United State Navy Warfare Center Divisions all employ customer advocates whose job it is to negotiate tasking and build relationships between the division and their customers, and the Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) Division, Keyport was the first Warfare Center Division to employ the concept and stand up a full-fledged Customer Advocacy Department.

Unlike most of the other Navy’s Warfare Center Divisions, NUWC Division, Keyport is organized around technical competencies, and not specific products.  For example, in another warfare center division, all tasking for an explosive device such as a torpedo would be performed by one department.  At NUWC Division, Keyport, work on the torpedo program crosses multiple departments, all specializing in different aspects of the tasking.  NUWC Division, Keyport was the first to standup the Customer Advocacy function to ensure smooth and strong relationships with major customers including NAVSEA, PEOs, Fleet, ONR and DARPA.

Sitting in her office in NUWC Division, Keyport’s headquarters building, Sarah Magee, department head of the Customer Advocacy Department, was armed with a sheaf of briefing papers to demonstrate her department’s broad reach.

“The program offices reach out to the warfare center divisions to have them do work for them,” Magee said.  “The division that has the right technical capabilities gets the job, and the customer advocate is the bridge that exists between the program office and the line codes where the work is executed.”

“Program office” is a verbal short-hand for “program executive offices,” which are in charge of acquisition and sustainment of the Navy’s ships, submarines, weapons systems and equipment.  The Program Executive Office – Submarines (PEO SUB), for instance, oversees all aspects of the Navy’s submarine acquisition and sustainment.  When a program office, such as PEO SUB, reaches out to NUWC Division, Keyport (or any warfare center division), the customer advocate is the entry into the organization and responsible to understand the customer’s requirements, negotiate tasking and ensure the tasking is complete to the customer’s satisfaction.  Each warfare center division has very specific areas in which they work so as to avoid competition and redundancy with other divisions.

“We believe part of the responsibility of the customer advocate is to grow and nurture relationships with customers in their projects because, if you’ve never worked in a program office, you might not understand why certain decisions are made,” Magee said.  The relationships built and maintained help keep the Navy’s work moving smoothly because customers from ships, shipyards, and other commands might end up working with a warfare center or department they were not expecting.

This focus on relationships is critical to the business model NUWC Division, Keyport operates on.  Although it is a military command, NUWC Division, Keyport is set up to operate on a quasi-corporate structure.  This is partly in response to the reality that the funding reaching NUWC Division, Keyport is called “working capital,” meaning it comes from the command’s customers, and not through direct congressional appropriations as does the funding for operational commands.   NUWC Division, Keyport must have success in its efforts in order to ensure its customers do not hesitate to come back for future work.

In order to maintain the kind of relationships that can keep this business model flowing for both NUWC Division, Keyport, and the warfighters on the tip for the spear, the customer advocates work hard to ensure bridges are built and maintained, and roadblocks are removed.

Theresa Sikes, Deputy Department Head for NUWC Division, Keyport’s Customer Advocacy Department, said NUWC Division, Keyport was the first to establish such a department when it created the Customer Advocacy Department in 1998.  It provides the customer one point of contact for all task and funding discussions and negotiations.  “There’s no formal process for being a customer advocate,” Sikes said.  “It’s really a relationship-building job.”

Depending on the size of the program, some CAs have deputies, a career path through which we are growing our next generation of leaders.  An engineer or technician about midway through their career might come into customer advocacy as a deputy for an established advocate.  This allows them to add the “soft skills” of relationship building and advocacy to their resume’ as they assist the customer advocate for a couple of years.  After that stint, they go back to their technical work, but are now much more familiar with both NUWC Division, Keyport’s business processes and the customer’s needs, as well as possessing experience building and maintaining the necessary bridges to keep the work and funding moving.  It also provides them with an opportunity to collaborate with numerous divisions across Keyport, thereby gaining exposure to the various capabilities we offer.

“Eventually, after they gain some exposure to customer advocacy, they move back into the technical line code,” Sikes said of the deputy customer advocates.  “But maybe in a few years they might come back as the customer advocate.”

Magee said one of her priorities for the department is ensuring her customer advocates are educated on the unique place they have in the NUWC Division, Keyport structure.

“We are working to make sure our customer advocates have an understanding of their ability to lead Keyport from their position in the organization,” Magee said.

The Customer Advocacy Department has been in operation for over 20 years, and it seems to be a success for NUWC Division, Keyport.  At the end of fiscal year 2017 alone, the command had $524 million of new funding, and this does not include carry-over funding associated with other projects already underway.  Financial projections indicate the new funding will increase, meaning the customer advocates are succeeding in building relationships with their customers in the fleet and program offices.

“Our job as customer advocates is to remove barricades and build relationships,” Magee said.  “Our customer advocates know their competencies, they know Keyport, and they know how to retain customers.”

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