THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, December 28, 1994 TAG: 9412280470
SECTION: MILITARY NEWS PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
The Navy has given an unusual Christmas present - opportunity - to 50 of its most promising young sailors.
The group of first- and second-class petty officers, including 12 based in Hampton Roads, were notified last week that they're the initial selectees for the ``Seaman-To-Admiral'' program revived last spring by Adm. Jeremy Michael Boorda, the chief of naval operations.
``You have what it takes,'' Boorda wrote in a congratulatory letter delivered to each selectee, ``and now you are about to get the chance to prove it as an officer.''
Winners of a competition that included more than 1,000 of their colleagues, the group will go to Officer Candidate School in Pensacola, Fla., in April for 16 weeks of classes. Success there will mean a commission as an ensign in the Naval Reserve and a new career in the officer corps.
``I`m just really excited,'' said Tavonya Miner of Norfolk, a petty officer second class who was among the qualifiers. A data-processing technician, Miner is taking to heart Boorda's urging that those in the program set high goals for themselves: She wants to someday command an aircraft carrier.
``Female aviators have paved the way'' for women to move into virtually every previously male-dominated part of the Navy, Miner said. She doesn't expect to be the first, ``but I would like to be one of the few women who would command one of the major ships,'' she said.
A native of Gainesville, Fla., Miner is 26 and has been in the Navy for seven years, most of it based in Norfolk. Currently assigned to the Atlantic Intelligence Command, she helps maintain more than 300 computer systems deployed throughout the Atlantic Fleet.
She decided about five years ago that she wanted a career as an officer, and ultimately command of a surface warship, Miner said, so she jumped when the Seaman-To-Admiral program was announced.
Miner is close to completing work on her associate degree at Tidewater Community College, so she has a head start on the four-year college diploma she will need to advance in the officer corps. After she completes OCS and a required tour of duty at sea, the Navy will give her and others in the program a chance to finish college, said Lt. Dan Bates, a spokesman for the Bureau of Naval Personnel.
Boorda launched the Seaman-To-Admiral program in June, bringing back a path to advancement he followed in the early 1960s but which the Navy discontinued shortly after that. Boorda is the first man to rise all the way from seaman recruit to chief of naval operations.
``I know how you feel right now, as I have experienced it myself,'' Boorda told the selectees in his letter.
The first participants in the new program, which was limited to first- and second-class petty officers who are 27 years old or younger, were drawn from throughout the Navy. The group includes eight electronics technicians and seven machinists mates, plus an assortment of hospital corpsmen, mess management specialists, storekeepers, intelligence specialists, quartermasters and others. MEMO: PARTICIPANTS
Hampton Roads-based sailors selected for Seaman-To-Admiral Program:
Petty officers first class
James R. Poland
Michael Vecerkauskas
William R. Sutton
Brett C. Hershman
Glenn A. Beisert
Petty officers second class
Francis C. Franky
Michael F. Davis
Mark E. Ellingson
Matthew J. Burns
Donald L. Gaines
Tavonya Miner
Sean X. Rush
ILLUSTRATION: Photo by D. KEVIN ELLIOTT, Staff
Capt. John U. Liles Jr., commander of Atlantic Intelligence Command,
congratulates Petty Officer 2nd Class Tavonya Miner, who was
selected to take part in the Seaman-To-Admiral program.
KEYWORDS: ENLISTED PERSONNEL OFFICER CANDIDATE SCHOOL by CNB