Navy Replaces Two Cyber School Commanders in Two Months

 

The U.S. Navy has removed the commander of its East Coast information warfare training center, which prepares cyber and cryptography specialists for deployment. The announcement came just months after the replacement of the head of the equivalent center on the West Coast.  

Cmdr. Sarah M. Quemada, the commanding officer of Naval Information Warfare Training Group Norfolk, has been relieved "due to a loss of confidence in her ability to command," the explanation that the U.S. Navy usually provides in personnel actions. 

Quemada had commanded the Norfolk training group since 2023, and she has now been reassigned temporarily, as is standard. Rear Adm. Brian A. Harding, commander of Naval Information Warfighting Development Center, has appointed Capt. Steve McIntyre to take over the Norfolk unit on a temporary basis. 

Cmdr. Quemada is from Washington State, and she enlisted in 2005. After training as an information systems technician, she completed Officer Candidate School and commissioned as an ensign in 2007. A cryptologist by training, she deployed to Afghanistan to provide intelligence support for Joint Special Operations "village stability" missions. Afloat, she served aboard USS McFaul, and later held senior roles with an amphibious ready group and a carrier strike group. 

In November, the Navy relieved the commander of Naval Information Warfare Training Group San Diego, Cmdr. Cayanne McFarlane. "The Navy maintains the highest standards for commanding officers and holds them accountable when those standards are not met," the Navy said after McFarlane's removal. 

Navy Information Warfare's training command has a broad remit: it prepares personnel in afloat and ashore commands to work in electronic warfare, cryptography, cyber operations, intelligence, operational security, communications, space operations, and meteorology and oceanography. It has centers in Norfolk, San Diego and Gulfport, Mississippi.