In the spring of 2021, she started developing the idea of a “warfare centers university” wiki page, a sort of one-stop shop for all upcoming opportunities that NAVSEA team members from various backgrounds could benefit from.

What eventually emerged by summer 2021 was the Warfare Centers Knowledge Forum, offering a calendar of stand-alone and serial events presented by any of the 10 warfare centers, links to upcoming enterprise and industry-related conferences, information about university programs that tie into workforce members’ job skills, and other professional development opportunities.

The program’s tagline, “One Team: United in Learning,” sums up Sutherland’s vision for the project.

“We want to make the site useful, valuable and available for all warfare center employees,” she said, adding that the idea is to encourage each warfare center to upload its own future events and educational opportunities that might benefit other commands and NAVSEA activities.

One example is the topic-focused mentoring program called Sessions with Shane, held virtually on Teams, that Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division Acquisition Branch Manager Shane Guilford holds monthly in conjunction with the command’s workforce development office.

During the hour-plus trainings, Guilford shares his tips, tricks and more on how to best use the Microsoft 365 suite of tools, including Flank Speed, Teams, One Drive and more. Recently, Sessions with Shane was added to the Warfare Centers Knowledge Forum calendar so that more people across the NAVSEA enterprise can benefit from his expertise.

“I've trained and mentored over 100 people in the Flank Speed online classes, and about another dozen or so in one-on-one sessions if they request it,” Guilford said. “I enjoy sharing what I know and helping to bring everyone's level of knowledge up to a common point.”