After a very fulfilling 38-year Navy career, I completed a second career in the government. Now retired, I'm doing some of the other important things in life!
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A New Jersey native, after high school in 1968, I immediately enlisted in the United States Navy. Following basic training at RTC, Great Lakes, I was first assigned to USS ISLE ROYALE (AD 29) followed by the USS JOHN PAUL JONES (DDG 32) -- both home ported in Long Beach, CA. After a Viet Nam deployment, in May 1971 I was assigned to the A-6 Intruder training squadron, Attack Squadron Forty Two, at NAS Oceana, VA.
In August 1975, I reported aboard USS BORDELON (DD 881) as the Ship's Admin/Personnel petty officer in charge. After an at-sea collision with the USUAL John F. Kennedy resulting in BORDELON's decommissioning, I completed my sea rotation aboard USS SIMON LAKE (AS 33), also home ported in Charleston, SC where I was selected for Chief Petty Officer. In 1978 I was assigned to NAS, Brunswick, ME as the Asst Personnel Officer. During my enlisted career, I advanced to Senior Chief Personnelman, crossed the Equator, made several WestPac and Med deployments, and was one of the first Sailors to earn the Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist (ESWS) designation.
After submitting three applications for a direct commission, I was selected as an Admin Limited Duty Officer (LDO) and commissioned as a new ensign, in 1980. I was immediately assigned as Ship's Secretary aboard USS MOUNT WHITNEY (LCC 20) home ported in Norfolk, VA. In 1982, I returned to the West Coast as OIC of PSD Lemoore, CA. From 1984 to 1992 I served several tours in Pearl Harbor, HI -- first as Executive Officer Flag Allowance, Commander THIRD Fleet on Ford Island and embarked in USS CORONADO (AGF 11); then as the Admin Officer, Commander, U.S. Pacific Airborne Command Post (ABNCP), Hickam AFB; and as the Executive Officer/Commanding Officer and Flag Secretary, Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet. It was during my three tours in Hawaii that I was selected for the College Degree Program (CDP) and earned my bachelors degree in Business Administration in 1988 from Chaminade University of Honolulu.
In 1992 I returned to the East Coast and was assigned as the Director of Administration in the NATO Headquarters, Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic, Norfolk, VA. In 1996 I traveled cross-country again, this time as a geo-bachelor to Bremerton/Everett, WA aboard USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN (CVN 72) as the Admin Officer. In 1998, I returned to Norfolk and was assigned as Executive Officer, Personnel Support Activity Norfolk, VA. In 2000, I received a command assignment as Commanding Officer, Personnel Support Activity, Jacksonville, FL. In 2002, I was reassigned to the Navy Personnel Command in Millington, TN as Director, Field Support Division (Pers-33/673). In May 2004, I returned to Norfolk as the Chief of Staff, Task Force Warrior (Sea Warrior project). In February 2005, I reported to my last Navy assignment as Assistant Chief of Staff of Administration/Resources and Commanding Officer Staff, at Commander Operational Test and Evaluation Force in Norfolk, VA. After a fulfilling, 38-year Navy career, I retired from the Navy in 2006 and immediately began working as a consultant/senior analyst for a government contractor, C.A.C.I. where I accomplished a myriad of management projects.
In January 2012, I began the latest chapter in my career in the civil service as the Director Global Operations at the Navy Pay and Personnel Support Center, in Norfolk, VA in support of the 60 Personnel Support Detachments (PSDs) world-wide.
In February 2017, I retired from government service and beginning to write the newest chapter in my life.
A proud father of three wonderful children and a grandpa to seven adorable grand children, my wife and I currently reside in Northeast Florida. Life is Good!
Other Memories The Personnel Support Activity Jacksonville (PSA) command tour is one I will always treasure. Too many great people I'd worked with, and so many fond memories upon which to reminisce. With the weather being normally great, the shopping convenient and super friends in a wonderful, fun community, the Jacksonville, Florida area is still destined to be our ultimate retirement location of choice. But as what usually happens when you're having fun, it was just too short. It seemed like we had finally gotten settled into that growing community and my two-year tour had just flown by. We were facing another reassignment -- this time heading to the mid-south region at the Navy's personnel headquarters in Millington, Tennessee commonly known as Navy Personnel Command or NPC.
It was May of 2002 that I headed up a team as the NPC Director of Field Support Division - the program manager of the Navy's Pay/Personnel Administrative Support System (PASS). Only this time instead of commanding my own PSA, I would be responsible for the overarching interpretation, promulgation and execution of operational policy to the six world-wide PSA commanding officers, as well as to the pay and personnel departments of deployable ships and squadrons. Believe me, analyzing and interpreting legislative changes to pay and personnel entitlements was a most difficult challenge in itself. And while it was relatively easy for politicians to authorize a higher reenlistment bonus, a hazardous duty pay entitlement, a new hostile fire zone bonus, or assignment incentive pay to those deserving, it was quite another story to develop the new corresponding field procedures that our thousands of pay, personnel, and transportation specialists would need to use to expeditiously affect those pay changes in the antiquated, user-unfriendly pay/personnel systems we had to work with.
What's more, we also had to disseminate procedures to the field in matters concerning benefits and eligibility programs such as the Department of Defense (DoD) ID card -- also known as the Common Access Card (CAC), and ensure appropriate benefits and entitlements were provided to the hundreds of thousands of eligible Navy family members under Defense Eligibility Enrollment Reporting System (DEERS). When you add personnel accounting reporting, passport services, and area clearance oversight -- as well as representing big Navy on dozens of working groups and at meetings involving all future pay/personnel and transportation systems under development -- you can see why this new job also required me to attain a lot of frequent flyer miles away from the headquarters.
It seems that with every great challenge I?d experienced before, came great reward. It was during the NPC tour that I would be fortunate enough to be promoted again -- this time to the rank of Captain. To try to express what a great honor it is to achieve this career milestone or what it meant to me just can't simply be written. What it signified to me though was a culmination of the kind of continuous support I'd been so fortunate to have from my family, closest friends, leaders, peers, and the Sailors with whom I?d led, laughed with or learned from. I was once again blessed by being elevated to a prestigious pedestal in my career by the many who cared for, carried, and/or lifted me up to it. Another one of those life's lessons: those you genuinely care for inevitably take care of you.
