From US Navy LSO to VP of Software Integration at 2 Circle

As a self-proclaimed Air Force brat, Erik “Burns” Hess can’t remember ever wanting to do anything but fly. “It’s funny because I never really associated it with the fact that my dad was an instructor pilot in the Air Force,” Burns says.  

“It was always an independent dream that I was probably more into even than he was.” Despite all the moving around he and his family did during his childhood, he considers it a valuable experience because it taught him how to be flexible. 

With a family history in the U.S. military that includes ancestors his mother was able to trace back to the Revolutionary War and grandparents who served during World War II, Burns considers his military career to be a bit of a family business.  

Having his father and other experienced family members guide him in the steps to take toward his future profession helped Burns feel like he had an extra edge. 

Initially, Burns says he didn’t care which branch he flew for, as long as he could fly. But between the Air Force’s concern that his allergies might be too bad to be a pilot and the Navy offering him a better scholarship, he chose the Navy. Burns ended up attending and getting his commission from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.  

“It was a way to be both a college student in a normal college and also complete the steps necessary to get a commission,” Burns says. “I had friends who went to the academy, and I do not regret my life choices at all because it’s a fantastic path and I very much enjoyed my time in D.C.” 

Getting through ROTC during college was made easier by the sense of real camaraderie among the midshipmen, especially those who were ahead of Burns and could coach him and his fellows through the process.  

Contrary to Hollywood’s portrayal of a cutthroat climate in naval aviation-themed movies, Burns found the training environment to be incredibly supportive. 

“You’re training with and competing against some extremely fine folks who are all really sharp and actual team players. Everybody was pulling for everybody else, but you all still wanted your first choice. It was almost a sense of coopetition because nobody ever wanted to see one of their peers fail. Your dream was that you and all your friends got what you wanted,” says Burns. 

In many cases, he says, that happened, thanks to the variety of communities in naval aviation. “These communities have different personalities and favor different people with different strengths, so a lot of times, people found themselves drifting toward a community that actually was a really good fit for them that they didn’t think about originally or didn’t even think they’d like,” Burns says. 

The fighter community Burns ended up in lived and trained mainly on aircraft carriers. His first jet was the F-14 Tomcat, and “it was kind of hard to fly,” he says. “It required two people to do pretty much anything. You could not fly that by itself, and most of my work as the pilot was just keeping the airplane going where it needed to go.” 

His love of teaching and helping others get better at what they do drew Burns to specialize as a landing signal officer (LSO), a small cadre in each squadron that aids pilots in landing on the aircraft carrier. “We’re still aviators. We do everything else everybody does,” says Burns.

He spent countless hours over the years standing out on the flight deck with other LSOs, grading every pass, providing notes, and debriefing pilots on their landings.

In clear weather during the day, landing on an aircraft carrier isn’t too difficult for an experienced pilot. But when the sun goes down and there aren’t any lights, or the seas are big and the deck is moving 40 or 50 feet up and down, teamwork is critical in getting planes that normally clear the deck with about 14 feet aboard safely.

These landings aren’t just about safety either. To recover the airplanes, the aircraft carrier must steam into the wind due to the weight of the planes and many other physical material factors. Steaming into the wind makes the carrier predictable, leaving it more vulnerable to being killed.

“Lots of people are looking to figure out how to sink our carriers, and so it’s not enough as an LSO to be safe. You also have to be expeditious. You have to get the air wing aboard so the carrier can go off and do what it needs to do, and that was an awesome challenge,” Burns says.

Two of Burns’ initial big challenges in the Navy were teaching other pilots to fly the Tomcat and how to land it on the carrier in all conditions. This ended up including his younger brother, who joined Burns’ first squadron after Burns qualified him in landings on aircraft carriers.

“Watching him go through was a lot of fun,” Burns recalls. “When you get your last arrested landing and your grades are high enough to be a qual, the LSO gets to say, ‘Hey, nice work. Welcome to the fleet.’ I got to actually do that over the radio for him, which is pretty cool.”

Burns also trained other landing signal officers throughout his Navy career. “That was just a blast. I loved it,” he says. “I had students that turned out to be squadron commanders, air wing commanders, even one astronaut. Seeing their successes is one of the best parts of teaching.”

He considers his greatest accomplishment in the Navy to be that as an LSO, he waved around 25,000 landings, both ashore and at sea, with zero mishaps or injuries. “It was not all me, for sure, but I was happy to get through that over a waving career that lasted about 10 years,” Burns says.

In 2017, Burns decided to join 2 Circle as a Senior Warfare Analyst for three reasons: The people, the mission, and the company’s leadership. Though he hadn’t worked closely with them, he had known many people at 2 Circle in the fleet and recognized and admired their caliber. 

He was still in the Navy Reserves at the time — he retired in 2020 — but balancing the two roles was incredibly easy for him due to 2 Circle’s flexible work schedule. “One of the great things about 2 Circle is that close connection with active-duty folks,” says Burns.  

“The company considers it a big pro to have reservists, and they were fantastic about making sure that I could meet my reserve commitments and also continue to contribute as a contractor.” 

Burns was recently promoted to Vice President for Software Integration at 2 Circle, working on RAPID, a product that is designed to bring performance-based training and readiness to the Navy.  

“What that basically means is that rather than everybody just following a cookie cutter syllabus, we’re trying to essentially assess people’s performance, give them feedback, and also trickle that up to leadership so they can maybe increase the resources that are assigned to an individual unit or to an individual part of the force,” Burns says. 

For now, Burns is focused on getting the tool he’s helping to build to as many users as possible to assist them in achieving their organizational goals.  

“It has been an exciting challenge to produce software within this company, so keeping the momentum moving forward and expanding the footprint of where we can assist would be great,” he says.