Faces of the Force: Daniel R. Smith

By Cheryl Marino

Article published on: July 1, 2025 in the Army AL&T Summer 2025 Edition

Read Time: < 4 mins

COMMAND/ORGANIZATION: Joint Program Executive Office for Armaments and Ammunition, Directorate of Integration

TITLE: Alternative sources of positioning, navigation and timing area lead YEARS OF SERVICE IN WORKFORCE: 14

DAWIA CERTIFICATIONS: Practitioner in engineering

EDUCATION: M.E. in electrical engineer-ing, Stevens Institute of Technology; B.S. in electrical and computer engineering, Lafayette College

AWARDS: Project Manager Combat Ammunition Systems, Engineer of the Year Award (2019)

Build on Your Skills

Early in his career, Daniel Smith focused on standing out and completing tasks quickly and efficiently, an approach that served him well as he settled into new roles and learned the ropes. Since then, he’s learned that, more often than not, achieving and pursuing new goals for the long term requires building a common understanding and skills among team members.

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together,” Smith said. “I am now trying to make a conscious effort to share knowledge and tasking to build not only my own skills but the skills and capabilities of teammates.” For example, he explained, he led a team in developing the Navigation Simulation Tool for Precision Guided Munitions (NavSim-P), an all-digital navigation simulation tool that enables the evaluation of plug and play of sensor simulators (i.e., global positioning system receivers, inertial measurement units, magnetometers, altimeters, etc.) and selectable Kalman Filter architectures (i.e., extended and unscented Kalman filters), enabling trade study evaluation and performance predictions for precision-guided munitions programs. After the first version was up and running, there were only two people (Smith and one other) who knew how to fully use the tool.

At first, he said, there were only a few requests for trade studies and analysis (decisionmaking activities used to identify the most acceptable technical solution among a set of proposed solutions), which they were able to quickly handle. But once news of the tool’s capabilities began to spread, a few requests almost immediately turned into many requests and they became overwhelmed.

“Instead of the two of us working as fast as we could to complete the requests, we spent many hours not only teaching other engineers how to use the toolset but also about the inner workings and code within the toolset. Now that more engineers are involved, we not only keep up with the requests to run the tool but also actively develop more features. If we had just focused on completing tasking, we would have never been able to increase simulation capability.”

In his role as the alternative sources of positioning, navigation and timing area lead under the Joint Program Executive Office for Armaments and Ammunition, Directorate of Integration, Smith aids in the maturation, demonstration and transition of Assured Position, Navigation and Timing (PNT) technologies into multiple precision weapon and munition programs of record and their respective firing platforms.

Accurate positioning, navigation and timing is necessary for the functioning of many critical infrastructure sectors. Smith is specifically focused on developing multi-source/ multi-mode software-defined PNT receivers for rockets, missiles and cannon-based artillery. This development is aimed at outpacing the increasingly complex electromagnetic warfare threat. “Maintaining unencumbered access to trusted PNT is a crucial enabler for precision-guided munitions that rely on a PNT solution to traverse towards a target,” he said. “Its importance provides motivation and satisfaction.”

ENGINEER OF THE YEAR.
Smith, middle, receiving the 2019 Project Manager Combat Ammunition Systems (PM CAS) “Outstanding Engineer of the Year” award at the PM CAS All Hands Meeting held at the Picatinny Arsenal Lindner Conference Center in December 2019. From left is Pete Burke, PM CAS; Greg Bischer, Precision Fires and Mortars (PdM PFM); Smith, PdM PFM; Lt. Col. Patrick Farrell, PdM PFM; and Col. Will McDonough, PM CAS. (Photo courtesy of Dan Smith)

Smith was hired directly out of college into the U.S. Combat Capabilities Development Command Armaments Center, focusing on guidance, navigation and control. “I was always fascinated by radio frequency navigation, and working in that group exposed me to the development and test of Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers for munitions,” he said. Then, he got the opportunity to join the Precision Guidance Kit team as the U.S. Government GPS Responsible Engineering Authority and technically guide a joint contractor and government team to determine root cause identification and corrective action validation for several GPS-related failures. He was also able to experience much of the development and fielding of this item, as well as various product improvement initiatives increasing PNT resilience, such as anti-jam and anti-spoof improvements.

“That experience really fortified my interest in PNT and pointed out how reliant we have become on GPS as our primary and, often, sole source of PNT,” he said. “I was then able to join the Joint Program Executive Office [for] Armaments and Ammunition Directorate of Integration, Assured Precision Weapons and Munition team, where we focus on ‘pulling’ and integrating cutting-edge PNT technology forward into programs of record to diversify and harden PNT capabilities.”

Smith said most of his career development occurred through matrixed assignments to other organizations, including Program Executive Office/project management and science and technology organizations. “This has enabled me to gain valuable perspectives on the acquisition life cycle and recognize the criticality of all organizations in getting systems to the warfighter. I highly recommend others pursue similar rotations to better understand the acquisition life cycle and determine where they best see their skillsets thriving.”

His advice for junior acquisition personnel typically revolves around being comfortable with “not immediately having the answers.”

“Since they have spent roughly the last 20 years operating in the school mindset of ‘If you don’t immediately know the answer you fail,’ junior personnel can often get discouraged and feel overwhelmed,” he said. “I try to offer encouragement by reinforcing that engineers are in place to develop answers, construct solutions and fill knowledge gaps with their critical thinking skills.”

Outside of work, Smith enjoys playing multiple instruments (trumpet, guitar and bass) and has been in a variety of bands over the years, ranging from high school and college concert bands to open mic events, graduation parties and small community festivals. Now, though, he plays just for fun. “Like work,” he said, “bands consist of team members with different roles and the communication among members is crucial to overall group success.”

—CHERYL MARINO