Huntington Ingalls adds LaCroix

Huntington Ingalls Industries said Friday it has hired former Navy civilian executive James LaCroix as corporate director of the shipbuilder’s advanced technologies office.

LaCroix will lead HII’s collaborations with the Naval Undersea Warfare Center and Naval War College on advancing new ideas and technologies into operational capabilities for customers, the company said in its release.

He spent almost his entire 35-year government service career at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center. LaCroix’s role also includes responsibility over experiments, exercises and analytic efforts through internal research-and-development.

LaCroix’s “extensive experience with unmanned undersea vehicles and torpedo development provides him with a deep understanding of the challenges of integrating unmanned system technologies into the fleet,” John Donnolly, HII’s corporate vice president of advanced technologies, said in a release.

For the past decade, LaCroix directly supported the Navy’s undersea weapons program office in torpedo acquisition roles. He is also a former line supervisor for the NUWC’s unmanned undersea vehicle branch.