Season 1 | Episode 8

Kyle Woerner 

Sure. And and I’ll I’ll first comment, the reason that they tended to focus a lot of my ademic publications on surface vessel based autonomy was not because I had lost interest in the undersea, but rather to ensure that I was being very conscious and appropriately treating all the sensitive information about the undersea environment. But I’ve been exposed to throughout my career, right? And we we were very deliberate with my thesis committees to ensure that we were exploring an area of academic research that had all the necessary rigor, would not in any way come close to a line of sensitivity and be something that couldn’t be publishable. 

Ben Garvey 

Right. 

Kyle Woerner 

So the task that we looked at through the initial research was really trying to understand how humans and machines might think differently about problems that were inherently shaped around a human written human thought, human constructed relationship. And we see that all the time with self driving cars and other sort of. Interactions between humans and machines it’s it’s a largely human based thought process of how we drive cars. You don’t necessarily see animals yielding when they come to a crossroads, right? And so we have certain protocols that keep us able to navigate safely, say things with get chips. 

Ben Garvey 

You’re right. 

Kyle Woerner 

And and so we started asking the question, you know, human on human is pretty well understood. And we think that robot on robot is something that we could make work well. But the real question comes with what happens when the human and machine interactions, especially as the number of humans and machines interacting at the same time, starts to grow and you no longer have a one-on-one scenario, right? So we really started pushing the bounds on mount. Can we increase the complexity if you will, of those interactions and what does that start to look like? One of the areas that we also explored is in the collaboration of a large amount of robots to do a task that might be unable to be immediately achieved by humans, and one of those was that it’s absurd response. So an example of that might be shipped that’s leaking oil or some other sort of environmentally catastrophic event, and it might be most expeditious or safest for all involved to have a robotic lead response to that. Yeah. And so part of a conference that we were exploring was how can we start to look at the astronomy required to contain such an event and do so in a way that’s not only safe for the environment, but safe for the robots and also safe for any of the vehicles that might have events on board. Because you can imagine human supervisor. Or some sort of a story that needs to go ahead and actually put human eyeballs in the scenario. 

Ben Garvey 

Right. 

Kyle Woerner 

And ensure safety and compliance. 

Ben Garvey 

And I’m dying at suspense. Here is it a. Is it assault problem or is this? Is this a a done deal? 

Kyle Woerner 

I hesitate to say any problem in in the space of meeting Tony is solved that there are. 

Ben Garvey 

They. It. 

Kyle Woerner 

There are several that that claim to have solved certain areas, and I very quickly, despite those, unless there’s a lot of overwhelming proofs. Hey I think we can very quickly find edge cases that push us into the world of not quite good enough. It might be solved within the context of limited assumptions or limited knowledge, or just where we are with respect to the current state of practice. But as our systems become more complicated as we add more agents that are interacting with each other, as you increase the environmental complexity as you decrease the ability to sense or communicate with each other. Now this all becomes very, very difficult, which really in my opinion illustrates why the undersea community is such a structure. Because the things that we sort of take for granted and the air breeding world, whether things fly or float on the ocean, tend to be a rather permissive ability to communicate rather permissive ability to navigate and rather precise, but ability to sense. 

Yep. 

Kyle Woerner 

And we tend to lose all of those things to a great extent as soon as. May I go under the air water interface? Of the ocean. And that’s where it really gets. Exciting to me. 

Ben Garvey 

No, I I don’t think the general public really. Gets that right. They think we can talk underwater just fine. I think that, you know, sound travels at a pretty constant rate underwater that there’s, you know, it’s all pretty well known and well solved, but that complexity is just massive. Even with the tools we have today. You know, and so are we. Are we seeing? Big leaps of that in the industry. What? What is the state of in your opinion of of of the autonomous command and control underwater world at the moment, and you’ve spoken about it, but where is the industry compared to to where it was, say, five years ago? With the advances we’ve got in computing or and I. 

The. 

Kyle Woerner 

I think in any of the physical domains we’re we’re seeing a lot of advances and all the advances are consistent with more companies becoming interested in a space. It’s also consistent with greater advances more broadly through the academic and industrial environments with respect to autonomous capabilities, sensing like a glitch, communication capabilities, and so any of these domains will continue to see that interest. One of the areas that has less. Of an immediate application from a commercial perspective is the undersea. We don’t tend to see as many commercial entities investing in undersea vehicles and especially under sea Tony, as we have with respect to driverless cars, for example, or or uncrewed aerial vehicles. So it’s not that it’s not advancing because it absolute. Yes, but I think there’s done a bit of delay with respect to the other physical domains. As far as the start of the excitement, if you will or the critical mass, if you will, of being able to really move that way, I think we are seeing a wonderful blossoming of capabilities. But we’re not quite to the place, but we would like to be yet and I don’t think we’re right to the place that we see in the the aerial work surface maritime domains. 

Ben Garvey 

Right. We’re kind of we wanna get to the.com boom under of under see, you know. 

Kyle Woerner 

Maybe without the boom, but yes. 

Ben Garvey 

I I think that’s a really interesting segue into the the another topic that I wanted to discuss with you and and get your kind of perspective on because you’ve had an extraordinarily broad exposure to academia, industry, military and the the different ways of communicating and advancing technology across each one of those you know. Silos are verticals. If you call it and and how they work together, it seems like you know as a small business here and ingenuity in in the business of innovation, we we work well with with inventors. We work well with technical teams. We try to work well with the government. We certainly we all came from academia. So we we work well, I think with a. Lenient, but there’s these subtle differences in language and approach that really, really seemed to sometimes when you break through the amazing things happen and other times you end up left in silos. And one of your colleagues, Eric, Brian, that we had on this podcast awhile ago was talking about the salary and the these groups and how we need to breakthrough that and and get each one to kind of reach across these silos. And I wonder if you could comment on that and let you know, give us some wisdom on what you’ve seen in your career about how we, how we breakdown these silos and how small business, for example, can engage with all the mule. Full levels. 

Kyle Woerner 

I absolutely agree that we have silos of excellence throughout different types of organizations, whether that’s governments or industry or even military. I also would expand on that and suggest that we have silos within each of those cultures, whether they’re particular entities or companies, organizations or even the career fields within those entities. And and some of them may may span across various entities and you can almost think it of as a bit of a matrix if you will, but finance people and one organization probably speak some part of the finance language of another organization and you can imagine that a government organization as a whole may still struggle to speak with commercial organization as a whole. So within this world of framework. I think it’s very important to whatever organization you are with or interacting with learn their language. Learn how they speak, why they speak that way. It’s likely a reflection of their culture, and it’s likely a reflection of the things that they need value and the things that they don’t value, and in doing so we learn the way to goes to effectively and efficiently communicate with them to bring effects to our shared and cost. And I think that there’s value in doing so, not just for today, but also for. Future and extreme example might be the way that folks communicate inside the Pentagon. There’s sort of their own language, their own culture, their own way of getting business done. Knowing what that’s like and what certain words mean to different organizations or different people might be very different. Are you what? One might think they’re the same words or or decisions might meet mean on the outside, and so understanding what those values are and how they transfer is important. And to your question with respect to small businesses under starting to understand what those. Languages are and at least acknowledging when there is a potential for them to have a difference. Is it big um area of opportunity? One of the nice things about working with small businesses from my prior life as a government sponsor was seeing the opportunity to really have discussions on an intimate level, like when you talk to a small business, you’re typically talking to the small business owner or someone that’s pretty senior in their organization just because they’re inherently small. There are also very hungry to find ways to collaborate with folks, so they tend to be very receptive to learning the languages and learning the different ways that we can help them. One of the ways that we help them is to help them understand the language that the government and what, for example, different contracting nuances might be and and how that can affect them. And we can also use that opportunity to introduce them to. Larger businesses, ones that are not necessarily eligible for Small Business Administration type activities, especially the larger businesses that are eager to work with the small businesses, ones that are very proactive about protecting the small businesses, dietary information, data rights, but also wanting to help them grow and find a product really. Take off. But there’s benefits for all parties. When you find that really powerful and forward leaning relationship and doing so in a way that has value to not just the small business but also the different entities really helps them be more transparent and for leading and learning each other’s language and seeing where there might be differences and where we might be saying the exact same thing, just using different words and how we might explore. 

Ben Garvey 

I love that the the Pentagon example was is a is very apt. I mean the, you know, we’re kind of new at some of this stuff. You know, we’ve been around for 22 years, but we’re still learning how different departments of various governments and various nations speak. And I mean the the Dictionary of acronyms to begin with is. It’s just it’s. It’s bewildering to start with in many military organizations. So, but even outside of military, even you know, if you’re working for research organizations and government, we find that the first step, like you said, is learned the language. It’s it can mean completely different things to different people, even though you’re using the same words, it’s really quite, quite challenging. 

Kyle Woerner 

If I could, then I think I think one of the areas that’s important after we acknowledge that we have different languages is to encourage folks to. Plainly right. And part of speaking plainly involves trying to abolish the use of acronyms whenever possible, or if they are required, at least define them. So everyone’s on the same page. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in an area where I’ve seen some under C folks coming in to brief and they haven’t taken the opportunity to sort of define things that it’s sort of seem extremely obvious to us if we’ve been in the undersea world. For a while, if you don’t take that sort of approach of sort of trying to speak plainly at all times, you might find yourself briefing somebody with an Air Force background or a very not under sea background. And it’s not that they aren’t experts in their field. They just haven’t been exposed to that language, and so by using the plain language whenever possible, I think we not only the. Wow, the the general audience to keep up with us right from the beginning. But we also have a more healthy and engaged conversation for the entirety without having to come back and basically explain. Things a second time. 

Ben Garvey 

I love it. I love it. I mean it’s it seems so basic and yet it is so fundamental, but there are there. Are there groups that do this particularly well? I mean, it’s just widely acknowledged across various departments. Or is this an uphill down? 

Kyle Woerner 

And I will say that I’ve seen some organizations have practices that I can. They’re very good practices and and that is one just avoid the use of jargon and acronyms whenever possible. But if you do require them, define them immediately. Define them within the context of your presentation or your White paper, or whatever your communication medium is in a way that is transparent and overt. 

Ben Garvey 

Metastic. Yeah, I I was taking a wander around the STR. You know your current company’s website for beta, one of the phrases I saw there in your I believe is in the mission statement was about driving sense making from big data and from chaotic sources. And that really rang a bell with me. And really kind of rings true. Pulling actionable intelligence out of a this nebulous pool of. Yeah, that we’re all sort of bathed in all the time now, can you can you speak a bit to that and how how that kind of is a natural extension, I suppose from speaking plainly and bringing things down to the basics again. 

Kyle Woerner 

Yeah, absolutely. So currently it STR systems and technology research which was started in response to a couple key individuals thinking that there’s ways to really do excellent work and make impact on key national security and national interest areas. And STR has had some. Extremely impactful contributions to the national security space in the last 10 plus years that we’ve been around and and one of those I think is exactly to your point, which is being able to bring clarity not just to the spoken or written language, but also out of big data sets and really tough technical problems. That we’re either previously thought to be on the achievable or previously thought to be not something that could be done at a straightforward, affordable way for the government and as part of that STR has organized itself to be responsive to the various government customers, including focusing on sensing, encounter sentencing, analytics, cyber as well as system development and really trying to understand. How to take the approaches of the government’s concerns and decompose them into a way that can be thus understood and thus completed for the task at hand and then providing that back in a completely human understandable fashion? That’s not only effective, but also efficient. 

Ben Garvey 

At an intensely difficult challenge, I mean that to to pull, to be able to go. Deep enough in and understand technically enough and yet be able to pull back and throw it in in plain terms and pick out the Nuggets of value. That’s that’s extraordinary. It’s interesting, you know, speaking with high performing folks like you who have this background and the ability to to have a foot in both the technical and the management of the, you know, policy even sides. I was speaking about this with with Daniel here this morning and the high performance folks that we have been speaking with all have this very humble, approachable claims. Think way about them and I’ve been trying to to kind of get to the bottom of of how that evolves and how that becomes part of your way of operating because it it seems to be universal. You take it all. Fighter pilots, submarine operators, high performing people in in all of these boxes and yet very easy to speak with. Humble open. Interested. Curious. And there’s something that’s that’s being done right in the training, I think and in the growth. I wonder if you could, you could speak to that a bit. You know, to me, obviously you’re relying on your colleagues in these situations to stay alive, and there’s a certain amount of humility that comes from that. But it’s probably much deeper and much more complex. 

Kyle Woerner 

But I think that part of the answer and I don’t mean to be exclusive in the answer, but part of the answer, at least through the lens of my past and my story is one of service and the service members that I’ve been with. I don’t think that many people join the service side of our country or financial reasons, or monetary reward, or being famous, right? Plenty of other careers that these individuals high achieving individuals very talented, very smart, could go do if they wanted fame or if they wanted a lot of treasure. 

Yeah. 

Kyle Woerner 

But but they instead choose to live a life of service and frankly, sacrifice as to their families and loved ones that either move with them or leave them behind as they deploy. Think part of that shared mentality, if you will, that shared sort of self value is really seen throughout the culture of that service and it’s really reinvigorated by the leaders at all levels. Oops, part of being a member of that. Sort of organization, that sort of culture is just really seeing the talented people at every level live that on a daily basis and it becomes not only normal, but it becomes expected and part of our makeup. And I’d suggest that when those folks are challenged with opportunities to grow or opportunities to. To pick something if it got a lot of challenges that aren’t necessarily what the typical person working sort of standard job might have been exposed to. In their life. 

Ben Garvey 

Right. 

Kyle Woerner 

And there’s a lot of really challenging things that folks go through and in all parts of the world. And I’m not suggesting that it’s better, it’s just different. And the the sort of experiences they’ve had the life or death decisions, the highly complex technical decisions that need to be made with not only by consequence, but sometimes in a very limited ability to make those decisions. Thanks. We see that they tend to focus on the ability to provide a lasting character, if you will, and in the way that they not only approach problems, but the. Way they make decisions. 

Ben Garvey 

Yeah, that that makes sense. 

Kyle Woerner 

I think you also see that in their communication. 

Ben Garvey 

Makes perfect sense. Yeah. And that goes what we’re seeing. Indeed, that’s that’s a wonderful, pricey and then. Thank you. So what does the what does the future hold for you with? With the your work now and and what is it that gets you up out of out of bed in the morning? Gets you excited every day. Are you? Hopefully what you see are you excited about what’s coming up and and can you share a little bit about where you where the industry is going and where you’re headed personally? 

Kyle Woerner 

I am excited about what I see. I’m excited about what I think the future holds. I view that through a few different ones. I’m. I’m really excited. To be able to focus a lot more on on my family and personal life, and after transitioning out of government, it is extraordinary ride of government service and one of the areas that I’ve really emphasized wanting to focus on in my next chapter is ensuring that I can keep the focus on family and relationships and ensure that that basis is bedrock. With that established, then I’m very excited. From what I’m seeing in the technical comma. The there’s so much innovation, it’s occurring both out of necessity and opportunity throughout our world right now and the ability to look at those challenges and opportunities and find ways to relate advance key technological areas is in my mind not bounded by the technological capabilities of our people, but rather the willingness and resources of us to engage and a thoughtful and responsible way forward. So I think that there’s a very interesting time that we’re in right now where we see the ability of advances from three primary lenses. And in my view, the technology, the operational opportunities as well as the policies that that we choose and I think that those three areas are best examined as a balance. And so that one of those levers, this not get in front of the others, if you will, we’re seeing especially in the past couple of years and I think in the immediate future areas where we need to make very deliberate decisions on how we proceed in certain technological routes for moral and ethical reasons and doing so with the liberation. 

Ben Garvey 

Right. 

Kyle Woerner 

And in a way that’s responsible for for all of our futures is parabola. 

Ben Garvey 

Is is the Pali policy piece keeping up? 

Kyle Woerner 

I think that there’s opportunities and and all three of those areas to to look for a balance. I I think that each of those three areas has a lever that can be swung hard in any direction and where the real magic happens is where we’ve. And the optimal placement such that all of them are sort of firing on all the cylinders at the right time. So if you will. 

Ben Garvey 

Left hand. Turn here. What do you do to relax? 

Kyle Woerner 

Uh, I I have quite a few passions that allowed me to relax. And I’m not sure that there’s necessarily sound relaxing to everyone. But number one thing is spending time with my family. I absolutely enjoy just doing anything that. And involves them when I can. I like to also involve them in moving my blood right, so that’s just something that’s very important to me, is keeping a healthy lifestyle and to the extent that I can bring them along, willing or otherwise, that allows me to have fun there. 

Ben Garvey 

How old your kids? 

Kyle Woerner 

Um, my my kids are still very young, so it’s something, something to to keep there. 

Kyle Woerner 

Um, good for you. Passion that. That I have that is not something that you usually cross paths with every day. It’s. I’m avid answer of Argentine tango. Wow, that’s actually how my wife and I met. And it’s something I’ve enjoyed for almost 20 years now. 

Ben Garvey 

Fantastic and I love it. But that’s bad and you’re a musician as well. You mentioned that in the video in the start. 

Kyle Woerner 

My my brother is the the real musician of the family, but I I I enjoyed playing in music through through growing up and in the college and now I enjoy listening to the real professionals do their work. 

Ben Garvey 

Good. 

Kyle Woerner 

My my instrument used to be a trombone. 

Ben Garvey 

Awesome, awesome trombone playing tango dance. Well, that’s fantastic. Now we’re getting the picture. 

Kyle Woerner 

Yeah. There you go. 

Ben Garvey 

Love it and and another one that I picked up was doing a bit of research was you’re leading some spa business operations. That’s really interesting as well. 

Kyle Woerner 

But I am not leading them my, my, my. OK, very successful spouse. It’s my bride has been a successful multiple offender of starting and running, some really great businesses and for prior life was while she was living in Maui helping a lot of folks through the world of all things that can happen with your skin while you’re out there and through aesthetics and

Ben Garvey 

Right. 

Kyle Woerner 

Ecology and she had a very successful run while we were living in Boston, hoping some small business row and to much more successful business. And she’s been able to expand that model throughout the field. 

Ben Garvey 

Fantastic. You, your household must have some fantastic conversations and I love to hear that sounds absolutely amazing. Listen, you’ve been very generous with your time and and your thoughts, Kyle. There’s, there’s a lot that digest and and work through here and I. I’m I want to reserve the option to come back and question you on a whole bunch more stuff than you said here, but thank you so much. Very, very insightful and and really enjoyable. I look forward to meeting you again soon. 

Kyle Woerner 

Makes beneficiated. 

Ben Garvey 

This episode was produced by Me Daniel at Enginuity  Studios. If you have a story to tell about life within the marine sector or have an engineering challenge, you want to share with one of our experts, please reach out to info@enginuityinc.ca. 

That’s info at ENGINUITY inc.ca and to learn how you can overcome your organization’s harsh environment challenges, please visit our website and engenuityinc.ca. We’d love to hear from you. Until next time, Fairwinds and following seas.