Saab Australia Senior Engineer wins 2017 McNeil Prize
We congratulate and celebrate the Australian Naval Institute’s 2017 McNeil Prize, awarded to one of Saab Australia’s longest-serving senior combat systems engineers, Mr Peter Evans.
This prestigious award recognises Peter Evans as an outstanding system engineer. Primarily his input developing Australia’s worldclass 9LV combat management system for the ANZAC class frigates, and latest Anti-Ship Missile Defence upgrade recently completed across the ANZAC Fleet. A variant of the system is also on Navy’s Canberra class Landing Helicopter Dock ships and will be installed on the new fleet of replenishment ships. This Australian-designed combat management system has also been exported to support the Royal Thai Navy. A future version is in contention for the RAN’s Future Frigate and the Canadian Future Surface Combatant projects.
“This prestigious prize is so well-deserved. I worked with Peter for many years, and am extremely proud of his contributions to the Royal Australian Navy. His thought leadership and guidance in architecting a scalable and flexible Australian combat management system over almost three decades has been exemplary,” said Saab Australia Managing Director, Dean Rosenfield.
Vice Admiral David Johnson presented the award with Mrs Elspeth Killip whom is the granddaughter of Admiral McNeil, the award’s namesake; and Lockheed Martin Australia 2017 award sponsor, Mr Vince DiPietro.
The McNeil Prize honours the legacy of Rear Admiral Percival McNeil CB RAN (1883-1951) a founding father of Australian shipbuilding whose noteworthy contribution to Navy and industry is remembered with his faith of Australia's ability to build world-class ships.
After a successful naval career, including tenure as Acting Director of Naval Combat System Engineering, Peter Evans joined Saab Australia in 1991. He was pivotal in establishing the deep, broad engineering capability the program required with local support. Championing system engineering led software design, he guided the acquisition project to successful completion with 15% locally designed and implemented software, based on the world-leading Saab 9LV core product. Over time and through subsequent upgrades the local designed and implementation of the ANZAC combat management systems has grown to more than 50%.
Peter Evans was Saab Australia’s leading senior combat system engineer until retirement in 2010.
