For three decades, Ms. Dawn Haddock has been a quiet but formidable contributor to the evolution of aircraft and weapons system survivability for the Naval Air Warfare Center Warfare Division (NAWCWD) of the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR). Her career has embodied technical mastery, pioneering innovation, unwavering dedication to the Warfighter, and a deep commitment to mentoring the next generation. Together, these contributions have left an indelible mark on the Navy, the DoD community, and countless analysts and engineers who’ve benefited from her expertise. Dawn’s work, which spans Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, and Joint Service programs, has transformed analytical methods, enhanced Warfighter protection, and elevated the modeling and simulation (M&S) community to new heights. Thus, the Joint Aircraft Survivability Program Office (JASPO) is pleased to recognize Dawn for her many years of Excellence in Survivability.
A Career Focused on Warfighter Protection
Born and raised in Upper Marlboro, MD, Dawn’s lifelong affinity for problem-solving and teamwork began early. As a softball pitcher during her elementary and middle school years with the local Boys & Girls Club, and an important member of her high school science club, she balanced teamwork, competition, and a growing fascination with just about everything. These traits would help set the stage for a long career focused on aircraft and weapon survivability.
After earning her bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering, with a minor in mathematics, from Virginia Tech, Dawn entered Federal service in 1991 at the Naval Air Warfare Center (NAWC) in Ridgecrest, CA. Thus began her professional journey, supporting aerodynamic code correlation studies and programming telemetry systems. From 1993 to 1997, she expanded her growing knowledge base by accepting a position with the Air Force at nearby Edwards AFB, where she served as a project manager and armament analyst for the B-1B bomber weapon certification programs. Here, she developed accuracy algorithms, designed and developed FORTRAN models, troubleshot software anomalies, and evaluated aircraft weapon system performance. Her dedicated efforts resulted in multiple performance awards, including a Technical Directorate Award for Group Excellence in 1996 and a Superior Performance Award in 1997. Most importantly, these early career challenges and accomplishments helped lay the foundation for her astute technical competence, systems level thinking, and analytical insight.
In 1997, Dawn returned to the Survivability Division at NAWC where she found her true professional home as an analyst, leader, and mentor, providing nearly 30 years of extraordinary contributions to aircraft survivability. On her path to becoming NAWCWD’s Lead Vulnerability Analyst, she planned, coordinated, and executed numerous vulnerability analyses for nearly every major Navy and Marine Corps platform, including the F/A-18E/F/G, P-8A, CH-53E/K, AH-1Z, UH-1Y, V-22, the full H-60 series (HH-60H, SH-60B, MH-60S/R), and more. In addition, she supported numerous long-range missile weapons programs.
Dawn’s technical expertise spans a full suite of M&S tools, including current models such as COVART, FASTGEN, BRL-CAD, and SHAZAM, along with historic tools such as Visage, IVAVIEW, SHODAM, and others. In addition, her expansive technical reach covers vulnerability assessments, endgame modeling, integrated survivability studies, and damage/effects predictions—skills she has refined steadily across decades of work.
Beyond her contributions to the aforementioned platforms, one of her hallmark accomplishments in survivability was leading a quick-reaction effort after a December 2013 combat incident in South Sudan, where a CV-22 Osprey experienced small arms fire that resulted in casualties. This event triggered an urgent U.S. Special Operations Command request for a troop protection solution. Working with the V-22 Joint Program Office and the Air Force Special Operations Command, Dawn served as the key vulnerability analyst responsible for evaluating shotlines, shielding concepts, and survivability requirements. Her contributions were essential in shaping the specification requirements for what would become the Advanced Ballistic Stopping System, which directly enhanced troop protection in hostile environments. With the help of Dawn’s technical excellence and leadership, this program remains a model of rapid acquisition driven by expert analysis.
A Dedication to Advancing the State-of-the-Art Of Survivability M&S
Over the years, Dawn has continuously challenged herself and others to improve models, simulations, and techniques for conducting vulnerability analysis. She recognizes that, at the heart of it all, is real data and that live fire test and evaluation (LFT&E) and vulnerability M&S naturally complement each other. Using NAWCWD’s world-class research and LFT&E capabilities at the Weapons Survivability Laboratory (WSL), Dawn has worked to meld testing and modeling in a model-test-model construct, thereby continually improving both models and the data that feed them, as well as fostering a tight connection between WSL LFT&E and the rest of NAVAIR.
Dawn has applied her combined knowledge of M&S and hands-on experience with LFT&E to expand methods and capabilities beyond just the vulnerability community into related disciplines. For example, she developed an approach to better integrate vulnerability data into weapon safe-escape evaluations, thereby raising the bar for both operational safety and analytic rigor. She also led a proof-of-concept study with AJEM to evaluate safe-escape points of interest generated by the traditional safe-escape PATH and CASES tools. Connecting higher-fidelity vulnerability modeling into the safe-escape process is important, as those results directly impact flight clearances for weapons and ultimately Warfighter safety. For these evaluations, the Navy worked with AJEM developers to improve AJEM so it handles gravity/drag with moving targets.
In addition, Dawn’s vast experience with the two primary vulnerability assessment tools, COVART and AJEM, has given her a unique perspective and ability to enhance M&S overall. Dawn’s early career focused primarily on applying COVART to conduct analyses. In 2020, the Navy switched from using COVART to AJEM as its primary M&S tool, which required reassessing many systems with AJEM. One of the results of this changeover was that NAVAIR/NAWCWD became an organization with the most aircraft-level comparisons between the two tools. This effort came with a steep learning curve, but it also enabled Dawn and her team to “speak” both COVART and AJEM. In so doing, one of the things she noticed was that most of the differences in platform analysis results were due to fire modeling and airgap curves (with fragment fire vulnerable areas being the worst case). Accordingly, Dawn then led an in-depth comparison of the differences between airgap definitions in COVART and AJEM and is now working to establish common definitions, methods, and documentation, which is ultimately providing more consistency across DoD applications.
Another novel initiative she is looking forward to spearheading in FY27 is evaluating the vulnerability of an entire air wing applying a systems-of-systems (SoS) approach. This multiplatform analysis capability is becoming a necessity as weapon systems are no longer considered independent of each other but are increasingly relying on multiple external systems, such as Collaborative Combat Aircraft. The objective is that this new methodology will effectively and efficiently capture the vulnerability of the integrated systems of aircraft. And with the help of a planned new/improved AJEM-AFSIM plugin, vulnerability could possibly be integrated into bigger-picture SoS and live-virtual-constructive efforts.
Character, Commitment, and the Long Journey
When asked what has kept her in the survivability discipline for nearly 30 years, Dawn cites two things: the importance of the mission and the people. She has often found herself working long hours on challenging projects as the sole vulnerability analyst in her branch, learning quickly, taking ownership, and, in her words, protecting “a discipline that is too important to abandon.” But her attitude regarding her many accomplishments is marked by humility. Rather than citing her numerous marquee achievements—including her recent selection as an Associate Fellow for NAWCWD—she especially takes pride in “the small wins” of her career, such as an elegantly solved error, a model that finally runs, and a fidelity that aligns perfectly with the customer’s needs.
Dawn has also given much back to the community, serving on or supporting numerous DoD survivability and related committees, including JASP’s Vulnerability Reduction Subgroup, the COVART Configuration Control Board, the AJEM Configuration Control Board, and the NAWCWD M&S CorCom ESDP Development Team. She’s also guided and trained more than 50 Engineering & Scientist Development Program participants at NAWCWD, encouraging the next generation of engineers and analysts with her blend of expertise, patience, and passion and shaping careers across NAVAIR both in and out of the survivability discipline.
Colleagues describe Dawn as brilliant, collaborative, and profoundly respected. She values the community deeply, describing it as supportive, collaborative, and united by a shared mission to safeguard the Warfighter.
To younger analysts, Dawn offers some heartfelt advice:
Vulnerability analysis is a great way to impact the survivability of the Warfighter. It allows you to see the big picture but also be involved in influencing the details of aircraft design. Most younger analysts want to move around every few years to try new things. With survivability analysis, you can work on many different aspects in the discipline to find the area that most interests you.
Retirement is in Dawn’s future, though it’s not imminent. She continues to enjoy her research and leadership roles and remains invested in advancing vulnerability analysis methods and preparing others to carry the discipline forward. And speaking of others, Dawn remains grateful for the support she’s received from her family over her career, including her late husband, Jerry; her children, Ethan, Grace, and Addie; and her grandchildren, Casey and Scarlett. Whenever she does retire, she plans to spend more time with her family and is especially looking forward to visiting Disneyland with the grandkids.
Congratulations, Dawn on this well-deserved recognition!
About the Authors
Mr. Ron Dexter serves as the Vice President of Special Projects at the SURVICE Engineering Company, where he supports the planning and execution of key corporate initiatives. He has more than 36 years of experience in aircraft and munitions survivability and lethality, including the last 28 years at SURVICE. Ron holds a bachelor’s degree in aircraft engineering from Western Michigan University.
Mr. Marty Krammer leads the Aircraft and Weapons Vulnerability Division at NAWCWD, supporting various Navy, Air Force, and Army aircraft programs. He has specialized expertise in aircraft fire, fuel tank self-sealing, explosion protection, and aircraft LFT&E and has supported many vulnerability reduction and testing programs. He holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in mechanical engineering from California State University, Chico, and California State University, Northridge, respectively.
