Pryne-Avilez Draws on Weapon System Expertise, Seafaring Experience in New Role at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division

Pryne-Avilez Draws on Weapon System Expertise, Seafaring Experience in New Role at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division

By Thomas McMahon Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division

An interest in engineering and a love of navigating the ocean helped chart the course for Cmdr. Christina Pryne-Avilez's naval career.

The new department officer at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Port Hueneme Division (NSWC PHD) in California advanced from sailing dinghies while growing up in Hawaii and at the U.S. Naval Academy to steering massive warships during her deployments in the Navy.

Along with her seafaring background, Pryne-Avilez draws on her experience with weapon systems in NSWC PHD's wheelhouse for her new role, which she embarked on July 29.

She also brings insights from multiple perspectives - shipboard, warfare center and program office. Her tours have taken her everywhere from the decks of deployed ships to NSWC Dahlgren Division to the Missile Defense Agency (MDA).

She most recently served as Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) Weapon System readiness officer at MDA in Virginia. That position, in which she functioned as the product manager for Aegis BMD in-service baselines, brought her into contact with NSWC PHD personnel, including Aegis-Based Defense Customer Advocate Chad Colby.

He worked closely with Pryne-Avilez at least weekly, sometimes daily, to support the fleet engaged in Operation Epic Fury in the Middle East.

"She ensures ships in harm's way are supported to execute the mission," Colby said. "She's a welcome addition here at PHD. She knows the systems we support intimately."

Among those systems is the Optical Dazzling Interdictor, Navy. During her time at NSWC Dahlgren Division in Virginia, Pryne-Avilez worked on platform integration for ODIN and led the Laser Community of Practice under the Office of Naval Research.

After that tour, she served as deputy principal assistant program manager for platform systems integration for the Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) Program Office.

As a leader, Pryne-Avilez champions the Navy's Get Real, Get Better initiative, advocating for self-correction and continuous improvement. She said that while processes are in place for a reason - often because "someone died or got hurt" - those processes should still be subject to assessment.

"We should figure out ways to get more efficient while keeping the underlying technical rigor," she said.

Sailing and STEM

Growing up in Honolulu, Pryne-Avilez developed passions for sailing small boats known as dinghies and for learning about subjects in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) realm.

"I've always liked STEM," she said. "I like the thought of making things work."

As for the dinghies, she said she enjoys the thrill of being close to the water - even the possibility of capsizing - as well as the need for self-sufficiency in a crew of only one or two.

"You have to know how to do everything," she said.

Both of those pursuits played into Pryne-Avilez's college education. At the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, she studied control systems engineering and competed on the intercollegiate sailing team, in which her peers elected her as captain.

After graduating from the Naval Academy, she served in two operations tours, first as division officer in the Weapons and Engineering Department aboard Ticonderoga-class cruiser USS Bunker Hill (CG 52) from 2010 to 2013, and then as fire control officer aboard Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Gridley (DDG 101) from 2013 to 2015.

While at sea, Pryne-Avilez said she cherished chances to drive the ships - "It's fun," as she put it - and to behold the beauty of the natural world far from land, including brilliantly starry nights and marine life sightings.

"I do miss being underway," she said. "It can be so peaceful, and I've always liked the ocean."

After her time in the fleet, Pryne-Avilez earned a Master of Science in applied physics at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. Her thesis focused on finding a way to study reactive material, which "basically incinerates when it hits something," she explained.

"Because it incinerates, there was no understanding of what it does once it hits something," she said. "We were trying to develop mock inert material that didn't incinerate to understand the properties of it."

Pryne-Avilez also found some time to sail while in Monterey, but she didn't during the ensuing nine years on the East Coast.

Since getting settled in Ventura County, she said she has been enjoying the pleasant weather and the local cuisine - particularly the authentic Mexican food, which was hard to find around her last duty station.

"It's all Tex-Mex in Virginia, which is not the same," she said.