SECNAV Del Toro As-Written Remarks at the SENEDIA Defense Innovation Days

Good afternoon, everyone! Thank you, Rob, for that kind introduction. It is wonderful to be with you here in Newport, Rhode Island for the 10th annual SENEDIA Defense Innovation Days.

This is my fourth year in a row speaking and engaging with all of you—I’ll leave it the team at SENEDIA to tell you if this is a record for most appearances by a Secretary of the Navy—at least in three years!

During our time this morning, I’d like to spend a few minutes discussing challenges our Navy and Marine Corps faces, the progress our Department has made since we saw each other last year, and how you, as critical members of our defense and maritime industrial bases, can contribute to our enduring priorities.

Our World Today

And we rely on the talent and skill of those in this room today because we face tremendous challenges in every corner of the globe, and in every domain we operate in—below and on the sea, in the air, ashore, as well as in space and cyberspace.

Across the Atlantic, Russia continues in its third year of its illegal, unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The Ukraine Compact, which was endorsed last month by President Biden, Canadian, Japanese, and several European leaders, rightfully characterizes Russia’s invasion as a threat to international peace and security, a flagrant violation of international law, and incompatible with our security interests.

We are proud to stand with our NATO allies in support of our Ukrainian partners as they fight to restore peace in their homeland and defend democracy for all free nations.

To the south of Ukraine, in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, we are working alongside our NATO allies and Middle East partners to ensure the safety of innocent, civilian mariners and to protect our commercial shipping against the Iranian-aligned Houthi attacks.

Immediately following the brutal attack on Israel on October 7th, our Navy and Marine Corps Team—represented by the Bataan Amphibious Ready Group and the Eisenhower Strike Group—was on station, the ready integrated force the world needed, capable of responding to any threat.

In March, we welcomed the Bataan ARG and its embarked 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit after an eight-and-a-half month deployment, and last month, the Eisenhower Strike Group returned to port after nine months at-sea.

Our Sailors and Marines performed admirably, defending our ally Israel against Iranian attacks, conducting defensive strikes against Houthi infrastructure, and ensuring a sea lane critical to the international economy remained open.

Today, our personnel onboard the Wasp ARG is on station in the Mediterranean Sea, while the Theodore Roosevelt Strike Group and Abraham Lincoln Strike Group are operating in the Middle East.

In addition to our surface presence, earlier this month Secretary Austin ordered the USS GEORGIA (SSGN 729) to head to the region, providing a powerful deterrence message from below the ocean’s waves.

Our Sailors and Marines stand ready to respond to threats, reassuring our allies and partners of our commitment to the safety and security of all who travel those waters.

Finally, in the Indo-Pacific, we face a comprehensive maritime power for the first time since World War II.

The People’s Republic of China continues to assert its excessive maritime claims through its navy, coast guard, and maritime militia.

Earlier this month, Australia, Canada, the Philippines, and the United States upheld the right to freedom of navigation and overflight in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific.

Together, our nations conducted a Multilateral Maritime Cooperative Activity within the Philippines’ Exclusive Economic Zone, and the interoperability amongst our armed forces sends a strong signal that we are united in support of the rules based international order.

And we will continue to work with our international allies and partners to ensure that the Indo-Pacific remains free and open for all.

Three-Year Review

As you can see, there is no shortage of challenges we face around the world.

When I assumed office as the 78th Secretary of the Navy three years ago this month, I outlined three enduring priorities to guide our Department, in line with my responsibility to provide combat ready forces and capabilities to the President of the United States, Secretary of Defense, and our Combatant Commanders.

Our priorities are:

Strengthening Maritime Dominance,

Building a Culture of Warfighting Excellence, and

Enhancing Strategic Partnerships.

To fight and decisively win our Nation’s wars, we cannot rely on merely maintaining our seapower—we must strengthen our maritime dominance.

This means continuing to procure the advanced ships, submarines, aircraft, munitions, and systems our Sailors and Marines rely on to project power both from the sea and ashore.

And to support our forces operating around the globe, we have invested in innovative logistics capabilities to reduce reliance on shore-based installations for re-arming and refueling.

This is why I have prioritized fielding the Transportable Re-Arming Mechanism (TRAM), which will provide our surface combatants with a game-changing capability to reload their Vertical Launch Systems while underway in open ocean.

By enabling our warships to refill their magazines at-sea, TRAM offers us a powerful near-term deterrent that will disrupt the strategic calculus of those who would do us harm.

Likewise, the Modular CONSOL Adapter Kit, or MCAK, will enable commercial tankers to help sustain our fleet in forward areas.  And it can be installed on any tanker in the world in just 36 hours.

By leveraging our advantage in connected underway replenishment, these advances effectively increase the size and combat power of our fleet—a prospect that should give any would-be aggressor pause.

And while we continue to invest heavily in acquiring, fielding, and sustaining our crewed platforms, we recognize that a constant presence in the maritime domain will require a hybrid fleet.

Since I took office, we’ve demonstrated the power and reach that uncrewed platforms can provide to our Navy.

From Task Force 59 in the Middle East to operations and exercises across our Fourth and Seventh Fleets, we are working with our international allies and partners to see how we can best integrate uncrewed platforms into our fleets, providing us with flexibility and the ability to identify who is sailing in our respective waters.

But a strong Navy and Marine Corps is about more than just acquiring advanced systems and platforms.

Our people are the foundational strength of this Department, and they provide us competitive warfighting advantage over our adversaries.

Our priority of building a culture of warfighting excellence is founded on strong leadership that is rooted in treating each other with dignity and respect—creating an environment in which our Sailors and Marines can realize their inherent potential.

It includes not only taking care of our people, but also maximizing education opportunities, cultivating research, development, science, and technology.

For example, our Marine Corps launched the Marine Innovation Unit, which leverages the skillsets of our talented Marine reservists to find solutions and accomplish engagements integral to our warfighting future.

And this initiative directly supports the Marine Corps’ Force Design modernization efforts—ensuring our ability to fight a peer adversary on the modern battlefield.

To complement MIU, in December 2022, I directed the establishment of the Naval Innovation Center at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

The NIC will tackle the hardest technology challenges our Fleet and Force face, leveraging the deep technical expertise of the NPS faculty, staff, and students to identify innovative solutions that can move rapidly through the stages of prototyping, experimenting, adoption, and transition to a fielded capability.

And last September, I stood up the Science and Technology Board, with the intent that the board provide independent advice and counsel to the Department of the Navy on matters and policies relating to scientific, technical, manufacturing, acquisition, logistics, medicine, and business management functions.

This year, I released our new Naval Science and Technology Strategy, guiding our Navy and Marine Corps’ innovation initiatives and science and technology research efforts during this decisive period.

While we are investing heavily in our people to identify technologies and capabilities our Fleet and our Force need to maintain their competitive advantages as they operate around the globe, we recognize that we cannot go at it alone.

To be the most effective fighting force, our Navy and Marine Corps is enhancing strategic partnerships across the Joint Force, industry, academia, and with our allies and partners around the globe.

Here at home, we are focusing our efforts with industry to expand our national shipbuilding capacity, and train the “new-collar” workforce—combining the cutting-edge technologies of today with traditionally blue-collar careers—that our nation requires to build the fleet of the future.

Last October, shortly after we met during SENEDIA Defense Innovation Days 2023, I was in Danville, Virginia, for the groundbreaking of a new facility for the Accelerated Training in Defense Manufacturing Regional Training Center.

Danville is an exemplar of the power of public-private partnerships, bringing together the Department of the Navy, the Commonwealth of Virginia, as well as industry and academia to tackle the workforce challenges our nation faces in a collaborative manner.

Since October, my team and I have traveled the country, developing new partnerships to ensure talented Americans are aware of the incredible opportunities to support our national defense as skilled tradesmen and women while also pursuing a career that will provide for them and their families.

Just last month, alongside officials from the Office of the Secretary of Defense and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, we announced the Michigan Maritime Manufacturing Initiative (M3), a federal, state, and local partnership to help rebuild the maritime industrial base workforce that the Navy needs.

And with the “Submarine Capital of the World” located in this region at Groton, Connecticut, this community knows just how important it is to ensure we have the people necessary to build and maintain our Navy’s undersea fleet.

That is why I was so excited to learn that in May, our Navy Submarine Industrial Base program’s New England Talent Pipeline hosted its first-ever signing day, celebrating 394 individuals joining our SIB workforce.

We have indeed made incredible progress across all three of our enduring priorities, but there is still work to be done to ensure our competitive warfighting advantages, and, more importantly, restore our national maritime power.

Maritime Statecraft

A year ago, at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, I announced my vision for a new Maritime Statecraft to prevail during a point in our nation’s history defined by intense strategic competition.

Maritime Statecraft includes not only naval diplomacy, but a national, whole-of-government effort to build comprehensive U.S. and allied maritime power, both commercial and naval.

A key component of Maritime Statecraft is effectively leveraging the advantages we uniquely enjoy in innovation and technology, particularly in the maritime domain.

And while there are many things we in the federal government can do to advance Maritime Statecraft, it takes all of us here in this room to ensure its success.

From the large defense prime contractors to the fledgling defense-focused startups represented here today—you are critical to the “arsenal of democracy” that our nation needs, now more than ever.

You are world-class engineers, scientists, and entrepreneurs, innovating at the edge of technology, pushing the bounds of the possible.

As we look to modernize our Fleet and our Force, and build out our national shipbuilding capacity, we welcome your ideas, your capabilities—your energy and enthusiasm—as we chart our course to restore our maritime power.

As a former career Surface Warfare Officer and a former small business owner in the defense ecosystem, I fully recognize and appreciate what all of you in this room bring to the high-end fight.

I am committed to doing everything in my power to remove barriers within my Department that slow down progress.

And I ask each of you in this room to root out inefficiency, increase production, and foster innovation. Not just for your shareholders, not just for your employees, but for the future of our nation.

We have a need for critical capabilities and technologies to be deployed at speed and scale throughout our fleet and our force, and we can no longer afford to wait.

Closing

For almost 248 years, our Navy and Marine Corps have relied on New Englanders to serve as Sailors, Marines, and civilians throughout our ranks.

We have called upon you to build the platforms and systems our personnel need to achieve their missions around the world.

And today, I am asking you to join us as we continue to advance our Department’s enduring priorities, and to lend your voices and ideas to ensure we field a modern, capable, and lethal Fleet and Force.

Again, it is a pleasure to be with you today, and I am ready to answer any questions you may have.

May God continue to grant our Nation with fair winds and following seas.

Thank you.