Senior Officer - Vadm winns

I would say that - that all of my experiences have been fascinating. The times where I was the Commanding Officer have been especially - um - fun-filled. My name is Andy Winns, Vice Admiral, Naval Inspector General. The other special time in command was as Commanding Officer of USS Essex, an amphibious assault ship. But I think because of the sheer size of the ship, and the number of men and women that were under my charge, I believe that it was a special time, because we deployed on 2 occasions. My most recent position - I've actually been stationed in the Pentagon a number of times, twice on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the most recent time I was the Vice Director of Operations. The Navy is indeed a diverse place, and we are working on making it more diverse. There are 4 African-American Admirals from my Naval Academy class alone, class of 1978, there are 4 of us, and it was because we had one of the largest classes of African-Americans ever entered the Naval Academy. There - there is a lot of mentoring and it goes on, some informal mentoring some formal mentoring, by Commanding Officers and Department Heads. In our Navy, we want people to succeed. We want men and women who want to excel, who want to further their careers, who want to become a better person tomorrow then they are today.