NUWC Division, Keyport Employee Spotlight James Husted

Sustaining our warfighting advantage requires a dedicated team of experts committed to Fleet readiness. Among these experts is James Husted, a longtime engineering technician at Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division, Keyport. Over his two decades so far at the command, he has distinguished himself as an exceptionally capable, versatile, mission-driven team player.

“He has a good depth of knowledge for the various resources that we have at Keyport, and he can collaborate in order to leverage that knowledge to increase efficiency,” said his supervisor. “He's got a good knowledge of other programs that have overlapping objectives at Keyport and is able to seamlessly engage those to support good overall production.”

A coworker added, “What I appreciate most about working with James is his focus on mission success. If he says he’s going to get it done, it might as well be done. He carries a full plate, and it always seems like he makes room for anything that he deems worthy and important to support the warfighter. It's inspiring.”

James is originally from the Detroit area but grew up in the small town of Rapid City, Michigan. The son of an Army veteran and grandson of an Army Air Corps veteran, James knew from an early age he wanted to serve. After finishing high school, he enlisted in the Navy as an avionics technician and went on to serve for eight years, leaving the Navy in 1996 as a petty officer second class (E-5).

Following his military service, James moved to Washington State and worked in the medical device industry for several years. In 2001, he began working as a contractor at Keyport, performing submarine installations and performing bottom recovery operations.

His civil service career at Keyport began in 2006, and since then he has become an institution at the command. He has worked across many departments and continually sought to expand his expertise into new undersea domains.

Through his efforts to ensure our torpedoes are rigorously evaluated and ready for combat, James directly supports the first and second Naval Sea Systems Command Enterprise Strategy Lines of Effort: “Accelerate Force Generation” and “Generate Readiness.”

Outside of work, James enjoys hunting, fishing, motorcycling, ham radio, and spending time with his wife and children.

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Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division, Keyport is headquartered in the state of Washington on the Puget Sound, about 10 miles west of Seattle. To provide ready support to Fleet operational forces at all major Navy homeports in the Pacific, NUWC Division, Keyport maintains detachments in San Diego, California and Honolulu, Hawaii, and remote operating sites in Guam; Japan; Hawthorne, Nevada; and Portsmouth, Virginia. At NUWC Division, Keyport, our diverse and highly skilled team of engineers, scientists, technicians, administrative professionals and industrial craftsmen work tirelessly to develop, maintain and sustain undersea warfare superiority for the United States.