CAPT. ROBERT G. BUTLER JR.
Commanding Officer
Center for Naval Engineering

Had I not joined the Navy, I would probably still be pumping gas and working on engines at
the local filling station. The Navy has been great for me.

I am from Virginia Beach, Va., and I grew up in Princess Anne County. I enlisted in 1970 and served as an engineman aboard the destroyer Robert L. Wilson. I wasn’t there very long when the chief engineer asked me what I wanted to do in the Navy. I told him that, as a civilian, I had enjoyed working on engines. Well, he said, ‘What you want to be is an engineman.’ By then — I had about six months in the Navy — I had wised up. I asked, ‘What do they do?’ before I said, ‘Yes.’

I served as the leading petty officer on the Wilson for almost three-and-a-half years. I had decided about the time I made third-class engineman that my goal in the Navy was to be chief engineer on a destroyer. I learned about the LDO [Limited Duty Officer] program and that is what I worked toward. After nine years and nine months in the enlisted ranks, I did, in fact, get to become a chief engineer on a destroyer: the USS Sampson, DDG 10. I have been a chief engineer three times and have loved it every time.

Back as a young officer, I could see things that I wanted to fix or change, but as a junior person it is hard to do that. You have to be persistent. When I got my first command — at Shore Intermediate Maintenance Activity in Newport, R.I. — I was able to institute a lot of my beliefs. We worked as hard as we could to make a ship available for the amount of time that was needed to make repairs and to avoid spending premium dollars.

At the Center for Naval Engineering, Norfolk, Va., it will be my responsibility to outline training plans for sailors that can take them through an entire career. We need to be disciplined in how we put that together and how we develop our courses. We should at least make sure that when we ask the young sailor what he wants to do, he would know what his options are.

The most important objective for me will be taking care of the sailors: providing them the training they need to be able to go out and do their jobs. I would like to see a sailor starting out from boot camp with a career path laid out so that by the time he has eight to 10 years in the Navy, he is a qualified journeyman, equivalent to a journeyman at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. Not only should sailors have the title, they should have the respect and the jobs that come with it.