Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md. – Reflective of a year of transitions within the government, Project Manager Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PM PNT) changed project manager (PM) leadership on June 24 from Michael Trzeciak to Christopher Jais during an official Change of Charter and retirement ceremony. Trzeciak departed the organization after nearly four years of leading 180 professional government civilians and contractors and 15 field-grade officers as its PM and after 42 total years of service to the nation.
PM PNT is the U.S. Army’s lead acquisition developer charged with developing, modernizing and integrating optimal and affordable positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) capabilities to promote decisive action in Army operations. It reports to Program Executive Office Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors (PEO IEW&S) and collaborates with other Army and joint Service partners to develop interoperable products that provide real-time secure PNT services for combat and combat support field missions.
During Trzeciak’s tenure, he led the development and fielding of the organization’s $1.5 billion portfolio of multiple cutting-edge technologies and capabilities, including Acquisition Category (ACAT) I and ACAT II programs (major defense acquisition programs with the highest level of Department of Defense oversight and programs with significant costs and importance respectively). He guided these programs through highly successful acquisition milestones, initial operational test and evaluations and full-rate production decisions.
Trzeciak worked in close alignment with partners and stakeholders from Department of the Army; Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology (ASA(ALT)); Army Test and Evaluation Command; All-Domain Sensing Cross-Functional Team; and Communications-Electronics Command to support the executing the Chief of Staff of the Army’s 2028 vision for assured positioning, navigation and timing modernization – a high-priority effort for the U.S. Army. In doing so, Trzeciak completed some of the first middle-tier acquisition rapid fieldings for the Army, enabling the delivery of new technologies to soldiers faster than traditional acquisition programs. Such technologies included Alternative Navigation and multiple Navigation Warfare Situational Awareness and Attack programs, leveraging ongoing intelligence and joint electronic warfare capabilities and urgent needs.
He oversaw the creation and implementation of the U.S. Army PNT Reference Architecture, which was adopted by the DoD and other services as the foundational architecture for more than 150 platforms and systems. It will continue to benefit all Army Assured PNT applications and facilitate the ability to pace the adversary threat through 2040. Additionally, Trzeciak was the Army’s primary coordination point for the Military Code (M-code) U.S. Space Force program with ASA(ALT) and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, providing recommendations for program decisions. He also led the introduction of some of the first M-code-capable systems into the Army with PM PNT’s Mounted Assured PNT System Generation II, and Dismounted APNT System Generations I and II, providing soldiers with critical and reliable PNT information and enabling mission success in environments where GPS is degraded or unavailable.
Prior the project manager role, Trzeciak held the deputy project manager position at PM PNT and before that was director of engineering and acquisition for Joint Project Manager Guardian. He also served as an army acquisition fellow, a role in which he worked as Department of the Army system coordinator and acquisition management specialist within PEO IEW&S headquarters. He also held positions within PEO Integration as assistant product manager within PM Infantry Brigade Combat Team Increment 2 and task force leader for modular base defense. Additionally, Trzeciak was a team leader at Edgewood Chemical and Biological Center, leading numerous quick reaction capability projects for the Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization and Rapid Equipping Force as well as a two-year Defense Threat Reduction Agency-sponsored joint capability technology demonstration that provided critical site exploitation and reconnaissance capabilities to the U.S. Pacific Command.
He retired from the Army in 2003 with 21 years of active service that included assignments with 2nd Support Command, 21st Theater Army Area Command, 45th Support Group, 3rd Infantry Division and culminated his career as the Division Chief for the U.S. Army Ordnance Center and School Metal Working Department—the senior-most position in the Army for his occupational specialty. Trzeciak served multiple overseas rotations in locations that included Germany, Turkey, Bosnia, Hungary, Japan and Hawaii.
With Trzeciak’s departure, the organization welcomed Jais into the project manager role. Jais comes to PM PNT after recently graduating from the Defense Acquisition University Senior Service College Fellowship and with prior experience as product manager at PM PNT’s PNT Modernization office and as deputy product manager at the organization’s Dismounted PNT office. His career history also includes serving as strategic initiatives lead for PEO IEW&S, and test and quality division chief as well as reliability and quality lead for PM Distributed Common Ground System – Army. Jais also worked as reliability analyst at the Army Materiel System Analysis Activity and entered his civilian service in April 2004 at the Army Test and Evaluation Command as a Reliability Evaluator for the Army Evaluation Center.
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