A native of Murrieta, California, Lt. Vince Vanterpool earned his commission from Cal Berkeley NROTC after graduating from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Arts in Human Biology and minor in Chemistry.
Vanterpool’s first tour was onboard USS McCAMPBELL (DDG 85), homeported in Yokosuka, Japan, as STRIKE Officer and Assistant Chief Engineer. He conducted various patrols in the Seventh Fleet area of operations to include independent patrols in support of Enforcement Coordination Cell and carrier strike group patrols with Ronald Reagan Strike Group. Onboard McCAMPBELL, he participated in numerous unit tactical and international exercises such as Surface Warfare Advanced Tactical Training, MALABAR, and TALISMAN SABRE alongside Australian, Japanese and other Southeast Asian naval partners.
In September 2020, he reported to USS SHILOH (CG 67) as Antisubmarine Warfare Officer, during which he conducted five antisubmarine warfare exercises with various U.S. assets and international partners such as United Kingdom, Germany, Pakistan and the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force. Onboard SHILOH, he participated in various patrols through both the Seventh Fleet and Fifth Fleet areas of operations, executing SHILOH’s duties as Air Missile Defense Commander and Ballistic Missile Defense Commander for RONALD REAGAN Strike Group (CSG-5). This includes standing watch as Tactical Action Officer and Force Anti-Air Warfare Coordinator during the final U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and various multi-carrier operations in the South China Sea and Philippine Sea.
In June 2022, Vanterpool reported to the Naval Postgraduate School as a full-time graduate student, working on his master’s in operations research and graduating in September 2024.
Lt. Vince Vanterpool was awarded three awards during the Summer 2024 Graduate Award Ceremony including:
The Tyler National Security Research Award
This award is presented to acknowledge outstanding academic excellence in the areas of innovation and collaboration at the Naval Postgraduate School. This recognition is intended to support the school’s mission of promoting educational excellence.
Surface Navy Association’s Award for Excellence in Surface Warfare Research
This award is presented to a graduating student whose thesis topic and quality of supporting research demonstrate the greatest potential for contribution to the Surface Navy.
Military Operations Research Society Stephen A. Tisdale Graduate Research Award
This award is presented in recognition of outstanding achievement in graduate research directed toward improving military force utilization. The primary award criterion is research which leads to the demonstration of or potential for increased operating effectiveness of currently available or near-term assets
My research is developing assignment algorithms for a dynamic weapon target assignment for force level coordination. In simpler terms, we researched policies that would enable multiple ships to rapidly coordinate and assign defensive measure against incoming threat missiles. I was inspired by my operational experience as a Force Anti-Air Warfare Coordinator aboard USS SHILOH during our SEVENTH and FIFTH Fleet patrols as the Integrated Air and Missile Defense Commander (IAMDC) and Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile Defense Commander (ASBMDC) for the RONALD REAGAN Strike Group (RRNSG). As IAMDCBMDC, we were the subject matter experts for the Strike Group on how dangerous and complex an anti-ship missile salvo could be against us. This is why I believe this research is important; the increasingly complex nature of modern maritime missile warfare necessitates not only more advanced kinetic and non-kinetic capabilities, but also effective and efficient policies for cross-platform coordination.
The algorithms themselves serve as the policies which combat systems must follow to ensure near optimal and efficient allocation of an expensive and finite pool of resources, i.e. Standard Missiles, ESSMs, etc. In terms of overall readiness, my research will hopefully lead to more standardized algorithms and policies in afloat combat systems that will provide a heightened state of combat readiness and ability.
Working with students from various service backgrounds provided me with unique insights into how the other services and other warfare domains solve their own versions of weapon target pairing problems. In addition, students and faculty with more analytical experience and practiced techniques were invaluable to assisting me with my research, especially coming with very little exposure to operations research in the fleet.
The beauty in integer nonlinear programs and similar algorithms are their generalizability and high level of abstraction that can be readily altered to meet similar challenges. An assignment algorithm for IAMD can easily provide solutions for assigning offensive capabilities against adversarial targets for strike operations. As more unmanned and autonomous assets are deployed in contested and combat areas, these types of policies and algorithms will be crucial for their safe and effective employment.
I was fortunate to get to interact and exchange ideas with JHU's APL and Lockheed Martin; their experience and wisdom were invaluable in the early stages of my research and understanding the current academic context available.
The exposure to the larger academic environment that supports the US Navy, and Department of Defense (DoD) overall, has been the most impactful for me. I've had the opportunity to help design and adjudicate NWPAC, a bilateral wargame with the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF), participate in Warfare Innovation Continuums (WICs) from Naval Warfare Studies Institute (NWSI), and attend seminars on the DoD's newest combat systems and most recent live fire tests and developments through the Meyer Scholars Program.
