First Female Leader of US Naval Academy Replaced by Marine Corps Officer

 

For the first time in 180 years, a Marine Corps officer has been appointed to run the U.S. Naval Academy. 

Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Michael J. Borgschulte - a helicopter pilot who rose through the ranks to become the Marine Corps' top HR official - has been selected to replace current superintendent Vice Adm. Yvette M. Davids, a career surface warfare officer. Davids has been reassigned to the Pentagon to become the new Deputy CNO for Operations, Plans, Strategy, and Warfighting Development. By law, the Secretary of the Navy will have to request a waiver so that she can transfer to the new post. 

Though Davids has been renominated to a high-level role at the Pentagon, it is the fourth time that a "first female" leader in American maritime affairs has been removed from a prominent position by the Trump administration. She joins Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan (USCG), CNO Adm. Lisa Franchetti (USN) and USMMA superintendent Rear Adm. Joanna Nunan (USCG, ret'd.), who were all dismissed from their posts ahead of schedule this year. (Rear Adm. Ann Phillips (USN), the first female Maritime Administrator, also resigned shortly before Trump took office.)

Though Borgschulte and Davids were classmates at the U.S. Naval Academy in the late 1980s, the two appointees are markedly different in all other respects. Borgschulte played linebacker on the Academy's football team, picked the Marine Corps career option rather than the Navy, then earned his wings as an AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter pilot (his call sign was reportedly "Meat"). He served overseas during Operation Iraqi Freedom and accumulated 700 combat flight hours, followed by command of a helicopter unit in Afghanistan. He currently serves as the Marine Corps' deputy commandant for manpower and reserve affairs, responsible for all HR policy and recruitment. 

Davids went the Navy route and became a career surface warfare officer, serving tours aboard destroyer USS David R. Ray, cruiser USS Normandy, frigate USS Higgins, and destroyer USS Benfold. Her first seagoing command was the Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate USS Curtis during Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, followed by command of cruiser USS Bunker Hill and commander of the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group. She served in a variety of senior roles in D.C., including at the office of the deputy chief of naval operations for Information, Plans, and Strategy - the command that she will be nominated to run after leaving the academy. 

"Vice Adm. Davids has commanded at every level and has led with distinction in some of the most complex security environments of our time. Her strategic vision and operational depth will be an exceptional asset to the Navy and the Department of Defense," said Navy Secretary John Phelan in a statement.