Two of the Navy’s most outstanding officers faced tough challenges and led their crews through successful deployments — keeping fighters in the air and an aging destroyer on station.
Cmdrs. Tom Dickinson and Gavin Duff credited their crews for the prestigious Stockdale Leadership Awards. Dickinson, former commanding officer of the destroyer Barry, and Duff, the former CO of Strike Fighter Squadron 14, led their crews during a time when budget cuts had thrown the Navy’s schedules and timetables into disarray, leading to long and often unpredictable deployments.
Duff rallied his crew through a seven-month cruise on the carrier John C. Stennis in 2012, only to break the news to them that they would be making an eight-month cruise together just half a year later.
“It was a shock,” Duff said, in a telephone interview. “But we were honest with our sailors and tried to keep them informed. We also understood that there was a mission that had to be executed.”
Duff said he was impressed with the positive attitude his sailors kept throughout the deployments, adding that his command team performed spectacularly through both deployments.
Duff, a Naval Academy grad, was commissioned in 1995 and has served with fighter squadrons in Virginia Beach, Virginia; Japan; and Lemoore, California. He has also done a tour as a test pilot at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. Duff is in the training pipeline to become the executive officer of the carrier George H.W. Bush, something he said he is very excited about.
For Dickinson, the biggest challenge came when his six-month independent deployment with Barry in 2013 was extended. Indeed, the ship was extended three separate times; it returned to Norfolk after nine months. Each extension was a blow, but the crew rose to the challenge, Dickinson said.
“At each one of those iterations, you could have a turn in a different direction. But they persevered and that’s really a testament to the crew. … When things got tough, they got better.”
Faced with an independent deployment on an older destroyer, the crew had to learn to be self-sufficient, he said. But despite maintenance challenges, Barry met its mission tasking — it was extended multiple times to address the crisis in Syria.
He recalled a moment when a group of his sailors worked almost two days straight to fix a seal along one of the ship’s propeller shafts, a repair that often requires depot-level repairs.
“Once you get going on a shaft seal, you really can’t stop,” he said. “My crew did that in 48 hours with one tech-rep. I think that’s an example of some pretty amazing sailors.”
Dickinson, a surface warfare officer and academy grad, has done tours on the cruiser Chancellorsville, the minesweeper Champion and the destroyer The Sullivans. He has also done shore tours at Millington, the former Joint Forces Staff College and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
These COs were nominated by fellow COs, O-5 and below, from unrestricted line commands. Nominees are screened by how well they embody the leadership ethos of the late Vice Adm. James Stockdale, a Vietnam POW who earned a Medal of Honor for leading a resistance campaign against his North Vietnamese captors.
Past winners include Adm. Cecil Haney, the former Pacific Fleet commander; Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jon Greenert; and retired Adm. Mike Mullen, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Dickinson and Duff both said it was humbling to be in the same category as some of the past recipients.
Dickinson is now teaching leadership and ethics at the Naval War College but said he hasn’t thought about where his career will go from there.
“You know my goal was always to command, and I feel like I achieved that on the Barry,” he said. “Throughout my career I’ve taken it one step at a time and it’s worked out so far.”
The other finalists selected for “inspirational leadership,” according to the Navy, were:
■Cmdr. Martin Muckian, commanding officer, attack submarine Greeneville
■Cmdr. David Ray, former CO, amphibious transport dock New Orleans
■Cmdr. Andrew Thomson, CO, destroyer John Paul Jones
■Cmdr. Brian Weiss, former CO, Patrol Squadron 9
■Cmdr. Greg Zettler, CO, attack submarine Norfolk
■Cmdr. Daryle Cardone, former CO, Carrier Airborne Early Warning Squadron 121 ■
