And the Sammie goes to…
Flora Jordan, BEng’12, an armor and load bearing team engineer with the Marines Corps Systems Command, was among the U.S. federal workers recently honoured with a 2017 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal. Known as the “Sammies” and the “Oscars” of U.S. government service, the medals honour excellence in the federal workforce.
Jordan received the Promising Innovations Medal for designing lighter body armour that provides greater mobility, allows for a better fit for men and women of different statures, and offers potential long-term health benefits by reducing the impact on back and shoulders. It’s also just as protective as the marines’ current gear.
She went to unusual lengths to examine how well her armour worked.
She trudged six miles daily up and down a mountain in California wearing the protective gear, alongside marine instructors, to get a sense for herself of what it felt like. She also hiked with the new gear through the jungle in Panama during a test event.
“That was kind of miserable,” laughs Jordan. “I’ve tested a lot of gear and I’ve tested it all with them,” she says of marines. It stems from her belief that to be a good engineer and make good design choices, you have to use the protective gear and understand how marines operate in it.
“What makes [Flora] stand out is her approach to go out and get feedback upfront from marines. That’s very different than what we have done in the past,” team leader Nick Pierce, says in an article accompanying her nomination on the awards’ website. (The awards are presented by the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit organization.)
In fact, Jordan interviewed 600 marines to see what they wanted in a new body armour system. Their message? “Mobility was the number one capability they wanted, and then, fit was the second one. Durability and comfort kind of tied for third and fourth.
“They were always perfectly covered, that was never the issue,” Jordan says. “It was more like ‘I can’t get the vest to sit how I want it, so it’s sitting too much on my shoulders, and not enough on my waist and that causes discomfort. I can’t get the cummerbund tight enough, I can’t get it loose enough’ – that kind of stuff.”
Marines wear soft armour, which feels like thick, dense fabric, and hard armour – essentially a hard plate – that’s laid on top of it, Jordan explains. The other component is the carrier – the outer nylon vest that marines wear — which holds the armour in the right location on their chest and back.
Jordan focused primarily on the carrier and soft armour. She’s also currently designing a pack system, the big pack marines take with them on deployment.
“The hard armour is kind of a separate program and we don’t have as much leeway with that,” Jordan says. But they made a lot of changes to the carrier and soft armour.
They used zippers for the first time on the carrier, which allowed them to trim an inch and a half of excess bulk from its length.
Ballistics coverage is the same, Jordan says, but the new vest doesn’t cut into their gut when they bend over. It uses a new Velcro system, which was another way to make it lighter, Jordan says. It’s also a lot quieter than the old Velcro, a safety feature if marines are behind enemy lines, for instance, and need to remove their vest.
The new vest is about 23 per cent lighter than the current system, she says.“The major difference that the marines notice is how the vest fits. It’s not all resting on their shoulders, it’s not bouncing all around. It fits tight to the body, it’s distributed across their chests and their backs, so they don’t have major points of discomfort.”
They just finished their last large-scale test, Jordan says, and have a few minor tweaks to make before the new system is purchased.
Across the board, marines said it’s much more mobile and comfortable than the old system, and a much better a fit, she says.
“I think we’ve accomplished what we set out to do, which is good. It makes me happy from an engineering standpoint.”
Working directly with marines is the part of her job she most enjoys. “And the fact that I can take their perspective and actually convert it into a physical item that’s going to help them do their job better, that’s my favourite part.”
