Nickolas H. Guertin was sworn in as Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition (ASN RD&A) on December 20, 2023. A Presidential appointee confirmed by the United States Senate, he leads the Department of the Navy’s (DON) Research, Development, Acquisition, and Sustainment programs and the DON’s contracting community. Prior to this role, Mr. Guertin served as the senior advisor to the Secretary of Defense on operational and live fire test and evaluation of Department of Defense weapon systems (Director, Operational Test and Evaluation).

Mr. Guertin has an extensive four-decade combined military and civilian career in submarine operations; ship construction and maintenance; development and testing of weapons, sensors, combat management products including the improvement of systems engineering; and defense acquisition. Most recently, he has performed applied research for government and academia in software-reliant and cyber-physical systems at Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute.

Over his career, he has led organizational transformation, improved competition, and increased application of modular open-system approaches, prototyping, and experimentation. He has also researched and published extensively on software-reliant system design, testing, and acquisition. He received a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Washington and an MBA from Bryant University. He is a retired Navy Reserve Engineering Duty Officer, was Defense Acquisition Workforce Improvement Act (DAWIA) certified in Program Management and Engineering, and is a licensed Professional Engineer (Mechanical).

Last Updated: 4 April 2024