefof Naval Research,inspired the research anddevelopment engineeringprofession and this award.

true leader among the many gifted scientistsand engineers in the still rapidly advancingfield of Navy ship systems engineering.However, before I introduce Dr. Kennell, I’dlike to say a few words about the SolbergAward itself. As has already been said, it’sbeen presented annually for more than 35years. The award is given to an individualwho’s made a significant contribution tonaval engineering through personal researchduring the past three years. The award isnamed for Admiral Thorwald A. Solbergwho was known for the pursuit of basic andapplied research leading to solutions of ship-board problems. His long career as a navalengineer culminating in his appointment asChief of Naval Research was the inspirationfor this award. As the current Chief ofNaval Research, I am personally honored toserve in the footsteps of such a dedicatedand well respected individual. According tothe award guidelines, “The nominee musthave made a most significant contribution tonaval engineering through personal researchcarried out during, or culminating in thethree year period ending in the current year.”I’m sure that you will agree that Dr. Kennellfits those requirements precisely. Dr.Kennell’s achievements are noted not only inhis technical expertise, but also in his abilityto create visions of excellence for others inthe field. He has also proven himself anauthentic leader time and again. As he car-ried out the responsibilities of managingchallenging science and technology programsto support Navy ship design. Through hiscareer he has been recognized not just withinthe Navy, or the U.S. ship design field, butinternationally as one of the field’s leadingnaval architect. Dr. Kennell, a true terrapin,earned his bachelors, masters, and doctoraldegrees at the University of Maryland. Hecompleted his Ph.D. in aerospace engineer-ing, fluid mechanics, and mathematics in1980. He joined the Naval Sea SystemsCommand David Taylor Laboratory inCarderock in 1971. He played a key leader-

ship role in the development of the Navy’sclass of T-AGOS ships which provide highlystable sea keeping platforms for long rangeundersea surveillance. He also lead theefforts at Carderock to develop the SeaShadow demonstration ship and the collabo-ration with the United Kingdom for develop-ment of the trimaran hull, the Triton, whichhas been used to explore the feasibility of thetrimaran design for future surface ships forboth the U.S. and royal navies. I’m sure thatMr. Toner will thank Dr. Kennell based ontheir winning as a finalist with their tri-maran design. I will tell you that I think Dr.Kennell was there when the Triton came intothe Washington Navy Yard. We had a pressconference. The Brits were so proud of theirship and we reminded them that the lasttime a royal navy warship made a call onthe Washington Navy Yard it was 1814 andthey burned the city down. We asked themnot to repeat that, and they very kindly com-plied. Dr. Kennell’s work has contributeddecisively to the Navy’s recognition of thecritical importance of hull form design to seakeeping, and sea keeping to mission perfor-mance. His recent work on transport factoranalysis has dramatically enhanced theNavy’s understanding of ship performancecomparisons, of speed, payload, and range.That work pre-dated and surely providesmuch of the intellectual foundation for theNavy’s current, high priority for effective seakeeping performance, for its new ship pro-grams — the DDX and littoral combat ship.In recent years he established Carderock’sinnovative, multi-disciplinary cells on smallhigh speed combatants and sea basing con-cepts that are creating the roadmaps forfuture Navy ship design. I can tell you in theoffice of naval research we are honored tobe supporting those innovative efforts. Tofall back on a frequently used term todescribe Dr. Kennell’s work it has beenauthentically transformational. Supportingthe boldest elements of the Chief of NavalOperations Naval Power 21 vision for the

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surface fleet that we in the ship design busi-ness seek to achieve by combining thenewest technologies for ship systems withthe Navy’s tradition of excellence in shipdesign. Dr. Colen Kennell’s career hasembodied that excellence which we recog-nize today by presenting him with theSolberg prize. I ask you to join me in honor-ing Dr. Kennell now.

AcceptanceThank you Admiral Cohen. Mr. President,members of the Society, ladies, and gentlemen.

One of the clearest memories from the earlydays of my career is that of a strong sense ofaccomplishment at the end of each day. Thecause might have been the development of aweight estimation algorithm, completion of adesign drawing, or estimation of a shipspower requirement from model tests.Whatever the nature of the task, I usuallyleft the office satisfied that I had producedsomething concrete. My time had been wellspent. Now, as I near the end of my career, Ioften look back on the workday and wonderif I had accomplished anything. I often startthe day with a list of tasks I want to com-plete, only to take the same list homeuntouched. The realities of Government ser-vice have taken over again, and again, andagain. And yet, I’m standing here acceptingthe Solberg Award.

The only way I can reconcile this apparentcontradiction is to acknowledge that any-thing I’ve accomplished has been a directresult, I might almost say a by-product, ofthe creative efforts of others. Over the pastfew years, I’ve had the good fortune to haveworked with a number of multi-disciplinaryteams on a variety of challenging projects,generally involving development of newnaval concepts. Teams have formed, func-tioned, and dispersed, often to reappear insome mutated form. These team efforts have

been significantly enhanced through collabo-ration with knowledgeable professionals ingovernment, industry, and the academicworld, both in the U.S. and internationally.The products we produced have been inter-esting, useful, and I think, influential. Mostimportantly, we had some fun along the way.I will not attempt to cite any of my col-leagues individually; the list is far too long.Furthermore, many are in the early days oftheir careers and might not approve of beingconsidered a colleague of someone so lackingin hair, sharp eyesight, and short-term memo-ry. None-the-less, I want you to know howimportant their work has been to our pro-jects and to me personally.

In addition, I am indebted to those whomade these opportunities available to me,specifically my program managers atCarderock and our sponsors at NAVSEA,ONR, and OPNAV. Initially, the goals of ourprojects have often been only loosely definedand the focus of the work has sometimesdrifted. We have not always stayed on sched-ule. Sometimes the work has led us downunexpected paths. Strangely enough, unex-pected concepts can result when you set outto develop new concepts, with significantimpact on schedule and resources. Managingsuch a process cannot have been easy.However, our managers and sponsors havehad the patience to allow our teams to workproductively and have consistently providedthe support and encouragement we needed.Feedback from them, both positive and neg-ative, has been useful in refining the workand has conveyed a clear message that thework is important and worthwhile, neces-sary ingredients to stoke the creative fires.

The last team that I need to acknowledge ismy family. Like most families, we’ve beenthrough good times and bad. Throughout itall, there has been cooperation and compro-mise to allow all to grow as individuals andpursue their individual interests and goals. I

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am sure my accomplishments would be fewwithout them.

I’m proud to receive the Solberg Award. It isa great honour. I hope my remarks makeclear how dependent my selection was onthe efforts of so many others. I would not behere without them.

Mr. President, please convey my apprecia-tion to the Society for this honour. I promiseto do my best to maintain its prestige.Thank you very much.

About the AwardeeDr. Colen Kennell has been employed as anaval architect by the Naval Sea SystemsCommand and the Naval Surface WarfareCenter Carderock Division for 33 years. Hisprimary work experience is in early stageship design, particularly on unconventional

hull forms. He was project naval architecton T-AGOS 19 design, the U.S. Navy’s firstlarge, open ocean capable SWATH ship andsubsequent full scale trials. He also was U.S.technical director on the collaborativeUK/US Trimaran joint trials project to buildand test RV Triton, a 90m trimaran. Dr.Kennell developed transport factor method-ology for analysis of high speed sealift ships,and was a principal U.S. Navy technical par-ticipant on 1997 High Speed SealiftTechnology Workshop. Previously theTechnical director on High Speed SealiftInnovation Cell project, he now serves as thetechnical director for Sea Basing studies inthe Center for Innovation in Ship Design.

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Human Systems IntegrationSymposium 2005• June 20-22, 2005 • Sheraton National Hotel, Metro Washington, DC• ASNE Flagship Section • With exhibits • Call for Papers available

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