Women Who Inspire: Interview with Cathy (Donohue) Phillips

Cathy (Donohue) Phillips graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Political Science from the US Naval Academy.  After completing flight training, she was designated a Naval Flight Officer, and reported to Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron TWO (VQ-2) in Rota, Spain, where she earned her qualification as an EP-3 Electronic Warfare Mission Commander. Subsequently, she became the first woman to command an EP-3 squadron—Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron ONE (VQ-1). During her twenty-five year career, Cathy also served in the Office of Legislative Affairs in Washington, D. C., while concurrently serving as a White House Military Social Aide. She completed US Naval Test Pilot School in Patuxent River, MD, and upon graduation, served as a project officer at Naval Force Aircraft Test Squadron. She has logged over 3,000 flight hours in 23 types of aircraft. In addition, she served at the US Naval Academy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the Defense Information Systems Agency. Cathy retired from naval service in November 2014 with the rank of Captain (O-6).  

AW: Cathy, your resume is sort of out of control. When you graduated from the Naval Academy, did you have any idea that you would be taking this path?

CP: No. None at all. It happened tour by tour. After each tour, I’d say, okay, I’m done. Then they’d offer me the job for the next tour, and I’d think, well, that sounds interesting.

AW: You served as a Naval Flight Officer (NFO) in an EP-3 squadron, VQ-2, in Rota, Spain, as your first tour of duty after flight school. Were there many women in your command?

CP: We had around five hundred people in our command—these are large squadrons—and probably seventy to eighty officers in the wardroom. Of those, maybe four or five were women. Reconnaissance had recently opened up to women when we were in flight school—a stair step leading to women flying  combat aircraft.

AW: And how about on the aircraft itself, when you’d go on missions? What was the crew composition there?

CP: We had twenty-four people on the plane.  We’d carry three pilots, three NFOs, and 18 technical crewmembers. We needed so many people because of the signals intelligence work we did.

AW: Describe this just a bit. What kind of missions did you do and how long were they?

CP: We did a wide variety of missions. We flew a lot in support of Bosnia and Herzegovina doing combat reconnaissance missions. My longest flight was 11.6 hours. We did a lot of looking at battle space, gathered information, we’d talk with entities on the ground, on ships, and on other aircraft, providing real-time situational awareness. We’d never fly above 26,000 feet. I called us big, fat, slow, and ugly!

AW: Ha! And were you flying from Rota or were you forward deployed?

CP: We forward deployed to Souda Bay in Crete. I probably spent almost two years in Crete.

AW: Two years in Greece . . . Are you kidding?

CP: That was a great tour.

AW: No doubt! So on your flights, were you ever the only woman onboard?

CP: Oh, many times.

AW: Any difficulties in this regard?

CP: No. I didn’t really have any issues on my JO [Junior Officer] tour. The only small thing was that we’d always send someone out to the carrier to act as a liaison with the EP-3. I was in the rotation to go to the carrier, but they said they wouldn’t take me aboard, because it was too hard for them to figure out the berthing. [At this time, before 1994, women were prohibited from serving aboard combatant ships]. But that was really it. What I found out later in my career is that there were a few guys who didn’t have trouble working with women, but had trouble working for women, but overall, no big issues.

AW: Which you would know about, since, for example, you were the first woman to command an EP-3 squadron. Which is really amazing when you think about it. When you first started flight school, they had just opened reconnaissance up to women and then—what, seventeen years, eighteen years?—later, you’re taking command of a reconnaissance squadron!

CP: Yeah, everything really opened up for us. Sara [Joyner] was the first female CO [commanding officer] for Hornets. Heidi Fleming took command of a squadron . . .

    

AW: What about ’89, indeed! Now, because you had the unique opportunity to command a squadron, I’m curious how you perceived your female junior officers when you were a CO. Do you see a difference in the female junior officer now as opposed to twenty-five years ago?

CP: I think everything has changed a great deal. The women who were my junior officers when I was a CO were just toddlers when we attended the Naval Academy.

AW: Yikes! How’s that for feeling old?

CP: I know! [laughs]. As you know, our “generation” of officers moved into the fleet just a few years before combatants were opened up to women. It seems, as a whole, we waited later to marry and have kids, if we married or had kids at all. My son was only two years old when I entered my XO [executive officer] and CO tour. What I see now is that the female junior officers are marrying and having children sooner. They’re just having to finesse things differently than we did.

AW: Because you mention your son, I’d like to backtrack to find out about your husband. Where did you meet him and was he in the service, too?

CP: We met in Pax River [Patuxent River, Maryland]. He was a P-3 pilot.

AW: When did you get married and how did that work in terms of co-location?

CP: We dated—long distance—for the first year of my department head tour in Rota, Spain, and then were engaged for the second year. We got married just a few months before I rotated out. I then received orders to the Naval Academy and my husband retired from the service during that tour. This worked out perfectly, because when I eventually took orders to VQ-1 for my XO and CO tour, [Whidbey Island, Washington], he was able to move with me and our son out there and work as a contractor for Homeland Security.

    

AW: How was your command tour?

CP: A hard tour. A good tour. So much to juggle. We had around 500 people operating all over the world. We didn’t deploy as a squadron, but would send detachments out. So we’d send the JOs out with their plane for two months and we had planes all over the world.  We supported Operation IRAQI FREEDOM. We had crews in South America. We had them in Japan for Operation ENDURING FREEDOM. Over the course of that year, when I was CO, I took eight or nine trips around the world to spend time with each detachment. Lots of travel. Lots of time away. Our son was between two and four years old at the time, so that was hard.  But my husband spent a lot of time at home with him and developed a great and very sweet relationship with him. At the end of my CO tour, we were exhausted.

AW: I realize I’m skipping around here, but I want to go back to the tour prior to Test Pilot School, where you were performing two jobs concurrently. You worked in the Office of Legislative Affairs in Washington, D. C. , working as a liaison officer between the House of Representatives and the navy. And at the same time you served as a White House Military Social Aide. I’m curious about the White House job. What was that?

CP: This was a collateral duty that you had to apply and be selected for. There were five or six of us—junior officers from all branches of service—and basically, you were there to help the President and his family host state dinners and receptions.

AW: How cool is that? So what did this entail?

CP: We would have different assignments depending on the dinner. Like one of us might be at the door to greet guests and welcome them to the White House. Or one of us might escort guests upstairs. We met all sorts of people, movie stars, really interesting people.

AW: And were you dressed up? In uniform?

CP: We wore mess dress [a formal uniform in the navy]. And we would also do receiving line duty. And this was actually a highly orchestrated event.

AW: You mean, directing people to the receiving line?

CP: No, more than that. We had several people assigned to the receiving line, all with specific jobs. We had the Announcer, the Pre-Announcer,  the Whisperer—

AW: The Whisperer?

CP: The person who stood behind the President and whispered in his ear about who was coming next in the receiving line. The Whisperer received his information from the Announcers.

AW: Were you ever the Whisperer?

CP: I never got to be the Whisperer.

AW: Anything else we need to know about the inner workings of the receiving line?

CP: We had Pull-off people, too.

AW: Pull-off people? I hesitate to ask. . . .

CP:  Yeah. Pull-off One and Pull-off Two. To keep the receiving line moving, we would have people assigned to “pull” the person talking to the President or another dignitary in order to keep the line moving. “Now, right this way, sir.” Stuff like that.

AW: I had no idea.

CP: You just can’t believe how smoothly everything is run. There’s a civilian protocol officer that orchestrates everything. And I mean everything.

AW: So you enjoyed this job?

CP: Yes, it was a lot of fun. I got to see how the White House runs. But I have to say, no matter who I vote for, I have a ton of respect for whoever sits in the President’s chair and also the President’s family. I mean, I only saw the social part, and that was just crazy.

AW: And then, from White House Military Social Aide to U. S. Naval Test Pilot School. What a crazy swing! Did you have to apply for that and how did it work once you were in?

CP: Yes, you had to apply and there was a selection board. Once you were in, you took one of three tracks: jet, helo, or systems. I took the systems track and when I finished [after graduation from Test Pilot School one year later], I did two years of testing on EP-3 systems.

AW: Your resume says you flew twenty-three different types of aircraft. Did you do all this in Test Pilot School?

CP: Yes. They want you to have an “air sense” about as many aircraft as possible to help round your perspective. I got to fly a wide variety of aircraft like the F-14, F-15, the Beaver—a tail dragger prop—and I got to fly in Italy with the Tornado at the end for my DT2—it’s similar to a final thesis.

   

AW: Your thesis?

CP: Yes, at Test Pilot School it was like getting an aero engineering masters and you have this project at the end that encompasses everything you learned that year.

AW: That is just so flippin’ impressive. With all of these tours—and we didn’t even get to each one of them—did you have a favorite?

CP: I loved each one in different ways . . . which is why I kept staying in. 

My Big Fat Greek Upbringing

My yiayia, Alexandra Hotis

At first glance, you might not guess I have a Greek heritage. My dad is Greek, first generation. My mom is a mix of Irish, Swedish, and Norwegian. But, without doubt, I was raised “Greek.” And the Greek culture is a patriarchal one. Not too many decades ago, if you were a girl growing up in a Greek family, your path was pretty straightforward—marry a good Greek boy and have children.

I’m amazed at the leaps women have made within my Greek family in just two generations. My extended family counts medical professionals, attorneys—including two Assistant U. S. Attorneys—accountants, teachers, publicists, businesswomen, you name it.

But I’d like to step back a moment to see how we got here, using my time growing up as an example.

If there’s anything you’d care to know about my upbringing, rent the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding. It’s all in there.

The large extended Greek family? Check.

Married in the Greek Orthodox church? Check. With—count ‘em—ten bridesmaids. Big fat Greek wedding indeed.

Member of the Greek dancing troupe? Check.

Everyone in the family named the same? Check.

In my family, you have one of the following names or a variation of: Alexandra, Anthony, Stacy, or James. Although, included in our ranks, we do have a Theodora and a Despina for flavor, and one rogue Karla.

The “A” in Anne A. Wilson? Alexandra. Which, by the way, has spawned four variations: Alex (for a girl), Alex (for a boy), Alexia, and Sandy.

Yiayia? Check.

Yiayia is grandmother in Greek. And any girl who calls herself Greek, has surely endured yiayia matchmaking.

You’ve seen the stereotyped yiayias, dressed in black, wearing kerchiefs, waddling to and from the kitchen carrying pans of baklava, wearing crosses on their necks, and worry beads strapped to their waists. And yeah, I’ve known my fair share.

When I lived in Annapolis, during my time at the Naval Academy, I attended Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church. They had an especially, uh, persuasive group there. This yiayia contingent—determined septuagenarians, who would have me marry their grandsons—would stalk me after liturgy, accosting me gang-style at church coffee hour.

“You need to find good Greek boy and get married,” Effie says.

“But I’m in school. I can’t get married,” I say.

“School? Pah! Why you go thees navy academy?”

“I want to get a degree. I’d like to be a naval officer.”

“But what about the cheeldrin, honey?” [You have to add the guttural “h” in “honey” or it’s just not authentic]. “You need to have lots of cheeldrin,” Effie says.

“But I haven’t really thought about children,” I say. “I don’t even know if I want kids.”

“Of course you do, honey,” Effie says. “You just don’t know it, yet.”

“My grandson ees good Greek boy!” Zoe says. “You listen to me!”

“No, no, no,” Soula says. “My grandson, Nick, ees businessman! He take good care of you!”

“Thanks Soula. Thanks, Zoe. But I can take care of myself pretty okay.”

“No, no, no,” Effie says. “I introduce you to my Dimitri. He owns Greek restaurant!”

“Thanks Effie. Thanks all of you. But I already have a boyfriend.”

“Oh? Who ees thees boyfriend?” Effie says.

“His name is Bill. We go to school together.”

“Bill . . . what?” she asks.

Uh, oh. She’s on to me.

“What ees his last name?” she presses.

“Wilson. His name is Bill Wilson.”

“Op, op, op!” They say in unison. “No! Ees not Greek! Ees American!” Soula says.

“But you’re American, too. We all are.”

“No, no, no,” Soula continues. “Ees not the same. Ees not Greek! See over there? That’s my grandson, Georgios. He ees from the old country.”

Oh no. Not the old country.

“Georgios, Georgios! Ela etho (come here)!”

No! He’s getting up!

Back then—this was over twenty-five years ago—the guys from the old country arrived with gold necklaces, shirts unbuttoned, chest hair brimming, the swagger, the attitude, the answer to every Greek-American girl’s dream. No, please, no.

But the "old country," aka Greece, is where my grandparents were born. My grandfather arrived in the United States at the age of eleven, and my grandmother—my yiayia—crossed the grounds of Ellis Island many years later at the age of twenty-six. Together, they raised seven children.

My dad was one among these children, which included his sister, his brother, and four half-siblings. They grew up poor in El Paso, Texas, and scrabbled and worked their you-know-whats off to make it in America.

These two generations laid the groundwork for my generation. But throughout, the essence of the Greek woman never changed. Smart and hardworking, they could take care of themselves, their family, and anyone else who came along. But now, new country, new freedoms, new opportunities. The world had opened to future generations of Greek women. We were free to fly. In my case, literally.

I marvel at this, because my sisters, my cousins, my contemporaries, we all shared the same upbringing—yiayias wondering when we were going to get married. Why was it taking so long? When are you going to have cheeldrin?

Ironically, most of us did. We got married. We had children. But it wasn’t a foregone conclusion. We had choices. Would could get an education, have a career. Have a family or not. Now or later.

Even though I poke a little fun at our yiayias, they had substance. Strong women. Tough women. And this was passed down to those of us who happened to be born in a different country at the right time with the right freedoms. If not for them, had they not had the work ethic to lay the foundation in a new country, we would never have had these opportunities in the first place. 

Women Who Inspire: Interview with Hope Hall

For those of you new to my blog, I periodically interview my female Naval Academy classmates and post these interviews under the heading, Women Who Inspire. I favor a strong female protagonist, and I don't have to look far for inspiration.

One such person is this month's interviewee, Hope Hall. Prepare to be amazed. I've even included a bonus video at the end of the article. Your jaw will drop when you watch it, but it will remain firmly cemented to the floor when you remember that Hope is forty-seven years old. 

Hope Hall on the straps.

Hope Hall graduated from the United States Naval Academy with a Bachelor of Science in English and reported to Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron Light-40 (HSL-40) in Mayport, Florida, to serve as the legal officer, and later, the maintenance officer. After attending Intel School in Dam Neck, VA, she reported to Joint Intelligence Center Pacific (JICPAC) in Hawaii to serve as an all-source intelligence officer. Her final tour, rounding out seven years of active duty service, brought her back to Washington, D. C., as the navy’s HIV policy officer. She represented Team USA in the World Military Games in the sports of triathlon and cross country, and has competed five times at the Ironman Triathlon World Championships in Kona, Hawaii. Today, she works as a Senior Project Manager for Clark Construction. Hope is currently living in Seattle, WA. 


AW: I typically don’t begin these interviews by talking about outside interests or hobbies, but I just have to start with this first photo, because it’s so freakin’ gorgeous. Tell me about aerial arts and performing with the straps. When and where did you begin this pursuit?

HH: I started at a circus arts school in Los Angeles about seven years ago. I saw a man performing on the straps—typically it’s men on this apparatus—and he did these roll-ups, where you start in an iron cross position and roll yourself up the straps, and I said, “I want to do this!”

Hope Hall on straps
and Steve Thompson on trapeze

AW: You were a gymnast at the Naval Academy, so I imagine this background helped!

HH: Yeah, so much of that muscle memory was still there. I’ve always been challenged with flexibility, but my strength is my strength, so this apparatus plays to that. It requires great core strength, but it’s still beautiful and lyrical. This is a great outlet for my creativity and also a viable form of exercise. I can work on my strength and flexibility, stay in shape, and I get to perform, too.

AW: Tell me about this picture here, where you are performing with a trapeze artist.

HH: This was one of my favorite performances. You wouldn’t think the trapeze and the straps could mesh, but we created a story—a love story—did the choreography, picked the costumes, and the music. It’s all a learning process. When you’re creating the story, you’re thinking, How do I want to make people feel? Normally, I do performances with a “stronger” feel, but this one was quite gentle.
 
AW: These photos are just stunning. But you also do partner balance work.

Hope Hall with Rachel Tatum
demonstrating partner balance

HH: When trying out different things at the circus arts school, you find what works for your body type, and partner balancing works well for me. The partner I work with now is also a former gymnast. Like the straps, partner balancing plays to my strength.

AW: Speaking of strength, you’re an accomplished triathlete. You’ve completed thirteen Ironman triathlons and you’ve qualified for and competed in the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii, five times! We could probably spend your entire interview right here—since your interviewer is a triathlon coach—but suffice it to say, this is an amazing accomplishment. How did you get started in triathlon?

HH: When I was stationed in Hawaii, I won a bet with a fellow Academy grad who was a swimmer at Annapolis. For winning, he had to give me swim lessons, so I could survive my first sprint triathlon.

AW: Survive? You mean you couldn’t swim?

HH: No! I was an aqua-rock at the Academy. I barely made it through the swim tests there.

AW: From aqua-rock to Kona. Incredible. And trust me, as a swim coach, I know. So from the time you completed your first sprint tri to going to Kona, how long was that?

HH: I learned to swim and started racing in 1992. I went to Kona for the first time in 1995. So three years.

AW: And what other years did you compete there and did you have a favorite qualifying race?

HH: After the first time in 1995, I was there in 1996 and 1998. Then I took a little break from Ironman, but returned the sport in 2005 at Ironman Lake Placid and qualified there. That was my favorite qualifying race. And then I did Ironman Wisconsin in 2006, which qualifies you for Kona in the following year, so I did my last Kona in 2007.

AW: Are you doing triathlons now?

HH: Yes, but not like before. I think that triathlon . . . it can sort of take over your life. I wanted to take some time off. I wanted it to be fun again. Now, my favorite thing is doing relays with my sister—she’s a super-fast cyclist—so now it’s fun again. But also, triathlon doesn’t mix well with the aerial arts and partner balancing. They run counter to each other. Like if you’re running, your hamstrings get tight, or you’re bent over on a bike in the aero position, but then you have to go to the gym and you’re doing back handsprings. It’s just hard, especially as you get older.

Hope Hall (right) with her sisters,
Kate Borders (left) and Lindsey Mohle (center)

AW: [Easy to forget you’re speaking with a 47-year-old, when the conversation shifts to back handsprings. I take that back. I forgot she was 47 with the very first question and pretty much every question since.] So we need to hit on your naval career at some point in this interview, but even this included athletics, because you competed for Team USA in the World Military Games, both in the sports of triathlon and cross country!

HH: Yes, the first Games were in Rome in 1995 and it was pretty cool because you marched into a stadium, just like the Olympics, and there were probably thirty countries there. The whole idea of the military games is friendship through sport, so you had countries participating that weren’t friendly with the United States—like the Libyan military showed up—but we competed together on the field, so that was neat.

AW: Did they have the same sports in these Games that you’d find in the Olympics?

HH: They did, but they also focused on sports that showcased military skills. Like they had military pentathlon, which involved horses, and also sports with marksmanship. Remember Thomas Hellriegel? He was a German army officer and I got to be friends with him. He won the triathlon event for the Military Games that year, and then a month later, he took second place in Kona. That was my first Kona year, too, and I remember sitting with him the day after the race and he was absolutely stunned that he’d done that well. He was a total unknown at the time.

AW: That’s a very nice piece of triathlon lore there! Ok, so we really need to get to your military stuff. First, how would you characterize your time at the Naval Academy?

HH:  It took a while for me to look back on it fondly. After graduation, I stayed away. There were elements that were challenging. I knew I was gay, and I watched this girl, one of our classmates, go through this horrible thing. She was the smartest woman I’ve ever met and they kicked her out. I always lived in fear that I was next, so it was really hard. I pushed the Academy stuff away until our twentieth reunion. I went and it was a turning point. Everyone was so warm and they all knew about me and nobody cared. It was so refreshing to have this reaction after twenty years. I felt welcome again, but it wasn’t like that when I graduated.

AW: I’m an author and I should have the words for that, but it sickens me. That whole situation. That you lived in fear like that. I’m just glad you’re being treated better now.

HH: Yeah, I’ve reconnected with people. Thank heavens for Facebook! I’m even going to the Army-Navy game this weekend. So it’s much better, yes.

Hope Hall and her mom, Dina Hall in Italy

AW: You service selected General Unrestricted Line, and after you graduated, you went to a helicopter squadron first.

HH: I did. I was the legal officer for HSL-40 [Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron Light] and then I eventually moved into the maintenance department and became the maintenance officer.

AW: Were you mostly shore-based or did you go to sea during this tour?

HH: I was shore-based. This was a training squadron, so pilots fresh out of flight school would come here to learn how to fly the H-60. We had a lot of senior pilots in the squadron, who were instructors, and I got to go flying, too.

AW: And after this, you went to Hawaii for intelligence work? What did you do there?

HH: I was assigned to JICPAC [Joint Intelligence Center Pacific] as an all-source intelligence officer. This was a cool tour because it was joint, so all the services were represented here. Everyone had a different area of responsibility and we would brief the admirals and generals at Camp Smith every morning on developments or things that might be of interest to them in our area.

AW: And what was your area?

HH: I covered South Asia. Every night, you’d cull through all this information and pull up anything that could be of importance. Like there could have been a revolution in Fiji and you’d have to report on that. Or maybe you’d find something interesting in satellite imagery or pick up a good piece of human intelligence.

AW: Fascinating. I’ve sort of zipped around chronologically during this interview, and I’m going to fast forward once more. Today, you’re a Senior Project Manager for a construction company. Tell me about your most recently completed job.

HH: We just completed the structural retrofit of the Hall of Justice in downtown Los Angeles. After the Northridge earthquake in 1994, the building was shut down. It sat idle for almost twenty years. I mean, homeless people lived there. So we did a complete retrofit to make it earthquake tolerant. It took three years and 175 million dollars to bring it back to life, and the result is stunning.

AW: And now, you’ve moved to Seattle to take on the management of a new project.

HH: Yes, this is another three-year job. We’re expanding a VA facility to include a mental health center for research and outpatient care.

AW: I’m going to wrap up the interview by returning to the beginning of your naval career, to the application process for obtaining an appointment to the Naval Academy. I think our readers are going to get a chuckle out of who gave you your congressional nomination.

HH: Ha! It was Strom Thurmond. I’ll never forget when I received that phone call—I spoke with him personally—and he told me he was giving me a nomination. Probably rolling in his grave right now!

AW: Rolling over to applaud, hopefully!


Here's a video of Hope practicing on the straps!

The Great Hair Experiment

Midshipman 4/C Anne Hotis
(with short hair)
testing her lungs for something that
I'm sure was very important at the
time, but I can no longer recall.
  Parents' weekend -
summer of 1985.

Yesterday, the navy announced that it's putting a halt to short haircuts for new female recruits, aligning the navy with the other armed services, which do not require new female accessions to cut their hair.

I was surprised to hear this—surprised it hadn't happened sooner.

In the case of women at the Naval Academy, we had this hair discussion over twenty-five years ago.

When my female Naval Academy classmates and I donned uniforms for the first time in the summer of 1985, our hair, when worn loose, had to fall above the collar. If it was longer than that, you had to cut it.

That's me in the picture to the left, standing on my chair in King Hall—our dining hall at the Naval Academy—when I was a plebe, or first-year student, with my short hair.

I know. I 'm standing on a chair. My classmates in the background are doing it, too. For those of you who did not attend the Naval Academy, suffice it to say, that's the subject for another blog article.

In the mid-eighties, women in the fleet had been wearing their hair long hair for years (once out of boot camp, that is), putting it up in an appropriate manner when in uniform. But not midshipmen. We had to jump through hoops to adopt the same standards at the Naval Academy.

Today, when female midshipman are in uniform, they can simply pin their hair up if it falls below the collar mark. Easy. But what's easy now, wasn’t so easy then.

To that end, several of my classmates and I participated in a "ground breaking" experiment. In our first class, or senior, year, a select few were allowed to grow our hair long to test the theory that female midshipmen were in fact capable of pinning our hair up to meet military standards.

Midshipman 1/C Anne Hotis
(with long hair)
accepting her diploma from our Superintendent,
Rear Admiral Virgil L. Hill.

Fortunately for the female mids today, we were successful, and now they can wear their hair long when not in uniform.

I guess I'm just surprised it took so long for the navy to follow suit with regard to females entering boot camp.

But hair, Anne? Really? You're devoting blog space to this?

Yeah, I know. It's a small thing. But it was nice to be part of a change like that. Great, also, to finally see it come full circle.

A Cover for HOVER!

It's official!

Women Who Inspire: Interview with Cathy Masar

This month's interview is with a very recently retired navy captain, Cathy Masar. Join the navy, see the world! She's done that and then some.

Commander Cathy Masar - Change of Command, Boston
Military Entrance Processing Station, 2011

Cathy Masar graduated from the U. S. Naval Academy with a Bachelor of Science in Economics. During her 25-year career, she served in a wide variety of positions including Training Officer aboard USS Abraham Lincoln, Flag Lieutenant for the Sixth Fleet Commander, Facilitator and Instructor at the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute, Commanding Officer of the Boston Military Entrance Processing Station, and Executive Director, Total Force Management for the U. S. Pacific Fleet. Cathy retired with the rank of Captain (O-6) and currently works at Amazon as a Senior Human Resources Business Partner. Cathy lives in Seattle, WA.
  
AW: You just retired after twenty-five years of active duty service as a navy captain. You’ve served all over the world, ashore and at sea, but it all started back in Orofino, Idaho! What led you to choose the Naval Academy?

CM: It was several things. I have three very smart older sisters, who were in college at the time, and it would have been difficult financially for my family to support four daughters in school at the same time. I also wanted to serve, to travel, to see the world, and to be challenged. And my dad was a captain in the navy reserve and served on active duty in Vietnam aboard a hospital ship.

AW: How would you characterize your time at the Naval Academy?

CM: It was hard—the first two years, especially. I struggled with time management. With all the stuff we had to do there—all those extracurricular activities—I was overwhelmed. But I did have help from a Class of ’88 grad, who helped me prioritize and get myself going. I learned to focus.

AW: Any bright spots?

USNA Economics majors visit the New York
Stock Exchange, 1989
L to R, Cathy Masar, Eric Cheney, Heather Purvis

CM: Oh, definitely. I loved Halloween at Navy. We got to dress up. No one was mean to each other. It was all fun. To this day, Halloween is my favorite holiday! My roommates were another bright spot, as we went through such a challenging experience together. And Father Pucciarelli [a marine corps chaplain stationed at USNA when we were there]. Remember him? I went to him for advice when I was having trouble and he pointed to my shoes and said I needed to shine my shoes. I thought, what does that have to do with anything? But then he went on to say that I needed to start with the small things, things that I could control, forget about the other stuff, and I would feel better about myself. He was right.

AW: You served as a General Unrestricted Line Officer and, reading through your bio, you did some really cool stuff—and a wide variety, at that. What was your favorite tour?

CM: My most professionally rewarding tour was aboard [the aircraft carrier], Abraham Lincoln. I served as the Training Officer, but I also qualified as Officer of the Deck, which means, I was qualified to drive the ship. So there I was, driving an aircraft carrier, with planes taking off and landing, and I was a human resources specialist! Crazy! I also earned my Surface Warfare qualification, while assigned there.

AW: Okay, so that’s cool as hell, I just want to say. In charge on the bridge on an aircraft carrier! So you were on the Lincoln in 2001. This was seven years after the ban was lifted for women serving aboard combatant ships. What was the atmosphere like onboard?

CM: I would say it was the tour that hardened me the most. Up to this point, I had done a lot of shore tours and staff tours and working with admirals, so I was used to a little more politeness. But on the ship, it was a lot more crude. You know, the foul language, sailors getting arrested for drug and alcohol related offenses. Just a very different world.

AW: Were there many women on the ship?

Cathy Masar, kindergarten.
This little girl would
grow up to drive an
aircraft carrier.

CW: I don’t remember how many, exactly. But I do remember that fifty percent of the Reactor Department officers were women. These were nuclear surface warfare officers, which is a tough job for anyone—a huge job on a carrier—and these girls were sharp. So heartening to see what they were doing.

AW: Going back to working with admirals, you served as the Flag Lieutenant for the Sixth Fleet Commander, based in Gaeta, Italy.

CM: I did. I served as the Protocol Officer and the Flag Lieutenant for Sixth Fleet for two years and before that, I was in Naples, Italy and served as Protocol Officer and Flag Secretary for the Commander, Fleet Air Mediterranean.

AW: Four years in Italy! Sweet!

CM: You asked about my favorite tour earlier and I said my time on the Abraham Lincoln was the most professionally rewarding. But my favorite place was Italy. And the tours here allowed me to travel all over Europe.

AW: Were you stationed on a ship there?

CM: The command ship for the Sixth Fleet Commander was the USS La Salle, a converted amphibious ship. So yes, I had berthing there, but I also had a place in Formia, which was incredibly beautiful—glass walls, statues—wonderful.
  
AW: Did you get underway much?

CM: At least once a month, we would cruise into the Adriatic Sea, and then the Med, of course. I visited Casablanca, Israel, Greece, Algeria, Turkey. . . . We flew into Monaco.. . . I even got to accompany the admiral to Macedonia. Just an amazing opportunity.

AW: I’d say! And what was that like, working with admirals?

CM: It was extremely interesting, because I worked so closely with them. It sort of de-mystified them. I learned how they worked, how they allotted their time. They were managing so much and I got to see how they pulled it all together.

AW: I could for sure get stalled here and spend the rest of the time talking about Italy, but I wanted to touch on your time—earlier in your career—at the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute (DEOMI). You were stationed at Patrick Air Force Base for this?

CM: I was. This was in Cocoa Beach, Florida, and this tour was an absolute life changer for me. Prior to this, I had actually put in my resignation letter. This was only five years into my naval career. I was at the Recruit Training Command in Orlando and the base was being shut down, and I was getting a divorce, and I just didn’t have a plan. Someone mentioned an opportunity at DEOMI and wondered if I might be interested. I called my detailer and she said I could go there, so I pulled my resignation papers.

AW: I had no idea you’d submitted resignation papers at one point! So what did you do here?

CM: This command included all pay grades and all services and we had an intense four-month training period, where we received sensitized training on race relations, gender relations, and managing diversity. It was the one place in my whole career where sexist or racist comments were not tolerated- or even joked about. I mean, we were role models, so everyone respected each other and knew that the standard had to be high.

AW: As part of your job, you had to travel worldwide to instruct senior military leaders on diversity issues and the prevention of sexual harassment and racial discrimination. How were you received?

CM: Well . . . some groups were kind to us—we were assigned to mobile training teams—but some were hostile, too. But overall, I learned a great deal. How to get up in front of people, how do deliver unpopular training, and I learned valuable facilitation skills. That tour re-motivated and kick-started my career. I thought, after this, I’m ready to do anything.

AW: Any specific examples of a “hostile” crowd?

CM: I was surprised when we traveled to South Africa. This was just after the end of apartheid and I thought race relations would be the focus of our training. But we had a much harder time with women’s issues. That’s where we found the biases. Due to apartheid, they had already been addressing race issues, but not gender issues.

Captain Cathy Masar - Retirement Ceremony, Hawaii, 2014

AW: So interesting! Okay, so let’s fast forward to your last command, when you worked for the U. S. Pacific Fleet. You carried enormous responsibility here.

CM: Yes, I worked as N1 [Executive Director, Total Force Management], a job normally filled by a civilian, who is a flag officer equivalent. The woman in this position left, and I was asked to fill in for her, however, I stayed in this position for a full eighteen months!

AW: “Filling in” for  eighteen months. Classic. So what did this job entail and where were you stationed?

CM: I was in Hawaii for this tour and responsible for the manning of all ships in the Pacific Fleet and the human resources functions for over 130,000 military and civilian.

AW: That’s a big job by anyone’s standards!

CM: Definitely. But I had a great staff. Great support.

AW: And you retired from the navy after this?

CM: I did. Time to get back to family. And the timing was just right. I was ready.

AW: You work at Amazon now. How have you found the transition from military to civilian life?

CM: I had no idea what to expect and no time to prepare. I was so busy in my last job that when I retired, I was just suddenly out there. I networked through Linked In and that really helped, but job searching was a humbling experience.

AW: So you’ve been at Amazon how long now?

CM: Only a month. In fact, I haven’t had to work on the Friday after Thanksgiving in a long time (the military usually gives that day off), but I was working at Amazon yesterday, on Black Friday.

AW: Ha! Black Friday. At Amazon. Nothing like being thrown into the fire! So I guess your navy experience served you well here.

CM: It certainly did!

To the Men of the Naval Academy Class of 1989

I don’t want you to feel left out. Yes, the women of our class have been the focus of my blog interviews, but only because I favor a strong female protagonist in my novels, and my goal is to bring real-life examples of these types of women—women who inspire—to the fore.

The men in the Class of 1989 have gone on to stellar careers in both the military and civilian worlds, accomplishing some extraordinary things. Just like the women I’ve interviewed, each of you has a fascinating story to tell, a story that deserves to be heard, just like any other. Neurosurgeons, carrier air wing commanders, commodores, CEO's of million-dollar companies. It blows my mind, really, what you’ve collectively achieved.

With such an elite group, it’s no surprise that you’re a rare one, too. Less than half of one percent of male veterans living today are Naval Academy graduates. A half of a percent. A special fellowship indeed.

And because you matriculated in the Class of ‘89, you did so with the women who would become only the tenth graduating class of women from the Academy, our 94 officers to your 970. Women were still new, relatively speaking, to the service academies at this point. There weren’t even enough of us to populate each company. You remember. In a particular company, you might have a smattering of third classmen here, a random few first classmen there. Some of you even went through our school without ever having a woman from the Class of ‘89 in your company. My husband, for one, would be included in this count. Suffice it to say, it was an interesting time for all of us.

Not only were we women working out how to blend in, but you guys were figuring it out, too. Now, I’m not going to go where it seems most women-in-the-military articles go. To the harassment. To the assaults. Did we experience this? Yes. But that’s not the topic of this article.

No, this time, I want to recognize our male classmates who helped us to succeed. Who stood up for us when it wasn’t popular to do so, who had our backs—you who respected us just as you did your male company mates. And there were a lot of you. This continued into the fleet and beyond, and to you, I offer my sincere gratitude.

This camaraderie began as plebes, when we suffered the same misery and missteps that came part and parcel with that interminably long year. I think that when struggling next to someone, regardless of ethnicity or gender or whatever, it tends to make us a little more accepting of the other. There was bonding to be had on many levels. We chopped together, stood restriction together, marched tours, braced up, and even passed out at sweat shop parties, the full meal deal, side by side. The result? A common bond born through shared experience and something you—our male classmates—took with you into the fleet, consciously or not.

Some of you who took the oath of office in July 1985, weren’t all that sure—and that’s obviously putting it lightly—about having women in the ranks. It’s my hope that some of your minds were changed as you worked with us and served with us. But even as I write this, I know that’s probably not the case, nor will it ever be.

I’ll give you an example and I’ll preface it this way. Any of you who know me, know I’m not a braggart, and that is not at all what is intended here. But it’s one personal example I have—one of many, unfortunately—that some people’s minds will never be changed about women in the service.

My aircrew and I were named Helicopter Aircrew of the Year for 1997 by the Naval Helicopter Association (NHA). This award for search and rescue is given to both embarked and non-embarked crews. We won that year in the non-embarked category for the rescue of thirteen people in the 100-year flood that affected Yosemite and the area surrounding Reno, NV.

Year after year, it’s the coast guard units who normally come away with this award, performing extraordinary feats of daring do in Alaska, during hurricanes, with fifty-foot waves . . . you get the idea.

Our operation didn’t involve the ocean, but it was considered harrowing enough to be grouped with the coast guard folks. Our rescue occurred in a mountain canyon at night, in a storm with freezing rain and uncooperative winds, picking people—including stranded swift water rescue team members—from  some tricky spots with literally just minutes before the structures they were clinging to collapsed. Yes, it was difficult, but to put this into perspective, we’re not talking combat here. No one was shooting at us. 

 

So anyway, first, we were put in for the NHA’s Western Region award, which we won, and we traveled to San Diego for a low-key awards ceremony. Then, we were picked among the regional award winners as the national winner. The ceremony this time was formal, again held in San Diego, but this time in a hotel ballroom with a fancy dinner, wearing dress whites, with high-ranking officers and leaders of the industry present. I sat next to the vice president of Bell Helicopters at dinner, if I recall it correctly.

After all the hoopla, my crew and I returned home to our base in Nevada—Naval Air Station Fallon—and back to the business of providing SAR support for visiting carrier air wings, and flying our specialty mission, technical mountain rescue.

During a flight in Fallon shortly after the formal awards ceremony, while discussing the events of the previous days, my male co-pilot turned to me and asked, “Do you think they gave you that award because you’re female?” That’s a direct quote, by the way.

I remember turning to him and saying, “Are you joking or are you serious?”

“I’m serious,” he said, straight-faced, without a hint of humor.

I didn’t think of it at that moment, but I wish I had said, “Why don’t you ask the four men who were with me on that flight? Let me know how they feel about that question.” I was the mission commander on that particular flight with a male co-pilot, a male crew chief, a male rescue swimmer, and a male corpsman.

The question shouldn’t have been a surprise, not based on the pilot who asked it. His mind was made up. Women weren’t supposed to be in the cockpit. Period. It wouldn’t have mattered what I had done or what any of the other women in our class who went on to stellar aviation careers had done. His mind was set.

This particular pilot was not a Naval Academy graduate, but much of the support and offers of congratulations I did receive, came from Naval Academy graduates—men of our class, who considered me one of their own. It was surprising, heartening, and meant the world.

I served on active duty for just over nine years, and during that time, my goal was to do my job well, and hopefully, change a few minds, one interaction at a time. I’d like to think I succeeded some of the time. But, of course, there were examples like the one I shared with you, where it was a done deal. I was never going to convince the person otherwise. It was one of the most frustrating things I experienced in my naval service.

I’m not saying I didn’t make mistakes. Of course, I did. We all do. Men and women both. It’s how we learn and mature and grow. The frustration comes though, when you do get it right, and the person refuses to see it or acknowledge it, purely based on gender, ethnicity, or what have you.

I realize, now re-reading what I’ve just written, I’ve gone off on a bit of a rant here. That wasn’t my intent. What I really wanted to do was recognize the men I served with who did not wear the blinders. Or if they did, the ones who took them off and allowed themselves an open view.

I spoke with a dear friend, a male classmate, at our 25^th reunion, who has supported women in the ranks from the get go. During his career, he has commanded on the order of thousands—men, women, junior, senior—just like so many of you have done. He summed up his feelings on the issue in his trademark “eloquent” way. “I don’t care who you are, just do your f---in’ job!” That is, he treats his officers as officers, and as long as they’re competent, it’s all good.

I’d say that’s it in a nutshell. Should you face the consequences if you fail to do your job? Of course. But conversely, you’d think you could get a nod of acknowledgement, just something, if you’re doing it right. At least be afforded the decency of beginning a working relationship with an open mind.

So my Veteran’s Day sentiment is just a bit different this year. For those of you who have treated us with respect, who have supported us just as you would any other officer, and especially for those who did so when we lived together in Bancroft Hall, thank you.