New Chief Due at Point Mugu Weapons Unit

The weapons division of the Naval Air Warfare Center at Point Mugu and China Lake will welcome a new commander at the end of January, Navy officials said Thursday.

Capt. Charles H. Johnston, 50, is scheduled to arrive in China Lake on Jan. 25 and will formally begin his new position two days later, following an induction ceremony.

Johnston is program manager for Conventional Strike Weapons at the Naval Air Test Center in Patuxent River, Md. In his new post, he will head up both the weapons division and the test and evaluation command at Point Mugu and China Lake.

Although he will live at China Lake, Johnston will split his time between the two bases, where he will oversee about 6,500 military and civilian personnel.

The entire weapons division has 7,650 employees at four locations, including Point Mugu and China Lake. Point Mugu is primarily responsible for weapons testing and evaluation in a 36,000-square-mile area at sea, while China Lake conducts research and development, and controls 1.1 million acres of testing ranges on land.

Johnston said he is looking forward to the challenges of his new position.

“I’ve got a lot of experience in weapons and weapons testing,” Johnston said. “And I have a good sense of where we’re headed in the next 10 years and what our weapons of the future should do.”

He said he wants to focus on new technology, including an automatic targeting system that increases missile accuracy and precision.

“The Navy has always been the country’s 911 service,” Johnston said. “We want to be able to go out and identify targets, deter their position and, if necessary, destroy them.”

Johnston is replacing his former flight school classmate, Rear Adm. Rand H. Fisher.

Fisher, who has been at China Lake since December 1997, will become a communications systems director at the Navy’s National Reconnaissance Office in Chantilly, Va.

Johnston entered the Navy in 1973 after graduating from the Aviation Officer Candidate Program in Pensacola, Fla. He received two master’s degrees in science, one in aeronautical systems from the University of West Florida and the other in aeronautical engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey. He is also a graduate of the Navy test pilot school.

Johnston has served as an instructor pilot, weapons training officer, chief test pilot and F/A-18 project director. He was also an aerospace engineering duty officer and served in the Air Department on the USS Forrestal. And from 1989 to 1992, he served as the executive and then commanding officer of the Naval Plant Representative Office in Melbourne, Australia.

Since 1992, he has been stationed in Maryland, where he worked in the F/A-18 program office and as director of engineering for the Naval Air Warfare Center’s Aircraft Division.

Johnston said he plans to work closely with local political leaders to keep the bases off any future closure lists, referring to the White House’s announcement last week that President Clinton wants to close additional bases.

Point Mugu and China Lake “have wonderful customer focus and do fantastic work,” Johnston said. “So we’ll just tell them all the wonderful things we’re doing and we’ll see what happens.”

Johnston has more than 3,000 flight hours in more than 30 models of fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft. He has received several awards, including the Navy Commendation and Navy Achievement medals.

Johnston is married and has two children, both in college. He said he enjoys wine tasting and golfing, and plans to do both in his free time. He said he expects to spend two or three years in California.