Candaice Deloach is the first Black woman at the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Dahlgren Division to serve as a senior scientific technical manager. She received a Technology Rising Award at the 2021 Women of Color STEM Conference. The awards showcase women who are trailblazers and demonstrate professional excellence.

“I appreciate being nominated and it is an honor to be selected,” Deloach said in a press release about her award. “I believe we all have gifts and talents designed to enable the work we put our hands to. That understanding inspires me to push for excellence.”

Deloach began her career at Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD) 18 years ago, rising to the position of the chief software architect. Deloach’s experience and expertise span across software development and engineering to leadership roles managing technical teams and establishing software policies for multiple warfare system programs.

In early 2021, Navy leadership selected Deloach to serve as policy lead for the Department of Navy Development Security and Operations (DevSecOps) Taskforce, where she operated dual-hatted while continuing to serve as principal adviser to NSWCDD base leaders on software modernization strategies.

Deloach is currently the senior scientific technical manager for warfare systems software science and technology and development, where she leads software development efforts and strategies relating to guiding and supporting Navy software policies and processes.

“We are building a new naval software factory NSWCDD will deliver, called Storehouse,” stated Deloach when speaking about serving as software SSTM. “[The software factory] will focus on areas such as software training, software quality metrics, data governance, and sky solutions-a scalable naval DevSecOps platform serving as the backbone for the new software factory.”

When she is not working, she likes to spend time with family. "I do jokingly consider myself a city farmer (I am from Iowa, after all) and have started a mini lavender farm in my backyard with 80 plants," she said in an interview. "Working in nature is all about respecting diverse ecosystems and problem-solving, so it is fun to see the parallels between the two worlds and the intersection of it all."

A famous quote from The Pragmatic Programmer goes like this: "Software is more like gardening--it is more organic than concrete. You constantly monitor the health of the garden and make adjustments (to the soil, the plants, the layout) as needed."