Draft:Helmut Portmann

Submission declined on 3 May 2026 by Paul W (talk). This draft's references do not show that the person meets Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion for people. The draft requires multiple published secondary sources that: provide significant coverage: discuss the person in detail, not brief mentions or interviews lacking independent analysis; are reliable: from reputable outlets with editorial oversight; are independent: not connected to the person, such as interviews, press releases, the subject's own website, or sponsored content. Please add references that meet all three of these criteria. If none exist, the subject is not yet suitable for Wikipedia. This draft lacks inline citations. Wikipedia's verifiability policy requires that all content be supported by reliable sources. We require inline citations (footnotes) to show which source supports which specific statement. You must place an inline citation directly after: quotations; any material whose verifiability is likely to be challenged or is contentious; any material about living people. Please edit your draft to support your statements with inline citations. Learn how to create inline citations in the: Source Editor: Introduction to referencing with Wiki Markup. VisualEditor: Introduction to referencing with VisualEditor. If you would like to continue working on the submission, click on the "Edit" tab at the top of the window. If you have not resolved the issues listed above, your draft will be declined again and potentially deleted. If you need extra help, please ask us a question at the AfC Help Desk or get live help from experienced editors. Please do not remove reviewer comments or this notice until the submission is accepted. Where to get help If you need help editing or submitting your draft, please ask us a question at the AfC Help Desk or get live help from experienced editors. These venues are only for help with editing and the submission process, not to get reviews. If you need feedback on your draft, or if the review is taking a lot of time, you can try asking for help on the talk page of a relevant WikiProject. Some WikiProjects are more active than others so a speedy reply is not guaranteed. How to improve a draft Wikipedia:Contributing to Wikipedia – a basic overview on how to edit Wikipedia. Help:Wikitext – how to use the markup Help:Referencing for beginners – how to include references Wikipedia:Article development – how to develop your article Wikipedia:Writing better articles – how to improve your article Wikipedia:Verifiability – make sure your article includes reliable third-party sources You can also browse Wikipedia:Featured articles and Wikipedia:Good articles to find examples of Wikipedia's best writing on topics similar to your proposed article. Improving your odds of a speedy review To improve your odds of a faster review, tag your draft with relevant WikiProject tags using the button below. This will let reviewers know a new draft has been submitted in their area of interest. For instance, if you wrote about a female astronomer, you would want to add the Biography, Astronomy, and Women scientists tags. Add tags to your draft Editor resources Easy tools: Citation bot (help) | Advanced: Fix bare URLs Declined by Paul W 3 months ago. Last edited by Paul W 3 months ago. Reviewer: Inform author. Resubmit Please note that if the issues are not fixed, the draft will be declined again.

Submission declined on 21 November 2025 by GreenRedFlag (talk). This draft's references do not show that the person meets Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion for people. The draft requires multiple published secondary sources that: provide significant coverage: discuss the person in detail, not brief mentions or interviews lacking independent analysis; are reliable: from reputable outlets with editorial oversight; are independent: not connected to the person, such as interviews, press releases, the subject's own website, or sponsored content. Please add references that meet all three of these criteria. If none exist, the subject is not yet suitable for Wikipedia. This draft reads like an advertisement. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a platform for promotion or marketing. Drafts that are exclusively promotional may be deleted without notice. Wikipedia articles must be written neutrally in a formal, impersonal, and dispassionate way. They should not read like a blog post, advertisement, or fan page. Rewrite the draft to remove: promotional language: see Words to watch; personal commentary: opinions or direct addresses to the reader; informal language. Instead, only summarize in your own words a range of independent, reliable, published sources that discuss the subject. If you have a conflict of interest (e.g. you are the subject, an employee, or a relative) or are being paid to edit, you must disclose this to comply with Wikipedia's Terms of Use. Declined by GreenRedFlag 9 months ago.

• Comment: No references giving significant coverage about Portmann in published reliable independent secondary sources (ie: excluding his employer's website, interviews, and works by him). Patents are not a contributor to SIGCOV or notability - they are "self-published, non-independent, primary sources for Wikipedia purposes" (see WP:PATENTS). Various assertions are made without any supporting citations. Paul W (talk) 19:46, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

Helmut Hans Portmann is an American electrical and systems engineer, inventor, and novelist. He was a member of the United States Senior Executive Service, where he led the National Data Buoy Center. He writes international intrigue thrillers based on his experiences in offshore oil fields, secret nuclear missile systems, and unmanned systems development.

Portmann was born on November 3, 1954, in Ennetbaden, Switzerland, to Irmgard Leonore Portmann, originally German and his father Helmut.^{[citation needed]} The family moved to the United States and Portmann grew up in Stone Mountain, Georgia.^{[citation needed]} He earned a B.S.E.E.Electrical Engineering degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology and later obtained his graduate degree in underwater acoustics from Johns Hopkins University.^[1]

Portmann worked in the defense industry, where he analyzed and mitigated detectable acoustic and non-acoustic signatures of US submarines. He later became a sonar analyst at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Panama City, Florida. In 2009, Portmann was selected to become a member of the Senior Executive Service (SES) and director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Data Buoy Center.^[2]

A notable project under his direction was the FY 2004 Joint Unmanned Systems Common Control (JUSC2) project to conduct an Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration of the ability to link operations of different kinds of unmanned vehicles to a single control system.^[3]

Under Portmann's leadership of the US National Data Buoy Center, the world's first operational unmanned system used as a tsunameter was placed in service in 2012. The system used Wave Glider for the launch, and is integrated into NOAA's Deep-Ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunami (DART) network.^[4]

Portmann's achievements include:

• 2004 AUVSI (Association of Unmanned Vehicles International) Pioneer Award^{[citation needed]}

• 2003 NSWC Panama City Commanding Officer/Executive Director 2003 Guy C. Dilworth Award.^{[citation needed]}

• Portmann led a team that investigating novel submarine acoustic signature patterns documented in a highly classified report.^{[citation needed]}
• Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Government Contracts : Portmann was responsible for multiple SBIR government contracts while employed at Applied Mathematics, Inc. in Raleigh, North Carolina.^{[citation needed]}

• 2014 Counter-vandalism at NDBC^[5]

• 2001 Shaping the Future of Naval Warfare with Unmanned Systems (CSS/TR-01/09)^[6][7]

• Unmanned aerial vehicle catcher, US Patent US7264204B1^[8]

• Mine clearing device incorporating unbiased motion, US Patent US7484447B1^[9]

• Mine clearing device incorporating pneumatic thrust and unbiased motion, US Patent US7467579B1^[10]

• Method and system for deployment of ordnance from an aircraft in mid-flight, US Patent US7735781B1^[11]

• Launch and recovery system for unmanned underwater vehicles, US Patent^[12]

As of 2025, Portmann has published four novels, in the Alex Beck Series^[13] including:

• Adios El Jefe:^[14] Cold War thriller that follows five young Cuban boys who seek vengeance against Fidel Castro's revolutionaries. The novel (the first of a planned Alex Beck series of novels) was inspired by Portmann's experiences launching Pershing 1a missiles into the Atlantic Ocean from Cape Canaveral in the 1980s.^{[citation needed]}
• Phantom of the Gulf - US Navy monitoring picks up mysterious sonar sound echoes as sound blasts from Oil & Gas seismic surveys bounce off a mysterious underwater object moving among drilling platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.^{[citation needed]}
• Remora - The Navy picks up sonar or Echoes as sound blasts from Oil and Gas seismic surveys bounce off of a mysterious underwater object moving among the drilling Platforms in the Gulf of Mexico they appear to be from some type of submerged vessel that has no other Machinery or engine noise and seems to Simply disappear after several hours. the Navy and CIA suspect some kind of submersible running on batteries but any diesel electric submarine would have to eventually surface and charge its batteries by running their diesel engines.^{[citation needed]}

• Target: Svalbard - Oil and gas drilling and minerals mining in the Arctic Circle are attracting attention and Svalbard is at the heart of the action. The story traces its fictional roots to Versailles on June 28, 1919, with the Treaty of Versailles and the reference an obscure archipelago in the Arctic Circle. It is to be administered by Norway, but 46 other nations are designated to exercise their ‘interests’ within the Svalbard EEZ. Maybe foreshadowing real life plays for Greenland.^{[citation needed]}

Portmann has been married twice, first to Dona K. Aaron, an artist, and then to Julie Ann Cowen. He has one son, Alex Hans Portmann, with his second wife.^{[citation needed]}