35 Years Later, Vice Adm. Davids Returns to Naval Academy Commencement in Historic Trend

Friday gained’t be the primary time Navy Vice Adm. Yvette M. Davids has walked throughout the stage on the Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium, however this time, it’s historic.

This yr, Davids will take to the stage at america Naval Academy’s commencement and commissioning ceremony as superintendent — the primary time a lady has achieved so.

“It has been an honor and a privilege to return to the Naval Academy and function the sixty fifth superintendent,” Davids stated in a press release. “The vitality and pleasure that surrounds Commissioning Week has precisely the identical really feel because it did in 1989.”

Davids took the helm because the service academy’s superintendent in January following her nomination in April 2023. She changed performing superintendent Rear Adm. Fred Kacher, who took over in an interim position following the retirement of Vice Adm. Sean Buck final summer time.

As a midshipman, Davids studied oceanography and was on the intercollegiate dinghy crusing group earlier than graduating in 1989. She later served because the director of Naval Academy crusing. She is married to Keith Davids, a 1990 academy graduate and fellow sailor who turned a rear admiral and SEAL group commander.

Davids’ Navy profession started throughout Operation Desert Storm, when she was {an electrical} officer, fight info middle officer and communications officer aboard the united statesSan Jose.

She went on to turn out to be the primary girl of Hispanic descent to command a Navy warship when she took the helm of the united statesCurts, main the guided missile frigate by means of the Western Pacific and Arabian Gulf as a part of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. She additionally was commander of the guided missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill and Provider Strike Group 11 with the plane provider USS Nimitz.

Stateside, Davids has been a senior navy adviser to the secretary of state for political-military affairs with the U.S. Division of State and chief of workers for the U.S. Southern Command. She was most lately the director of the Studying to Motion Board drive group, which assess navy errors and gives methods to keep away from them sooner or later, and performing commander of Naval Floor Forces and Naval Floor Drive, U.S. Pacific Fleet.

The historic nature of her nomination shouldn’t be misplaced on Davids. Addressing attendees at her change of command ceremony this winter, the vice admiral mirrored on the Class of 1980, the primary on the academy to permit girls.

“They have been the trailblazers that sailed over benchmarked waters and set a path for ladies within the Naval Academy to comply with,” Davids stated in January. “I’m grateful for his or her braveness, information and assist all through my service.”

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