Surface boss steps down

Vice Adm. Thomas Rowden , the Navy’s director at Naval Surface Force Pacific and the service’s top Surface Warfare officer, officially stepped down Jan. 18. The reins were turned over to Vice Adm. Richard Brown, a former commander of the Navy Personnel Command at Millington, Tenn. Brown is inheriting a community and force searching for answers after a troubling year, which included two destroyers colliding with commercial ships, resulting in the deaths of 17 sailors, in the Navy’s 7th Fleet operational area. The Navy’s consolidated disposition authority, tasked with overseeing disciplinary actions in the wake of those collisions, recommended Rowden be relieved. He was planning to retire in three weeks. A U.S. Naval Academy graduate, Brown has spent the majority of his time at sea on cruisers and destroyers. He previously commanded the destroyer The Sullivans, cruiser Gettysburg, and Carrier Strike Group 11. Rowden oversaw the reorganization of the Littoral Combat Ship program, moving from a complicated manning system that split three crews between two ships to a Blue/Gold crew model, dividing two crews between each ship. He also moved the LCS program away from switching out of mission packages to single-mission ships where crews were experts in a warfare specialty – mine-countermeasures (MCM), surface or anti-submarine warfare. (Source: Defense News 01/18/18) Gulf Coast Note: Austal USA shipyard in Mobile, Ala., builds the Independence-class LCS. Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City, Fla., has been intimately involved with development and testing of the MCM warfare program.