Roke Manor Research Limited has appointed former Royal Marine Gavin O'Connell to the role of Electronic Warfare Business Development Manager as part of the strategy to expand its presence outside the UK market.

Roke's RESOLVE system provides sovereign EW capability, which until now has been dominated by US manufacturers. O'Connell will spearhead the Roke product development team to drive demand for RESOLVE in new regions, including emerging markets within the Five Eyes (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK, USA) and NATO communities.

Chris Tarran, Electronic Warfare Business Sector Manager for Roke, said: "Gavin has achieved a reputation in the Royal Marines as someone who can deliver ground-breaking EW capabilities. Roke now has a distinct advantage as his unique experience will enable us to react quickly to changing operational requirements and create a solution that delivers a meaningful advantage in the battlefield."

O'Connell previously served with the Royal Marines as the Y Squadron Operations Warrant Officer. His ideas have driven Electronic Warfare policy within the coalition and have been accepted and implemented as best practice. O'Connell's personal initiatives have also instigated, and been incorporated into multi-million pound equipment procurement projects.

For 22 years O'Connell was deployed across the world, most recently in Afghanistan where he pioneered the successful convergence of EW assets to provide actionable intelligence for commanders on the ground, particularly in the deployment of unique strategic support to tactical deployed operations. While serving with the Royal Marines, he qualified as an EW operator at the SIGINT Wing in 1999 and was a team commander on operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq. While in the UK he became the user lead on the successful SCARUS lightweight CESM project and developed the ‘radio reconnaissance team' concept.

About RESOLVE

RESOLVE is a modular and scalable electronic warfare (EW) system for the intercept and geolocation of communications. RESOLVE offers users a flexible EW solution to exploit a wide band of communications including Personal Mobile Radio (PMR) and cellular communications.

Its modular design allows a single RESOLVE node to be re-deployed in the field to meet a variety of mission profiles:

· A light manpack configuration for operations on-the-march

· Tripod mounted for semi-static discreet operations

· On/integrated into mobile platforms for on-the-move operations.

Source: Roke