Rebecca Gassler

Deputy Director, Project Overmatch

U.S. Department of the Navy

Ms. Gassler was appointed to the Senior Executive Service and began serving as the Deputy Director, Project Overmatch in October 2023. Project Overmatch is the Naval contribution to Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control (CJADC2). She works across the Navy, Joint Services, Coalition and Allies to design, develop, and field networks, infrastructure, data services, and tools and analytics in support of the Naval Operational Architecture. She previously served as a Highly Qualified Expert (HQE) in the Chief Architect role. Earlier in her career, she was an inaugural member of Project Overmatch and served as the Chief Engineer for two years, where she was responsible for design and development of the Overmatch Minimum Viable Product.

Ms. Gassler’s prior experience includes serving as the Acting Executive Director and Acting Director for Development & Integration for Program Executive Office Integrated Warfare Systems (PEO IWS). The mission of PEO IWS is to develop, deliver and sustain operationally dominant naval combat systems for our Naval Force. In her role as the Acting Executive Director, Ms. Gassler directed the acquisition and Fleet support of the Surface Navy’s 169 combat systems, weapons, radars, and related international and foreign military sales programs. Ms. Gassler was responsible for the organization of over 400 civilian and military personnel with an annual acquisition budget of over $6 Billion. In her role as the Acting Director for Development and Integration for PEO IWS, she worked with the Rapid Capabilities Office, the Chief Technical Officer, the Command Data Officer, the System of Systems Engineer, the Naval Integrated Fire Control Team, and across the PEO on developing a rapid capability process to close gaps at speed with mature technology, creating a science and technology master plan, and advancing System of System engineering through Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE).

She has completed a rotation as the MBSE Branch Head within the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations’ (OPNAV’s) Digital Warfare Office. There she was responsible for developing and implementing a scalable methodology to model the Echelon I level mission-based performance and information exchange requirements. In that role, she was a contributor to the development of the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD’s) Digital Engineering Strategy and Navy’s Digital Strategy. Ms. Gassler served on the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO’s) Task Force Netted Navy in 2016, which resulted in the standup of the Digital Warfare Office.

Ms. Gassler has also served as the Chief Architect and the PEO-wide Technical Director at PEO IWS from 2015 to 2016 and the Deputy Program Manager for the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) 4.0.1 and Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Block IA/IB programs from 2011 to 2013. Her career started at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

She was awarded the 2022 Armed Forces Communications & Electronics Association (AFCEA) Distinguished Award for Excellence in Engineering. She has also earned three Superior Civilian Service Awards throughout her career. Her degrees include a Masters in Information Systems and Technology from The Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelors in Aerospace Engineering from Virginia Tech.

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