Capt. Gisele Bonitz, executive officer of the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific, has been appointed commanding officer of SSS Pacific.

She took over the post from Capt. Kurt Rothenhaus, who has been SSC Pacific’s commanding officer since 2013, during a change-of-command ceremony held Monday at SSC Pacific in San Diego, the U.S. Navy said Thursday.

Rothenhaus received the Legion of Merit award from Rear Adm. Dave Lewis, commander of the Space and Naval Warfare Command, during the ceremony in recognition of his performance and contributions to SSC Pacific.

Bonitz held leadership roles at SPAWAR that include chief of staff and executive assistant as well as adviser to the chief engineering on information technology issues.

She became chief of information assurance at the Combined Joint Task Force Seven in Iraq in 2003 and months later assumed the role of deputy of the innovations and experimentation directorate at Commander, 3rd Fleet in San Diego.

The 20-year Navy veteran led the development of a communications infrastructure that supported operations of the expeditionary strike group one as assistant chief of staff for command, control, communications, computers and information.

She also served in various IT leadership posts at the U.S. Strategic Command such as computer network defense and information assurance branch chief, deputy for the cyber space, C2 requirements division and division chief for the IT enterprise system and plans division.

Bonitz is a recipient of numerous awards that include the Defense Meritorious Service Medal and Legion of Merit.

SSC Pacific serves as SPAWAR’s lab that works to provide information warfare capability for naval, joint and coalition forces through research, development, test and evaluation efforts.

This story was originally published on January 13, 2017.

President Barack Obama has nominated Vice Adm. Dixon Smith as deputy chief of naval operations for fleet and readiness at the U.S. Navy and Rear Adm. Mary Jackson as commander of the Navy Installations Command.

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said Wednesday that President Obama also endorsed the reappointment of Smith to the rank of vice admiral and the promotion of Jackson to the rank of vice admiral.

Smith has served as commander of the Navy Installations Command since Oct. 24, 2014 and previously commanded USS The Sullivans, Naval Base San Diego, Navy Region Hawaii, Naval Surface Group Middle Pacific, Navy Region Southwest and Navy Region Mid-Atlantic.

He also worked as a seamanship instructor aide to the naval inspector general at the Newport, Rhode Island-based Naval Education and Training Center and deputy executive assistant to commander in chief of allied forces, Southern Europe/commander in chief at the U.S. Naval Forces in Europe.

Jackson has led the Navy Region Southeast in Jacksonville, Florida since July 18, 2014 and previously served as chief of staff to the commander of Navy Region Mid-Atlantic.

Before that, she held the roles of seamanship and navigation instructor at the U.S. Naval Academy, theater air and missile defense officer at the U.S. Joint Forces Command, flag secretary to commander at Naval Surface Forces within the Atlantic Fleet and head of surface junior officer assignments at Navy Personnel Command in Millington, Tennessee.

She also previously was executive officer at Naval Station Norfolk and commander of Naval Station Norfolk.

Her previous at-sea duty assignments include time as assistant operations officer and navigator on USS Willamette, operations officer on USS Briscoe, operations officer on USS Vella Gulf and executive officer of USS Stout.

This story was originally published on November 17, 2017.

President Donald Trump has announced plans to nominate David Norquist, a partner at Alexandria, Virginia-based certified public accounting firm Kearney and Co., as defense undersecretary, comptroller.

Trump revealed his plans to name Norquist and five other individuals to several positions at the Defense Department in a news release published Thursday.

Norquist is a 27-year financial management professional in the federal government who started his career at the Department of the Army as a budget analyst for four years.

In this role, he was responsible for the development of the service branch’s budget for the National Foreign Intelligence Program.

He spent three years at the Army Intelligence and Security Command, where he served as director of resource management and prepared the budget for the Consolidated Cryptologic Program as a budget analyst.

Prior to Kearney, Norquist served as chief financial officer at the Department of Homeland Security from 2006 to 2008 and provided oversight of the agency’s financial management operations.

He spent more than three years at DoD as deputy defense undersecretary and served as a member of the staff of the House Appropriations Committee’s defense subpanel.

This story was originally published on March 20, 2017.

Kenneth Pirman, director of the Defense Logistics Agency‘s distribution unit in Sasebo, Japan, is due to retire from his position by the end of 2017.

With his retirement, Pirman concludes 41 years of combined service with the U.S. military and federal government, DLA said Thursday.

He joined the agency in 2000 as a transportation officer for the distribution unit in Corpus Christi, Texas and elevated to the role of operations manager three years later.

Before that, he served as a contractor at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio from 1998 to 2000.

Pirman contributed traffic management work during his tenure as a U.S. Air Force master sergeant between 1974 and 1998.

His DLA career also includes time as deputy commander and transportation and receiving director at DLA Distribution Yokosuka.