PANAMA CITY, Fla. – Lee Dittman, a native of Akron, received a U.S. Navy Fleet accolade Dec. 28 for providing real-time, mine countermeasure technical support to USS Dextrous (MCM 13) for an 11-month period in 2012. Dittman is a federal civil servant and presently the AN/SQQ-32 in-service engineering agent and senior systems engineer at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division. Dittman has supported the AN/SQQ-32 program within the U.S. Navy’s mine countermeasures field for 30 years, of which more than six years was on active duty. Sixteen of the 30 years has been at the Surface Warfare Center in Panama City, Fla., and more than seven was served in Crane, Ind. USS Dextrous (MCM 13) Commanding Officer Lt. Cmdr. M.D. Murphy, USN, relayed a written Bravo Zulu to various scientists and engineers not only in Panama City, but throughout the U.S. Navy Dec. 29. Of those mentioned in the Navy message, 16 NSWC PCD engineers were specifically named for their outstanding technical support. “Your dedication and devotion proved invaluable to MCM (mine countermeasure) crew Exultant’s and USS Dextrous (MCM 13) success,” wrote Murphy. NSWC PCD Commanding Officer Capt. Scott Pratt, USN, said he was proud of the teams who worked long and hard to fulfill NSWC PCD’s mission. “Providing Sailors in the mine warfare field is one of our core mission areas, and I am so very pleased to receive positive work back from the Fleet that we’re giving our nation’s warfighters the technical capabilities they need,” said Pratt. The mine warfare systems civil servants like Howell serve as technical support agents to the U.S. Navy’s mine countermeasure class of ships. Specifically, the AN/SLQ-48 and AN/SQQ-32 perform different functions but both identifies and neutralizes identified deep and shallow water mines using a remote-controlled submersible and sonar technology in support of the Avenger class of mine countermeasure ships used by the U.S. Navy. The AN/SSN-2 is integrated hardware used for location and tracking of targets and is used for only the MCM 1 class ships. Finally, the AN/SSQ-94 technology is an on-board mine countermeasure trainer used for combat system teams or individual sailors.
