Naval Reserve Officer Training Candidate (NROTC) students at college campuses in San Diego have become the first to use an advanced navigation training package supplied by Northrop Grumman Corporation’s (NYSE: NOC) Sperry Marine business unit.

The computerized learning DVDs contain 16 interactive courseware (ICW) training lessons on the use and operation of Sperry Marine’s Voyage Management System (VMS) ship navigation software. They are being used in the navigation training curriculum for NROTC students at the University of San Diego and other greater San Diego college campuses.

“The Sperry Marine eLearning courseware provides a high-quality, professionally produced training experience for our students,” said Capt. Mark Woolley, commanding officer of the five San Diego-area NROTC units. “We are pleased to be the first NROTC program in the country to make use of this excellent instructional tool for preparing our future officers for their careers in the naval service.”

“The eLearning courseware will give the NROTC students an opportunity to become familiar with the standard electronic navigation system used throughout the U.S. Navy surface and submarine fleets. This ICW has been recently incorporated as a navigation training delivery method at the U.S. Naval Academy,” said Jeff Holloway, director of U.S. defense business development and marketing/sales for Northrop Grumman Sperry Marine.

Holloway noted that Sperry Marine VMS-based integrated bridge systems are either installed on or under contract for 175 U.S. Navy ships and submarines. It is the only navigation system that has been certified by the Navigator of the Navy to meet the requirements for naval electronic chart display and information systems (ECDIS-N) under the U.S. Navy’s phased program to convert the fleet from paper to electronic nautical charts.

The eLearning courseware was created by Sperry Marine’s team of navigation instructors and courseware developers, and complements the traditional VMS lessons taught in the company’s training and simulator facilities in the U.S. as well as shipboard
instructor-provided training.

Northrop Grumman Sperry Marine, headquartered in Charlottesville, Va., and with major engineering and support offices in New Malden, United Kingdom and Hamburg, Germany, provides smart navigation and ship control solutions for the international marine industry with customer service and support through offices in 16 countries, sales representatives in 47 countries and authorized service depots in more than 250 locations worldwide.

Northrop Grumman Corporation is a leading global security company whose 120,000 employees provide innovative systems, products, and solutions in aerospace, electronics, information systems, shipbuilding and technical services to government and
commercial customers worldwide.