SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – Sailors from Naval Submarine Medical Research Laboratory (NSMRL) participated in the Big E festival during the inaugural Hartford-Springfield Navy Week portion of the event on Sept. 25.

Navy Week volunteers set up booths near the main entertainment stage to engage with visitors and showcase the various missions and capabilities of local Navy commands. Among these Sailors were NSMRL Navy Divers 1st Class John Ahnen, Grace Palmieri, Nathan Helbing, and Connor Houtchens, who volunteered to represent NSMRL and Navy Diving to all Big E attendees, splitting the 12-hour day into two shifts.

“It’s really great to be out here, representing NSMRL and Navy diving to all these different people who probably don’t know exactly what either of those things mean,” said Palmieri. “So many people just came out here for a fun day at the fair, and we’re getting to share a little bit about what we do and how cool it is to be a NSMRL diver.”

The Big E, formerly known as the Eastern States Exposition, is the annual fair spotlighting the entire New England area, and is the fourth largest fair in the U.S. This 17-day event started in 1916 and includes the Avenue of States (replicas of the six original New England state houses), livestock and animal shows, food booths, vendors, concerts, parades, and carnival rides.


To coincide with the U.S. Navy’s 250th birthday, the Big E invited U.S. Navy members to participate over one of the three Big E weeks. This marked the first Navy Week in the Connecticut River Valley since the inception of the event in 2005. The Navy Week program has served as the Navy’s principal outreach effort into areas of the nation without a significant Navy presence, with over 300 Navy Weeks held in 95 different U.S. cities.

“The best part of events like this is having people who come and chat about their personal experiences with the Navy,” said Houtchens. “It’s great to hear how we’ve impacted the lives of people in these more inland areas, and how proud people are to have family members who served.”

Throughout the day, NSMRL divers spoke about the various programs and research being conducted at the lab, including the hypo- and hyperbaric research that will be restarting after the recent completion of the Genesis Chamber renovation. The exhibit also featured a Submarine Escape Immersion Equipment (SEIE) suit and a functioning dive helmet, which fair attendees could try on and interact with.

Hartford-Springfield Navy Week is one of 15 Navy Weeks during the Navy’s 250th year celebration, bringing a variety of assets, equipment, and personnel to a single city for a weeklong series of engagements designed to bring America’s Navy closer to the people it protects. Each year the program reaches more than 140 million people – about half the U.S. population.

NSMRL, part of Navy Medicine Research & Development and based out of Groton, Connecticut, sustains the readiness and superiority of U.S. undersea warfighters through innovative health and performance research and works to lead the world in delivering science solutions to ensure undersea warrior dominance.