Presented to: Deborah Lawrence
Citation: For significant leadership in the development and
sustainment of the FAA’s navigation programs
Ms. Deborah Lawrence is the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Navigation Programs manager responsible for the development and implementation of navigation systems, performance-based instrument flight procedures, and the sustainment of legacy conventional navigation and lighting systems. Her work focuses on providing resilient positioning, navigation, and timing services to enable safe and efficient aircraft operations throughout the National Airspace System (NAS). Ms. Lawrence has an innate ability to bring disparate entities together, build consensus-based solutions, and obtain the necessary resources for implementation.
Ms. Lawrence previously led the development of the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), modernization of civil GPS capabilities, and implementation of the FAA resilient navigation infrastructure. Her leadership enabled significant improvement to the WAAS integrity monitors, notably those protecting against ionospheric threats. She also facilitated implementation of the new localizer performance with vertical guidance approach service at 200 feet (LPV-200) and commissioned the development of over 4,000 LPV procedures in the NAS.
Ms. Lawrence influenced GPS modernization to provide the new L5 signal and civil signal monitoring to improve the accuracy, availability, and reliability of GPS for civil users. Her support for GPS modernization began by establishing the GPS Evolutionary Architecture Study (GEAS), which developed and recommended advanced receiver autonomous integrity monitoring (ARAIM) as the best path forward to safely utilize the L5 signal. This effort fostered the bilateral European Union/USA Working Group-C to jointly develop ARAIM standards for GPS and Galileo. Ms. Lawrence’s collaboration with US Space Force (USSF) led to improved GPS performance commitments and ensures commitments meet the strict requirements of ARAIM. She also leads FAA implementation of navigation resiliency for aviation users prescribed under Executive Order 13905 by expanding service volumes for legacy navigation aids and discontinuing unnecessary systems.
Ms. Lawrence received a BS in electrical engineering from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.