Captains Stubits (left) and Buduo exchange traditional relief of command salutes. Behind them on stage are Cmdr. Alan Phillips (left) and Rear Adm. James Shannon.
Despite the haze gray weather brought about by the remnants of Hurricane Ida which plagued the Atlantic Coast last week, it was a ‘‘great Navy day,” for Captains Neil Stubits and Andrew Buduo III, the respective outgoing retiring and incoming commanders of the Naval Surface Warfare Center Indian Head Division. The inclement conditions were even a part of Naval Surface Warfare Center commander, Rear Adm. James J. Shannon’s introductory remarks as he presented the change of command’s principal speaker, Rear Adm. Joseph F. Campbell, to the assembled crowd at Indian Head’s Village Green Pavilion.
‘‘We have a gray day and the Potomac River was gray as well when I left (Washington, D.C.) but I’m certainly not unhappy because this is fitting...all that is missing is a gray Navy ship!” Shannon said.
Campbell, like Stubits a Pennsylvanian, and who knew Stubits through a longstanding association in the Navy engineering duty officer community, praised IHDIV’s relieved commander as a leader and ‘‘a driving force behind Indian Head’s improved safety, culture and energetics capability.”
‘‘He leaves a lasting effect on Indian Head,” Campbell said, adding that Stubits ‘‘forged a reputation of excellence” in global security of the nation.
When Stubits took the podium to bid goodbye to the people of IHDIV, he said he was ‘‘reminded each day of the thousands of people behind pulling for me...I could have accomplished none of the things here alone,” calling those who worked for him his ‘‘extended family.”
‘‘I had the opportunity to interface with thousands of people here and all had an impact and influence on my success,” he said. ‘‘It was an honor to be your commander, you are true professionals and you all touched my soul.”
He then directed his remarks to his family, especially remembering his deceased mother and father, and his wife, Theresa.
‘‘Bear with me as I have to fight back tears,” he asked as he told the crowd about his dad, who ‘‘taught me work effort” (working as a railroad man) before dying when he was 24. ‘‘My mother, who died when I was 34, was my moral compass,” Stubits chokingly told the crowd. ‘‘They both missed most of my Navy career but are watching from someplace today and I hope they both can say that their son did well.”
Stubits then emotionally told his wife of more than two decades that she was ‘‘love of his life” in thanking her for their many Navy moves. ‘‘I look forward to the day we can spend growing old together in Pennsylvania, rocking on a porch,” he said.
After the exchange of the command, Buduo who becomes the 48th commander of IHDIV (but the 49th term as Lt. and Lt. Cmdr. Joseph Strauss commanded twice in the early 1900s) spoke briefly.
‘‘If anyone told me that I would get to command (a naval station) with a tradition of 120 years I wouldn’t have believed them,” he said, remarking that ‘‘fortune had smiled upon him.”
He noted that he had been a ‘‘customer of Indian Head” in his naval aviation career in having to experience IHDIV’s ‘‘excellent reputation” in the CAD⁄PAD (cartridge actuated⁄propellant activated device) arena. He concluded he ‘‘looked forward to this great opportunity.”
EDITOR’s NOTE: Capt. Stubits was honored with the Legion of Merit medal by Rear Adm. Shannon for his leadership at IHDIV
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