President’s Spotlight: Dr. Charles Chadbourn

Starting now and continuing at least through the end of my time here at the U.S. Naval War College, I’d like to regularly highlight someone or something that’s caught my attention over the previous couple of weeks. It might be a person – student, faculty or staff – who deserves recognition, or it might be an occasion I want to draw more attention to. These short ‘President’s Spotlight’ pieces will be posted about once every two weeks.

To start this series, I want to highlight Dr. Charles Chadbourn of our College of Distance Education. Dr. Chadbourn is recognizable as our mace-bearer, at the head of the line in our commencement procession as the longest-serving faculty member.

A surface warfare officer with two tours in the Western Pacific during Vietnam, he arrived as a professor of strategy in 1974, tapped by then-PNWC Vice Adm. Stansfield Turner to launch the first non-resident Fleet Seminar Program (FSP) in Washington, D.C.

Now, more than a half century later, Dr. Chadbourn not only continues to be a valued and valuable member of our faculty, in an FSP program that has grown to thousands of students across dozens of sites nationwide, but is our talisman at our most cherished annual event: Graduation.

Highlighting Dr. Chadbourn gives me the opportunity to not only remind the college of his incredible service to this country and military education, but – by extension – to write once again about our wonderful commencement ceremony that means so much to him and to all of us.

Thank you to Dr. Chadbourn, but of course, I want to express my deepest appreciation once again to the many people who made that event come to life, from our protocol team to our facilities team and security team, as well as the faculty, academic leadership and administrative support staffs who came together to ensure the event was a success.

When we see these students’ names in future promotion lists and taking important positions as flag officers in the U.S. and international militaries, we’ll be reminded of this ceremony and all the hard work we did to get there.