It is difficult to talk about the beginning of “The Mugu Crows Club” without first touching on the history of EW at the Point Mugu Naval Air Field. Point Mugu started as a Navy Base in 1945 when the Navy decided to consolidate its scattered pilotless aircraft squadrons at Point Mugu, California. In the late 1940’s, CDR Clifton Evans, Head of the Service Group of the Technical Service Department, became interested in the missile test activities of his Interference Control Division. CDR Evans, an avid Ham Radio enthusiast, identified the commonality of interference being experienced by missiles under test with the lack of electronic countermeasures in missile development. His voice was heard, and on April 1, 1951, the CNO and Navy Bureau of Aeronautics asked the Point Mugu Naval Air Missile Test Center to establish the Countermeasures Division under CDR Evans organization. This small team of extremely talented engineers began Mugu’s legacy in testing and developing countermeasures and counter-countermeasures. By 1964, the (renamed) Electronic Warfare Division’s efforts became highly visible in the defense community, and had grown well beyond missile evaluation to include research and development of advanced experimental techniques and tactics to counter threats. In 1968, the Point Mugu Naval Missile Center was assigned coordination and control responsibilities for all Naval Air Systems Command Headquarters EW equipment development, test and evaluation programs. The size of the Navy EW organization grew from eighty in 1960 to one hundred and sixty in 1969, and continued to double into the 1970’s.
When the small AOC Organization started in 1964, Bob Nielson, a bright RF countermeasures engineer, convinced his fellow EW enthusiast that this was an organization that met the needs for Point Mugu. He quickly organized a team, looked for volunteers to serve as officers and the Mugu Crows became the AOC’s 3rd Chapter as well as the first Naval oriented chapter on October 14th, 1965. The Chapter was quite small, but it wasn’t long before the majority of the military and engineering staff of the Countermeasures Division became members. Initially, the Chapter focus was on quarterly meetings / social events with large participation by membership. As industry moved into the Oxnard Plains, the membership grew in size and became more diverse. The members’ need grew, and the Mugu Crows Club began to support EW training, information briefs, and mentoring. One of the biggest developments was an Annual EW Symposium which started in the late 1960’s. Many of the AOC Mugu Symposiums were held jointly with the Verdugo and Santa Barbara AOC Chapters with shared responsibility for speakers and symposium logistics support. In 2010, the Mugu Chapter initiated an agreement with AOC Headquarters and Naval Air Warfare Center to develop a focused symposia series to address the war fighters’ ability to jointly maneuver and fight in the Electromagnetic Spectrum collaboratively, e.g. the “Collaborative EW Symposium.”
The Mugu Chapter is concerned about the large technical challenge on the next generation of Scientist and Engineers, and we have an active education support program. Besides AOC membership involvement in school mentoring programs, science fairs, and robotics activities; we have been actively promoting science and technology through our scholarship program. Since 1984, the Mugu Chapter has awarded almost 100 scholarships. This information as well as other news can be found on our Mugu Crows Club website (http://aocmugu.org).
Given a time when Professional Organizations are struggling, the forward thinking Mugu Chapter continues to draw new and young Military, Industry, Academia, and Government membership. The EW/IO/Cyber/SM/EMSO enthusiast works in a professional field that must keep up with fast-changing technology; they require immediate feedback to ensure their efforts meet customer needs (i.e. short product delivery cycles from requirement to tactical operators); and their scope has expanded from what we use to think of as “EW” to what we now call “Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations.” The AOC Mugu Chapter is committed to meet membership needs. It doesn’t hurt that the Mugu Chapter Officers, Board, and volunteers strive to provide value to membership by donating time toward developing an annual 3-day symposium, Lunch and Learn Speaker Events, EW training materials, and social events to help facilitate collaboration and mentoring of our younger Crows. The Mugu Chapter looks forward to grow and adapt to support our AOC membership in the next 50 years of change.
From the Mugu Chapter President – Mark Schallheim, the Board and members.