A new rating insignia has been introduced into the Navy, and Master Chief Christopher Rambert is the first to wear it. In a special ceremony held in Arlington, Virginia, Chief of Naval Personnel, Vice Adm. Rick Cheeseman, and the Navy’s Personnel Plans and Policy Division (N13) Director, Rear Adm. Jim Waters, pinned Rambert as the Navy’s first Robotics Warfare Specialist.
The rating insignia, known commonly as RW, was awarded to Rambert about a week after the Navy announced the branch’s enlisted career field for operators, maintainers and managers of robotic and autonomous systems.
“It’s really an awesome feeling to be the first one to represent the rating,” Rambert stated in a Navy press release. “And to see this rating finally come to fruition, you can see the level of excitement and passion from the other Sailors that are out there.”
Though Rambert is the first to wear the badge, he is one of the many Sailors who have witnessed the years of work that have gone into developing it. From research and analysis to organizing working groups and designating individual subject matter experts, Sailors and Navy civilian employees have been working behind the scenes to create the Robotics Warfare Specialist career field for over three years.
“It’s a proud moment to see all the hard work that’s gone into developing this badge,” Rambert commented, “and just seeing it finally get codified and brought to life—to me, it signifies the hard work of the people around me.”
Its founding has officially distinguished the Navy as the first defense branch to establish a dedicated enlisted workforce specialized in unmanned and autonomous technology. Rambert, who has a background as an aviation electrician’s mate, spoke about the tactical advantages that will come with the new rating’s requirements and the opportunity for growth.
“You get the opportunity to go to so many different places,” Rambert said. “If you look across the spectrum of the entire Navy, you’ve got Sailors that have the potential to really touch every single domain out there, and that’s very rare.”
He also credited the Department of Defense’s hybrid force framework for the program’s ability to allow Sailors to develop seasoned experience across the rating’s multiple domains—subsurface, surface, air and ground platforms.
Though Rambert is the first to be pinned, he will be far from the last. The initial selection of Sailors for RW will consist primarily of active-duty Sailors with robotics-related NEC codes or those who currently or formerly held assignments to billets in unmanned vehicle divisions. Active-duty E-4 to E-9 Sailors who have these experiences can apply for RW by submitting a NAVPERS 1306/7 Electronic Personnel Action Request (EPAR) form to BUPERS-328 or BUPERS-352 (SELRES).
Regarding the future of RW’s candidates, Rambert told news outlets: “They have to have [the] drive to want to be a part of something that might not be entirely defined by policy. They need to be passionate about what they do because what they’re learning now and the lessons learned that we take to the table later can have huge effects on the success of the rating as we progress into the future.”
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