Mr. John Fassino is the Deputy Director for the Operational Energy – Innovation Directorate. In this position, he provides governance for advanced technology development, prototyping, demonstration and transition activities that enable next-generation warfighting capabilities. This includes budgetary, policy, and management oversight of programs related to contested logistics and battlespace awareness, operational energy demand reduction, operational energy resilience, and nuclear power.
Mr. Fassino began his civilian career at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division in 2001 as a mechanical engineer in the Explosives Sciences Branch. Mr. Fassino specialized in materials and failure analysis prior to taking on his first management assignment in 2007.
From 2007 to 2012, Mr. Fassino served in a several branch management assignments supporting technology development, acquisition, fielding, and sustainment of components and systems for SOF, Naval and Other Government Agency customers focused on intelligence collection technologies and persistent ISR sensor integration.
In 2012, Mr. Fassino took over as the division manager for the Surveillance and Reconnaissance Systems division, leading 150 government personnel in the full life cycle engineering support of Naval, Army, and special operations forces (SOF) customers. As division manager, he was responsible for setting strategic direction, workload execution, financial management, and organizational culture and compliance.
In 2016, John became the chief engineer for power and energy innovation at NSWC Crane. In this role, he was responsible for developing S&T programs, regional engagement activities, and leading rapid prototyping events with the USMC and USSOCOM.
In 2018, Mr. Fassino began a detail assignment within the OUSD(R&E) Operational Energy Innovation team, serving as a program integrator and analyst for the Director. Mr. Fassino was responsible for overseeing and integrating eight studies across the breadth of operational energy topics including space solar, directed energy / electronic warfare, bulk fuel distribution, autonomous systems, dismounted warfighting, and USINDOPACIFIC operations. These studies provided the analytical underpinning for the DoD’s Operational Energy S&T Strategy and Roadmap.
In late 2020, Mr. Fassino returned to NSWC Crane as the Strategic Deterrence and Defense Customer Advocate. In this position, John provided customer engagement and oversight of NSWC Crane workload focused on Joint Hypersonics, Strategic Systems Hardware, Advanced Electronics and Energy Systems, and Sensors and Surveillance Systems to advance Nuclear Modernization Priorities.
John has a bachelor of science degree from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and a master of public affairs degree from Indiana University. He is a member of the defense acquisition corps, and holds level 3 certification in the systems engineering, and test and evaluation career fields.