Leadership Staff Ride to the USS Olympia

This year’s Leadership Staff Ride during the New Jersey State Association of Chiefs of Police (NJSACOP) Police Executive Institute (PEI) took place in Philadelphia, during a visit to the cruiser USS Olympia (the oldest steel warship currently afloat in the world) and the USS Submarine Becuna, berthed at the Independence Seaport Museum.

We were carefully led by the Honorable Pat Schuber, a great friend of the NJSACOP, to hear leadership lessons from a number of naval commanders from history, including Admiral George Dewey, who issued the famous one-liner ‘You May Fire when Ready, Gridley’ to Captain Charles Vernon Gridley, commander of Dewey’s Flagship USS Olympia at the Battle of Manila Bay in the Philippines on May 1,1898.

The second great leader we heard about was Admiral Chester Nimitz, who commanded the US Pacific fleet after Pearl Harbor, and was in charge of naval operations during the island-hopping campaigns in the Central Pacific. He is considered one of the best naval leaders during the Second World War, serving as he did as the Chief of Naval Operations and having a long and distinguished career.

The third was Commodore John Barry, an Irishman from Wexford, who rose to the highest rank within the newly formed US Navy during the American War of Independence, and who died in Philadelphia in 1803. His statue stands in Independence Square, just outside the southern entrance to Independence Hall, as a reminder of a relatively unsung hero of the emerging American Republic, having fought on land at the battles of Trenton and Princeton as well as capturing over 20 ships and designing a signal book that aided communication between the fleet.

However, the Naval commander whose story interested me the most was that of Admiral Hyman G. Rickover. Admiral Rickover came from a very poor background and challenging circumstances, and like Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, was driven by the need to get better educated and make something better of himself. Both had the desire for success that drove them forward to find a way to get whatever career that they were wanting, one that was open to them through the US Service Acad- emies, such as for the Army at West Point, for the Navy at Annapolis and the US Air Force in Colorado.

Admiral Rickover, especially, kept up to date with changing situations and adapted to them, never becoming complacent throughout his career, even to the point when he finally ended his naval career at the age of 82, after a 63 year career in the Navy, serving under 13 Presidents of the United States.

Rickover’s family came to the United States in the early part of the 20th century, fleeing from anti-semitic pogroms committed against the Jews in Maków, Poland. He disembarked in New York, probably travelling through Ellis Island, as a little boy aged only 6, with his father and mother. They settled on the Eastside of New York, following the classic immigrant story of their era. They found their way to Chicago, where his father became a tailor. Rickover helped in the tailor shop, but also delivered telegrams as a messenger for Western Union, where he soon befriended a young congressman from Chicago’s south side, who had a similar background (he was a Czech-Jewish immigrant), and through this connection he had the opportunity to apply for an appointment to the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, where he passed the exam, and from where he graduated in 1922.

In the 1940’s he went to the Columbia University, graduating with a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering. He became an expert in construction.

Rickover took a number of positions in the US Navy, including head of the Electrical Section of the Bureau of Ships, and later the Commanding Officer of the Naval Repair Base in Okinawa, Japan, before taking a keen interest in nuclear power. He volunteered for submarine duties (noting that submariners tended to be promoted at a quicker rate) and later developed the use of nuclear power for propulsion in the Navy.

His reputation developed as a man who gets things done, had little tolerance for mediocrity, and was blunt and controversial at times. Despite his views on nuclear propulsion being the way forward not being shared by his immediate supervisors, he later became known as the father of the Nuclear Navy (a title that is engraved upon his headstone at Arlington National Cemetery), having developed the first nuclear-powered submarine, The USS Nautilus, for the US Navy in 1955. Indeed, it was the world’s first.

"Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous impatience."

He did this by usurping a number of ranks, directly approaching, and convincing, the Chief of Naval Operations, Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, to see the benefits of nuclear propulsion to take the US Navy to the next level. Consequently, Rickover became the Head of Development of the US Nuclear Submarine Program, setting stringent standards, and keeping close control of ships, submarines, new technology, and personnel on nuclear vessels for decades, taking personal responsibility for interviewing each and every applicant to test for, and sign off for, competence and suitability to work in the nuclear team.

Rickover also personally went aboard each and every new nuclear submarine during sea-trials, leading from the front, ensuring that the Navy’s safety record is second to none.

In fact when there was a nuclear meltdown (at Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, PA), Rickover was called to testify before Congress about how, in contrast to this disaster, he had managed a zero-based reactor safety record with the Navy. The USSR up to that point had experienced 14 nuclear fission accidents, and Rickover stressed that his success was due to an ‘integrated whole of many factors,’ some listed above, included setting stringent standards for both the team and the partners, such as defense contractors responsible for building the submarines, whose alleged ‘shoddy’ workmanship often became the focus of Rickover’s sharp tongue.

On one occasion, when a crew member was insubordinate towards Rickover (a Captain sent him a letter that said ‘Dear Admiral Rickover, If you want to stop killing people, read this! signed Dave Oliver, Captain US Navy’), sending him some advice via the postal system. Rickover took note and immediately put in place all the recommended changes, once they had been assessed. Unfortunately for the Captain, his own immediate supervisor, the Commodore, did not agree with this course of action and reported the insubordination. When the Commodore called all of the crew together on the pier for an announcement, the Captain feared the worst, yet stood amongst the crew only to hear the Commodore give unequivocal ‘sincere apologies to his commanding officer’, so the Captain needn’t have worried as Rickover did not believe the action the Captain took was a transgression, and, unlike most other commanders in the Navy, Rickover readily took criticism and expected others to do likewise.

Among the many military honors received, Rickover was bestowed with the Honorary Commander of the Military Division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, for World War 2 wartime exploits, and 2 Congressional Gold Medals. He also appeared on the cover of Time Magazine,

and was one of only a handful of living naval officers who has a Virginia-Class Nuclear Attack submarine named after them, the USS Admiral Hyman G. Rickover.

There are many leadership lessons in these few paragraphs, and I am sure many more from the life of Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, not least of which are the importance of education and life-long learning for leaders, resilience in adversity, avoiding complacency, keeping ahead of and embracing new technology, not accepting mediocrity, setting stringent standards and ethics, leading from the front, accepting criticism and acting on it, getting to know your personnel’s strengths and weaknesses, and personal responsibility.

I’m now looking forward to the next NJSACOP Staff Ride, exploring the many important lessons to be learned from the Battle of the Bulge.

David Annets, Director

Leadership Lessons Limited