NAVAIR Employee Represents Navy As Vice Chair Of Open Group Business Working Group

Amaka Chidozie, member of the Air Combat Electronics program office (PMA-209) avionics architecture team, was recently elected as vice chair by the Open Group Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) as the Navy’s only representative on the organization’s business working group. (U.S. Navy Photo)

NAVAL AIR SYSTEMS COMMAND, PATUXENT RIVER, Md. – The Open Group Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) Consortium elected Amaka Chidozie, a member of the Air Combat Electronics program office (PMA-209), as the new business working group vice chair and the only Navy representative.

Formed in 2010, The Open Group FACE Consortium is a voluntary organization with members representing government, industry and academia. Members of the consortium have developed the FACE approach software standard and business strategy, which define an open avionics environment, allowing for interchangeable, plug-and-play designs that provide both cost savings and increase readiness by reducing cycle time for software upgrades and other common time consuming tasks.

Chidozie manages the Hardware Open Standard Technologies (HOST) development program, a hardware open architecture standards framework. The HOST mission is to provide the Navy and other services options to rapidly and cost effectively adopt newer technologies in computing components. In support of that mission, Chidozie concentrates her efforts on the implementation of the HOST standard across various DoD platforms.

“I was attracted to the vice chair position because the ability to collaborate closely with industry partners is invaluable, and supporting advanced development of sustainable products will provide for a more affordable future in sustainment for the Navy,” said Chidozie. “In my new position, I will look to align emerging technology capabilities with a wide range of DoD platform needs, “she said.

Chidozie joined PMA-209 after serving on active duty for more than 10 years. Throughout her active duty career, she observed the benefits open architecture could bring to the fleet. She first served as a communications and intelligence officer, and participated in multiple deployments while she completed her surface warfare officer qualification. She joined the engineering duty officer community and served as the project manager for several surface ships at Ship Repair Facility Yokosuka, Japan. Chidozie graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 2007 with a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and obtained a Masters in Systems Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology in 2014.

“We are very excited the Open Group elected Chidozie to represent the Navy. By bringing in a subject matter expert on HOST, they can better promote open architecture strategies to enable faster technology insertion into the naval aviation systems that our warfighters already have,” said Capt. Margaret Wilson, PMA-209 program manager.

PMA-209 is NAVAIR’s executive agent for the development and management of cutting edge air combat electronics systems. Established in 1988, PMA-209 is responsible for providing critical capabilities to the warfighter in the form of common, fully developed, supportable, and reliable systems that align with the strategic and operational requirements of our platform PEO/PMA customers.  By delivering the highest quality products and services on time and within budget, PMA-209 has built a solid reputation for superior quality as well as sound business practices.

Implementing state-of-the-art technology solutions across the Naval Aviation Enterprise, PMA-209 meets the goal of supporting “Tomorrow’s Capabilities within Today’s Budget.”