THE
AMERICAN SOCIETY
|
 Mr. Walter J. Gist and RADM David P. Sargent present the Gold Medal Award to Mr. Charles G. Creedon |
Mr. Creedon is personally and directly responsible for the highly successful development and design of the nuclear propulsion plant for the CVN-21 class aircraft carrier. His superb engineering and programmatic leadership have achieved a design that will triple the available electrical power to support insertion of transformational technologies while simplifying propulsion system design and substantially reducing maintenance requirements. To attain these substantial improvements, Mr. Creedon has prompted numerous technological innovations and he has implemented a full range of risk reduction strategies to ensure the process and product innovations will be both effective and reliable.
The significance of Mr. Creedon success is enhanced by the recognition that this is the first full-scale aircraft carrier propulsion plant design effort in more than 30 years. Consequently, Mr. Creedon had to reconstitute the design capability, reinvent the design processes and assemble a dramatically improved set of design tools to support the product model environment and interface effectively with the total ship design. He met this challenge by assembling an innovative integrated product team that effectively blended more advanced submarine propulsion design methods and tools from one shipyard with established aircraft carrier design and construction experience at the building yard while also incorporating Fleet operator feedback.
Mr.Creedon's efforts have produced a design that will reduce reactor department
manpower requirements by 50 percent and save $300 million in construction cost
and $2 billion in life-cycle costs while also reducing depot maintenance requirements
by one third and increasing operational availability by 25 percent. These improvements
directly support the CNO's Sea Power 21 vision. The significance of these accomplishments
and the important role the CVN-21 class will play in the 21st Century Fleet
mark Mr. Creedon's achievements as truly exceptional and he is indeed most worthy
of the ASNE Gold Medal.