Nicholas Sieja
Oahu, HI | (256) 690-6356 | nsieja@gmail.com | linkedin.com/in/nicholas-sieja
Summary
Nuclear submarine officer with over 6 years experience leading teams in stressful and high-impact environments. Well practiced in operations management and technical program management. Adept at bridging technical work and business strategy. Passionate about process improvement and building environments based on trust, support, and transparency.
Skills and Abilities
Leadership Skills
- Organizational Decision Making
- Team Building
- Persuasive Communication
- Process Improvement
Managerial Skills
- Technical Program Management
- Project Management
- Quality Management
- Maintenance Management
- Configuration Management
Technical Skills
- Plant Operations
- Quality Assurance
- System Integration
- Acquisitions
- Python Programming
- Data Analysis
Experience
Undersea Mobility Program Manager | Naval Special Warfare Group Eight | May 2023 - Present
- Launched an acoustic risk management program for a high-value Navy SEAL submersible, achieving $4.2M in lifecycle cost savings by repurposing internal assets and restructuring an existing support contract.
- Led a cross-functional team to ensure new requirements - diver injury treatment, unmanned systems deployment, and battery storage - for future Virginia-class subs were incorporated and traceable to a combat need. Validated the engineering cost of the requirements and tracked them through executive approval.
- Ranked #1 submarine junior officer by three separate commanders, across peer groups ranging from 4 to 15.
Quality Assurance Officer & Engineering Manager (Concurrent) | USS Hawaii (SSN 776) | Mar 2022 - May 2023
- Designed and deployed a custom maintenance analytics tool (Excel/CSV) to identify critical path delays and material constraints, recovering ~10 days in the project schedule and ensuring an at-risk milestone was met.
- Restructured department maintenance workflows by cutting unproductive extended working hours, reprioritizing supervisory roles, and integrating cross-functional support to maximize throughput, resulting in a 60% improvement in maintenance accomplishment ratings for a 70-person department.
- Resolved 30+ quality work deficiencies, leading to the first zero-deficiency major quality audit in over a decade; this quality control - inspection/oversight, root cause analysis, and corrective action assignment - enabled the on-time return of the submarine to operational status.
- Planned and executed the departmental training program, resulting in over 16,000 man-hours of intentional nuclear training in the 14 months I was responsible.
- 1 of 4 nominees across 55 junior officers in my region for recognition of top performance (2022).
Operations Manager - Division Officer | USS Hawaii (SSN 776) | Oct 2020 - Mar 2022
- Planned and directed one emergent nuclear system repair while deployed, restoring full operational capability in time to complete two high-priority national security missions.
- Modernized a submarine firefighting response process and led multiple 150-person exercises; process was used in a 3-hour, 1000-person, $3M federal drill from which an audit found zero major/one minor comments.
Education
- Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering | Duke University | Dec 2018
Training and Certifications*
- Project Management Professional (PMP)* | Project Management Institute (PMI)
- Python 360 | eCornell - Computing
- IT Automation with Python | Google
- Understanding and Solving Complex Business Problems | MIT Sloan Executive Education
- Business Ethics | eCornell - Law