CAPT. LINDA M. LEWANDOWSKI

Project Leader, Office of Force Transformation, Office of the Secretary of Defense

My mom’s a former resident of a camp in Siberia. She’s responsible for bringing the family to the United States. She’s got a pioneer spirit and a personality to match. She just won a battle with cancer. Stalin didn’t kill her, the cancer’s not getting her either. She’s been very much an influence on who I am.

I ended up in the Navy because I wanted to consider all opportunities. I had a scholarship to do medical research, but hadn’t committed to the program. The military was the last thing I considered. I went to all the recruiters and the Navy recruiter in Philadelphia talked to me about the new “Women in Ships” program: “See the world on a ship.” I asked if I could go to California. He said, “Sure, you can go to California!” I just wanted to get the hell out of Pennsylvania.

My first ship was a submarine tender, the USS Dixon. They made me the electrical officer, a pretty critical billet. I was very aggressive in qualifying, making sure I wasn’t just getting signed off on requirements. I understood people might have been resentful because having women around was a new thing for the Navy. But I tuned it out. The only thing that would counter those feelings was to keep my nose to the grindstone and do the job.

I was selected to work in the Office of Force Transformation partly because I’ve had a very different career path for a surface warfare officer. I had a fellowship at Human Genome Sciences Inc., in Rockville, Md., and was at [the] Brookings [Institution, Washington, D.C.]. I also worked at the Joint Warfare Analysis Center in Dahlgren, Va. When you are looking for a person to work in transformation, you don’t want a Mark One, Mod Zero officer who is going to tout the party line.

This office is about large-scale transformation. All my experience to date — operationally and educationally — I use in this job. If we are really going to affect transformation, we need to educate people from the beginning, making sure the promotion pathway values people and manages the talent across the stovepipes. I don’t think we do very well at that.

I was slated to go to the USS Detroit. It would have been great for the pipe I’m in. But I kept asking, ‘What’s beyond that?’ The system hasn’t shifted yet to manage by skill set instead of body-to-billet.

I felt good about the work we are doing here. We had a new concept for logistics management. We’ve rattled some cages and we had the antibody reaction, really, because we are starting to go against the status quo: the institution, the processes, people’s thinking. They were just starting to understand it and we could see a pathway.

There’s a high level of satisfaction at being able to move the mountain. You get a sense of accomplishment. Just like in a ship, if you can make a difference in the lives of those people, it’s important. And a lot of that has to do with the policies you set.