U.S. Navy Strategic Systems Program director Rear Adm. Terry J. Benedict addresses midshipmen in Rickover Hall April 7. Benedict spoke about the Navy’s Fleet Ballistic Missile Weapon Systems. U.S. Navy photo by MC2 Alexia Riveracorrea

Rear Adm. Terry J. Benedict (USNA 1982) oversees all aspects of the research, development, production, logistics, storage, repair and operational support of the Navy’s Fleet Ballistic Missile Weapon Systems, which includes the Trident I and II missiles and their associate shipboard subsystems.

He is also the U.S. project officer responsible for managing U.S. government support of the British Polaris⁄Trident Force.

During the lecture, Benedict addressed the mission of the SSP and its involvement on strategic missiles.

‘‘When people talk about Trident they think about the missile, and obviously that’s just the visible part. The other elements that are part of the whole system are SSP’s responsibility,” said Benedict. ‘‘SSP serves as a systems integrator which is important to achieve reliability, accuracy, maintainability and survivability of this program.”

SSP is a unique program as it owns the missile systems from ‘‘cradle to grave,” from the initial design development through production, reappointment and operational support all the way to the disposal, said Benedict.

‘‘In SSP, we are involved in all aspects of the missile life cycle,” said Benedict. ‘‘This is very good, because when I am making a design decision in terms of materials, costs or supportability, I ultimately know that I am going to be responsible to support that decision further down the life cycle.

Benedict supported his presentation with videos that demonstrated the step-by-step sequence of a missile flight and better explained the SSP mission.

He concluded his lecture by highlighting the accomplishments of SSP.

‘‘If you look at this program from a system engineering perspective, think of those 135 flights over the last 22 years,” said Benedict. ‘‘I think it is a pretty unique program.”

Benedict has served as engineering section head of the Trident I and II missile systems, systems engineer in the Warfare Architecture Directorate, responsible for the initial development of the Navy’s ‘‘system-of-systems” engineering process, and Trident II guidance and fire control branch head. Prior to taking the position as director of SSP, he served as program executive officer for integrated warfare systems at Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington, D.C.