← WETSU: a BattleshipNJ Podcast
WETSU: a BattleshipNJ Podcast
RDML York on Global Logistics, Support, and Keeping the Fleet Replenished
00:38:02
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- [00:00]
Rear Admiral Michael A. York
Foreign.
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Marshall Spivak
Quarters, all hands, man your battle stations. Welcome back to Retsu a Battleship New Jersey podcast. I'm your host, Marshall Spivak, CEO of the Battleship New Jersey Museum of Memorial. Today's episode is sponsored by our friends at Eli Employer Cooperative of Operating Engineers Local 825 whose members prepare the battleship for its move dry dock next year and her return to service as a museum. Today we're speaking with Rear Admiral Michael A. York who this took command of Naval Supply Systems Command Weapons Support. A native of Hawaii as a 1996 graduate of the United States Naval Academy where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Ocean Engineering. Admiral York Admiral York Naval spans a wide ass diamonds afloat. Tours with Supply Officer aboard the Forward deployed frigates USS Stach and USS Gary in Yakuza, Japan and two tours aboard the USS Harry S. Truman CVN75 as the aviation Support Officer and Assistant Supply Officer. After completing duty in Baghdad, Iraq as a planner with U.S. central Command, he transitioned to his last operational assignment as a SEPO on the Truman. He's also served short in critical logistics and acquisition assignments including at the Naval Academy topnav, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Nav Sub Forces Command and the Defense Logistics Agency. Adam York also served as Commanding officer of the U.S. navy Supply Corps School. Throughout his career New York has earned numerous accommodations in recognition of both his operational excellence and his dedication commission and to the people. He is a qualified Naval Aviation Supply Corps Officer and Surface Morpher Supply Life War officer. But pedigree rewards only tell the story part of the story. Today as commander of Nav sub wss Admiral York leads the efforts right here from the Philadelphia region to ensure that the Navy Marine Corps Allied forces have the parts, components and sustainment they need wherever and whenever they operate from aircraft, ships, complex weapon system components. NASA WSS is the quiet backbone of Fleet Redwood and Moyork. Welcome back aboard the nation's most decorated battleship and welcome to Wetsu.
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Rear Admiral Michael A. York
Thanks Marshall, thanks for having me.
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Marshall Spivak
So the first question that we always ask any guest is why did you join the Navy?
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Rear Admiral Michael A. York
Yeah, great question. So Navy's in the family kind of the family business. Dad's retired Navy enlisted, grandfather on my mom's side enlisted in the Navy right around World War II and then then got commissioned as an officer retired. I think I have a great great uncle that served in the Great White Fleet, so it's sort of in the family business. Graduated high school, thought I was going to try something else, but ended up applying for and got accepted to the Naval Academy and the rest is history.
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Marshall Spivak
After that, well, your great uncle coat of sale was the original the first USS New Jersey. The Great White Fleet at the time served as I mentioned in your intro on a few ships including the USS Thatch and the USS Gary. The older Upper Hazard carry class frigates when they were deployed to Japan as a part of US 7 fleet. Of course, this flagship battleship with the flagship of US 7 fleet in. In Korea. How are your first shipboard assignments as a young Jo right out of the academy?
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Rear Admiral Michael A. York
Yeah, loved it. So a little bit of a backstory. I went to the Naval Academy, thought I was going to fly. I went down to Pensacola and you know, for. I got injured my back down there so I had to go do something else. Thought I was going to or at least attempted to go.
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Marshall Spivak
Were you inspired by Top Gun?
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Rear Admiral Michael A. York
I was in that generation.
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Marshall Spivak
A lot of anth answer from aviators in the past. Top Gun was the inspiration.
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Rear Admiral Michael A. York
Yeah, a little bit of inspiration. But my eyes weren't good enough to be a pilot. But got to Pensacola as a naval flight officer candidate. Hurt my back down there. So I had to transition to something else. Wanted to at least attempted to go surface warfare and that wasn't available to me at the time, so ended up in the. In the supply course. Reason why that's relevant. I got to the first surface ship out in Japan as the supply officer for my first assignment, but spent probably half of my time doing surface warfare officer type stuff. Right. Standing bridge watch, driving the ship around and doing all that kind of cool stuff. So to your question of hey, what was those first ship tours like? Yeah, busy. Those ships out in Japan are always underway and the frigates are small ships. So I can get in a lot of different places. We were pulling in a lot of different ports in Japan and Singapore and Thailand and Okinawa and South Korea. All these places all over the place. The Western Pacific. So a lot of underway time, small ship, doing my supply officer duties and doing a little bit of surface warfare stuff on the side. Awesome.
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Marshall Spivak
As noted, you graduate from. From Annapolis, but I noticed in your bio a sort of unique position where you later served as the laundry officer at Annapolis. I would love to hear what that entails and sort of hear how you handled that in juxtaposition from being a midshipman and then going and doing that kind of job.
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Rear Admiral Michael A. York
Yeah, no, it's, it stands out and I'm, I'm pretty proud of that job. When I left my first assignment, my first ship in Japan, I was a bit on the fence of my sticking around for my naval career. I was. I was probably a year or two out from completing my initial commitment to the Navy. So I was focused on location for my next assignment. And Annapolis was a spot. And in true, the detailers, these folks that are in the Navy that are the folks that assign you to the different places, probably not the most a glamorous spot. It's not on anybody's sort of checklist and roadmap to greatness, but they sold me on it. Hey, we need somebody just like you to go back to the Naval Academy. Yeah. And I showed up. I was happy to be in Annapolis. Pretty cool to be a lieutenant, kind of big man on campus a little bit and run into laundry and dry laundry and dry cleaning facility. Added about 70 or so kind of wage grade, super patriotic folks. It was the first time I got to see that the Navy was more than just the folks in uniform. These are folks that, you know, clocked in in nine to five pretty rough conditions. Right. Industrial facility, big machines, loud, hot. And all they wanted to do was serve the brigade of midshipmen to get them their laundry every single day. We were successful more than we were unsuccessful. But as a service for them, it gave me. Well, it was fun to be on the other side of it to realize like, where did this come from when I was a mid. Because it's magically somebody picks it up and it comes back. So anyway, that was pretty cool. Yeah. And that's. And I was, that's where I was when 911 went down. So pretty, pretty.
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Marshall Spivak
What was like at Annapolis post 9 11.
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Rear Admiral Michael A. York
Yeah. So we, you know, everybody was trying to figure out kind of, you know, what was going on in the scuttlebutt was because we were close ish to the Pentagon and D.C. area that we could be a target. So it went, it went on lockdown. Everybody went home. The mission, they went to their, their dorm facility and all the staff went home. And we just sort of watched the rest of the news from our living rooms. And then I think classes were canceled for a while. A lot of security at the gates, just like what everybody else was doing. And then eventually, slowly but surely everything started to come back. We were outside the perimeter of D.C. but close enough to feel like we could have been next.
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Marshall Spivak
You did two tours on the Harry S. Truman, the aircraft carrier, including as the supply officer. What was it like serving as suppo on a carrier?
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Rear Admiral Michael A. York
Oh, it's amazing. Yeah, it was amazing. It's kind of the pinnacle tour for U.S. supply Corps officers because we can't command at sea and stuff like that. So, you know, you get fortunate enough to get selected because it's a pretty, pretty competitive process to get selected to go and then, then there's a process to get assigned to the particular ship or duty station. I was fortunate to get my top choice coming out of that process. And we were. It was great, great ship, great reputation. I'd served there before, so I knew what it was like in a place that was good for my family. So all those things kind of lined up. Yeah, great mission, great ship. We went on deployment. Great people around Mexo were great team that was working for me. And with me also, great. Just, just top to bottom, great experience.
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Marshall Spivak
You also, as I mentioned, served with Central Command in Baghdad, Iraq. What was an average day like, you know, on assignment in Baghdad.
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Rear Admiral Michael A. York
Yeah. So that was, you know, back. Grew up as part of the Navy when we were, we were in individual augmentees to, you know, all the garrison functions that the, I mean was, you know, I wasn't going outside the wire.
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Marshall Spivak
You're in the green zone.
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Rear Admiral Michael A. York
I was not, not in the green zone. So Camp Liberty and Camp Victory sort of by the airport in Baghdad. Right. So downtown Baghdad. But you know, on a hundred fobs and bases, we're in Iraq at the height of it. Right. Several dozen. I don't know what the number was, but we were on the kind of the big hub there at the, at the airport. Other than it being really hot and Sandy, it wasn't too different than what I was used to doing. Kind of typical day in the Pentagon. I. The skill set that I, I got tapped to bring was, had a little bit of contracting experience. So I was on the staff of the command that was trying to kind of consolidate all that. There was a lot of money going out into the economy and what were we buying and who were we buying it for and could be, you know, we're buying it from all that stuff. Yeah. So they, they created a command to sort of orchestrate that. And I, so I, I was on the staff the command that sort of oversaw all that. I wasn't out writing my own contracts, but how to embed that in all the, the planning because with all those services that we were contracting for came people contractors on the battlefield. Was it pretty big concern at the time. So we were working on that. And then we also had in our. Under our purview was Afghanistan as well. So a little bit of time there, about six or seven weeks or so of my time. Afghanistan and Kabul doing the same thing with the infrastructure over there. So yeah, I got to see both places while I was on assignment.
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Marshall Spivak
Wow. Yeah, a great experience. I'm sure curious or what experience or challenges you faced early in your career that's helped shape your view of what you do now, your view of naval logistics and supply and help prepare you for the leadership roles that you're currently in that you've taken on previously. Like to give listeners just a little bit of sort of your, your JO to senior officer level lessons, great lessons learned that you sort of taken on with you as you change commands over time.
- [10:30]
Rear Admiral Michael A. York
So I'll go back to the laundry and dry cleaning tour that you highlighted at the beginning of the conversation. You know, the, all of the training you get on leadership as, as a young officer is really focused on leading sailors at sea. And that's, that's what it should, what it should do. And you have the structure that you know when you arrive on your first ship, right, You've got a department head or executive officer above you, you've got a chief or somebody leading petty officer below you. There's structure if you fall in on and it's kind of used to, to doing that. But that, that tourist laundry and dry cleaning officer, you know, a lieutenant. I had a general manager who was an old professional dry cleaner and then a lot of folks, you know, outside not wearing the uniform but were surveyed. So that just brings a whole new different set of leadership challenges. Right. You know, it was my first experience with the union managing resources, you know, revenue expenses and all of that kind of stuff. So that has helped me a lot in my Supply Corps career. Just some of the things that I had to kind of trial by fire way back when and then going well after that. So I did that for about a year. Then I got reassigned up here. So I was up here then called Naval Inventory Control Point, the predecessor named to where I'm at now as a lieutenant and served a little bit of time as the aide to the then commander. So that tour was pretty formative for me where I got, you know, kind of watch him lead a big organization, very top heavy organization, lots of senior officers and senior civilians. And then went to the Truman the first time as a sort of a senior lieutenant, soon to be promoted to lieutenant commander, back with sailors again operational underway watching mentors that I was working with. Learned there about kind of the teamwork and loyalty aspect of being part of a high performing team. And it was that experience when I was on the Truman as a lieutenant and then lieutenant commander that I wanted to recreate When I went back as an 05 as the sub zero tried to recreate a lot of what I saw there. Just culture, taking care of the sailors, getting out in the getting out and about jets on board the ship. You know, all of those things that worked for my boss when I was a young officer.
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Marshall Spivak
One of the goals of this podcast is obviously not only highlighting the battleship and our veterans, but commands commanders in the New Jersey Greater Philadelphia region. And for listeners who might not know, can you give us a little bit of an education on what is the Naval Supply Systems Command and then in particular WSS top of that and sort of what your your command's core mission is?
- [12:59]
Rear Admiral Michael A. York
Yeah, sure. Yeah. It's sort of hiding in plain sight here. NAPSA Higher Headquarters. The organization I work for, Naval Supply Systems Command essentially runs the supply chain for all fast all facets of supply chain for the Navy and Marine Corps. So you're thinking of everything from food and mail to repair parts, a lot of contracting for services, warehousing and distribution, transportation. All that stuff fits in here. NAVSAP Weapon System support. The command that I lead as part of NAPS up is really the repair parts portion of NAPS Up. We a little bit of a history lesson. We NAPS Up WSF trace our origins all the way back to the Naval Aircraft Facility that was established at the Navy yard back in 1917. Right. So they were building seaplanes down there and they needed a supply office to sort of support that. So there was a trace our origins back to 1917 is our beginnings here in the Philadelphia area. The supply office turned it became the Naviation Supply Office right around the beginning of the war and then moved up to where we are now, Northeast Philly off of Oxford Circle in 1942 I think. Then changed names, went from Aso to Nav ICP naval inventory control point and then changed to NAB sub WSS I think. And so along the way there was also a similar organization to do parts and supply chain support for ships and submarines called Ships Parts Control center established out in Mechanicsburg. So it's about two hours west of here on the Turnpike Co located with my headquarters. So NAVSEP headquarters out there in Mechanicsburg just outside of Harrisburg. BRAC 2005 merged or 95, can't remember which one merged those two organizations together. Ships Parts Control center. So into one organization that became NAV ICB and then now NAV stss. So a little bit of history lesson there, but we essentially do all the repair parts, supply chain support for ships, airplanes and Submarines for Navy and Marine Corps. So most of the aviation work is done here in Philadelphia. Ships and submarines works done out of the Mechanicsburg office. About 1300 folks in both sites. And then I have a small element down in Norfolk that does, I have some cost estimators that do cost estimating. It's for contracting across the Navy and in fact across the Department of War, just to do some cost estimating. As we enter into contracts with, with industry on different things, have a team that does that, some expertise. And then transportation, distribution, it's another thing like things that have to move around, you know, whether it's inside of the network here in the continental United States, parts getting repaired and moving to their place to their warehouse, or from that warehouse to some place forward to get to a ship. That transportation distribution function also falls underneath. So we do the repair parts, we do the, the forecasting of the, you know, how much do we need the purchasing of it with industry, the wareh and the accountability of all that stuff. Soup to nuts.
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Marshall Spivak
Can you describe what mission ready means from your perspective? How do, how do what you do and what your command does on a day to day basis ensure that the ships, the submarines, the aircraft sort of have their parts components, the services that they need when they.
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Rear Admiral Michael A. York
Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah. So I mean like at any given time we've probably got a hundred ships and a couple hundred airplanes operating someplace around the world. Um, we're getting requisitions for replacement parts. About 350,000 requisitions a year. The as the fleet is consuming those things, things are breaking down, board the ships and submarines with them, inventory of material to support immediate maintenance. But when that, when that runs out, or there's something else that they need that the sailors will come to us. So there's a cost at 24, 7, 365 mission for us where having those things that sailors and marines will need just constantly day to day trying to succeed. More often than we fail, we're successful more than we are unsuccessful. But mission ready for us is every time that requisition comes in, we have the thing ready. Whether it's in a warehouse somewhere, it's on a ship somewhere to get to that sailor, do some maintenance.
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Marshall Spivak
So then you're also managing where everything is every, all around the world.
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Rear Admiral Michael A. York
Yeah, there's an element of like, you know, how much space does the ship and submarine have to carry stuff with them, how much of each thing we do that kind of modeling and then what's not on the ships is in a warehouse in a couple dozen locations around the world. We'll, we'll do the, you know, hey, where's the best place for the, for that widget to, to sit and wait for the next time it gets requisitioned? We do that too.
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Narrator/Announcer
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Marshall Spivak
We've had a lot of conversations over the last year here on the podcast about I'll say the art of underway replenishment, what it takes to, to, to resupply a ship at sea. This is sort of the, the other side of the coin of that. Not the actual replenishment, but what it takes for all those things to get onto those ships to get to, you know, to get to the fleet. I'm glad we're, we're learning both sides of the coin here. Do you, does your command work a lot with, with installations like Weapons Station Earl in New Jersey who are doing some of the replenishments or the. At least on the ammunition side. I know we work closely with the installations as well.
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Rear Admiral Michael A. York
We don't have as much of a mission with the installations themselves. We don't. Munitions is not in my portfolio. Nav sub, my headquarters has a little bit of a role to play in this sort of inventory management, but we don't do any of the predictions, procurements or anything like that. So munitions is outside of our portfolio. The installation support is done by some of my sister organizations in NAPSA Fleet logistics centers that are sprinkled throughout. There's seven or eight of them. I can't remember exactly the number but you know, places like Malcolm San Diego and Yakuza Japan, Signoa Italy, that those kinds of places do that kind of support. That's not in my portfolio.
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Marshall Spivak
As we've talked about. You're operating from a couple locations, Philadelphia, Annexburg. What's sort of the role of what you all do here in, in this area as a part of sort of the global, you know, the global look of readiness and supply chain.
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Rear Admiral Michael A. York
Well, yeah, so we're, we're kind of doing that all globally here from Philadelphia and Mechanicsburg for the, those subsets of the portfolio. $43 billion worth of inventory that we sort of monitor it's broken. If it's, you know, if it's ready for issue, not ready for issue. Vendors do a lot of work with commercial industry to, you know, when the things break, to fix those things and get them ready. We're tracking how the ships and airplanes are doing on a daily basis. Right. If they're down for something, piece of system is broken and needs a repair part that we manage, we're watching that on a daily basis. Right. So that's all, that's all connected and great teammates that, that work with me in both places. Philadelphia mechanics, which individuals got their portion of the portfolio? If we manage 300 and some odd thousand different SKUs items, whatever you want to call it, everybody's got a portion of that and they're watching those sort of globally every single day.
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Marshall Spivak
Now you're a kid from Hawaii, you're serving here in Philadelphia now. It's almost, almost the end of the month here in December. It is awfully frigid and cold. I know this isn't the first store here in Philadelphia, but what's, what are the big differences between living in Philadelphia versus your, your life maybe back out to the west in Hawaii.
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Rear Admiral Michael A. York
Yeah. Hey. So when I, when I graduated high school I hit, I, I didn't own a pair of closed toed shoes so I had to go out and buy a pair of pants to show up at the Naval Academy. Slippers, board shorts and a T shirt was sort of the expected attire.
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Marshall Spivak
Pre academy uniform.
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Rear Admiral Michael A. York
Pre academy uniform, yeah. But I haven't lived back in Hawaii since I graduated high school. So what is different now is, you know, that obviously the seasons change, but the, the people and the community is just as warm and welcoming in both places. Hawaii as a place. And so my dad was in the Navy as well like I mentioned earlier. But you know, we bounced back and forth. We always ended up coming back to Hawaii where he got an assignment. So for the most part grew up there. You know, Hawaii has a reputation for being a sort of very family oriented place. Philadelphia is very similar in that way.
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Marshall Spivak
Yeah.
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Rear Admiral Michael A. York
Very strong family roots here. And that's what we've kind of experienced as we've moved in a couple different places. We've got very, very close friends where we've lived and neighbors that we've stayed in touch with for a long time.
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Marshall Spivak
Curious how logistics and sort of supply chain, supply chain management has changed over the years. We obviously have evolving global threats, technological changes, you know, obviously shifts in naval strategy. Of course now, you know, the further introduction of artificial Intelligence and AI. How is your command and nav stuff? How do you continue to adapt on really a month to month, day to day basis among these changes and these evolving threats and evolving missions?
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Rear Admiral Michael A. York
Yeah, that's a great question. In the, in the supply chain business in the Navy, we've always been pretty innovative, but those innovations have come in how we, how we deal with industry, different contracting strategies and other things that allow us to get a bigger bang for the buck. That's where a lot of our innovation has been in the last couple of decades. And you mentioned. So now it's technology, right? Well, maybe in the last 10 years it's about just being connected end to end was something that we've been working on for a long time over the last 10 years. But now with AI and things like that, we're much like a lot of other folks trying to figure out how it fits in for us. It obviously should and will play a role. We're really experimenting right now on what we can do with AI and what's available to us in the department. I can't connect ChatGPT to my system because cyber securities and all that kind of stuff. We want to make sure that we're not putting information in the wrong place. One of my priorities is going to be for us at Napsup WSS to figure out how we do our basic business in a transformative way. And I think one of those ways is going to be introducing AI and to augment what we do on a day to day basis.
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Marshall Spivak
As I mentioned earlier, you were also the commanding officer of the Navy Supply Corps School. So training and helping along the next generation of Supply Corps officers. Can you talk a little bit about your time commanding the school and how it's like now seeing we have one of your former students here, one of our trustees put them on the spot. I won't ask you what you, what you did on his last spit rep. That's okay. We don't have to go that into detail. But you know, we're big on mentorship and trying to evolve the next generation of leaders and naval officers here on board. I just love to sort of hear about your time as CEO of the school and training that sort of next generation of officers.
- [24:12]
Rear Admiral Michael A. York
It was, it was a transformative time for me. So I, I got there in the summer of 2020. So while know, Covid like we were still figuring it out. Neil was one of the instructors when I got there, you know, initially like everybody was trying to like how do we continue to do this mission? Very Classroom centric folks sitting in the seats, in the classroom, in the building was the model that we had used for a long time. And you know, Neil and his, his colleagues there figured it out, figured out how to continue to train. You know, because we are big. The primary part of our mission there was, you know, brand new ensigns that, you know, get commissioned, whether it's Naval Academy, ocs, rotc, that, that select Supply Corps as their, as their career choice, come to us there at Supply Corps school for their basic training. So these are all folks that are getting ready to go to ships and submarines right out of the chute and you know, so it's important to, to teach them what their, you know, what their assignments are going to be all about. And it's a six month course, like I said, very classroom centric, lot of, a lot of book work, getting in the references and whatnot. It's hard to do, figure out how to do that outside of the classroom. And so the instructors kind of figured out how to do that on zoom and teams and other things, adapt the curriculum. So there were a couple of takeaways for me. One was the adaptability of the adaptability and the ingenuity of the Naval officer. And in my case, young Supply Corps officers that were there as instructors that could just figure out how to do it, how to manage it, how to manage the pipeline around Covid, how to get everybody, keep everybody safe to manage all the different directives to, you know, that were coming down and complete the mission. The other thing was very big takeaway for me was the excitement from the new officers that were coming in. Really excited about being in the Navy and really excited about being Supply Corps officers. And we had folks from all different walks of life, you know, they'd gone to college and gone out into the world and tried to do something and you know, didn't find the purpose they were looking for and found the Navy and found the Supply Corps folks with music degrees and real estate experience and some business and like. So the gamut of folks that were coming to us to serve, that was pretty cool. Is it just being there to see those folks get started and seeing all them graduate. Now that I'm a senior officer and I sort of, I get out and about places like Norfolk or San Diego where there's lots of Navy. I'm always running into junior officers that were students. So that's pretty cool.
- [26:48]
Marshall Spivak
That's great. Curious what message you may have for sailors, Marines who are relying on NASA WS's work, but who may never See, you folks who work for you directly.
- [27:00]
Rear Admiral Michael A. York
I would, I would tell them that they only really notice us when we miss, whether it's a, it's a food thing, you know, when sailor shows up at the chow line for lunch on the ship, you know, and it's the chicken cordon blue again, or if there's a particular repair part that somebody goes to the storm and it's not there, that's where we get noticed. And oftentimes that gets turned into of, hey, maybe we don't care or we're not working hard on it. And I would just encourage folks to know that. Certainly the folks that, that work for me are the, some of the most patriotic, hardest working folks that I've ever served with. And they really do care. They're really trying hard, right, to, to do the best, the best job and provide the best service for the sailors and marines that are out there that are counting on us. So that would be the message I would give to them is like, just no, we're in. While we're not there with you in the foxhole or in the cockpit or on the ship or on the bridge, we feel just as much responsibility to make you successful.
- [27:59]
Marshall Spivak
I like to do what I call like a lightning round. So I've got a couple questions and I simply want you to give me the first answer that comes to the top of your head.
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Rear Admiral Michael A. York
Okay.
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Marshall Spivak
Favorite ship you've served on that had the best galley?
- [28:11]
Rear Admiral Michael A. York
USS Harris. Truman.
- [28:13]
Marshall Spivak
Truman. Hardest item to keep in stock for sailors.
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Rear Admiral Michael A. York
First ship, it was coffee filters. Yeah.
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Marshall Spivak
Okay, good answer. I think you kind of answered this one already. But if you weren't a supply corps officer, what community would you be a part of?
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Rear Admiral Michael A. York
I would have been an aviator.
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Marshall Spivak
Favorite navy port you visited?
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Rear Admiral Michael A. York
Singapore.
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Marshall Spivak
Singapore. I think we've had that answer before. A couple Singapore puts it was on that one. One piece of gear or equipment today sailors have that you wish you you had when you were a jo knife on battleship New Jersey. Question. Firepower, armor or history? What is the thing that impresses you most?
- [28:52]
Rear Admiral Michael A. York
History.
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Marshall Spivak
And finally on the lightning round, one word that you think describes Navy logistics community today. Resilient answer.
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Rear Admiral Michael A. York
We're here.
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Marshall Spivak
We're sitting on the battleship New Jersey. It represents an era when naval logistics demands coming into a world war were massive and constant. What parallels do you see between, you know, sustaining a ship like the battleship and probably very similar actually to some of the carriers that you've worked on or been a part of the crew of? How do you compare battle a ship like this, a Battleship to some of the more modern Navy vessels that your command supports today.
- [29:33]
Rear Admiral Michael A. York
I guess I would say, based on my, my personal experience, it's that it's predictability and scale. And so if I'm thinking back to my time on the aircraft carrier, I mean, it's. You get into a routine. You get into a routine, and we've been used to this as a Navy operating place like the Arabian Gulf. Once, once you got there and got connected to a supply chain, you could count on a weekly resupply. You mentioned underwater punishment earlier in the, in the conversation. You could count on that every week. It was, it was the same day of the week every week, and everything got tuned to that. So you run out some things, obviously, but you were always getting the resupply. So for big ships like that or big ships like this in the, in the future fight. Right. It's. We won't have that predictability, at least initially. If you kind of think back to our, our history of island hopping as we advanced west in the Pacific, right. Those, it's those. All those same locations that we're going to need to hop. Hop to or hop from again. Needed. Yeah, if needed. But the problem that we're, we're thinking a lot about is how do you, how do you recreate that same level of predictability of a supply chain to, to sustain a ship this size in a place like the Pacific, where we might not be able to go everywhere we want to go? So that's what we're thinking a lot about. You think the ships need to take more with them? You know, we've tuned, tuned the stuff that the ships take with them to rely on the, hey, I'm going to get a resupply every week so I don't have to have a lot of stuff on board. We're changing our, just trying to think about that a little harder. And so anyway, that, that's kind of what we're thinking about nowadays.
- [31:14]
Marshall Spivak
You know, the, one of the largest conversations happening in the Navy today is, you know, around the fleet and shipbuilding and, you know, revitalizing our shipbuilding industry, which obviously we all know is desperately needed here. One of the, the things that get a lot of press are, you know, the, the new, the new systems, the new ships that are coming on board. Obviously, the president just made an announcement the other day about frigates and what he calls battleships and. But a lot of the other really essential part of the fleet that don't get talked about are a lot of your auxiliary ships, your supply, your replenishment Ships.
- [31:53]
Rear Admiral Michael A. York
Yeah, some of the auxiliary ships, supply ships. Yeah, it's. It's pretty critical. That problem set I was talking about in the Pacific, it's a lot of ground to cover. We can't build those ships fast enough. Yeah. You know, to, to, to deliver fuel, food, parts, mail all of that to the fleet that's operating all around the world, but in particular the Pacific. It's just a lot of ground to cover. So we can't build those ships fast enough then.
- [32:16]
Marshall Spivak
And you work closely with Military Sealift Command?
- [32:20]
Rear Admiral Michael A. York
Yes, yes. Not on a, not on a day to day. Right. I think that we know ultimately that a lot of, you know, a lot of stuff that we're, we're buying and managing and moving around may get that last tactical mile they get delivered by msc. So it just kind of naturally happens, actually is pretty smooth. I mean, that, that part of the, our logistics and sustainment coordination of that happens at a pretty low level. It happens pretty smoothly. Yeah.
- [32:48]
Marshall Spivak
Last but not least to say is this is the Wetsuit podcast. It stands for we eat this stuff up. Or as you can imagine, something a little bit more than that. Yeah. It was the motto of our final commanding officer on board here, Admiral Ron Tucker. And it was adopted, of course, on the battle flag, which is replica, which is behind me. And it basically means really doing grueling work, leaning into it and doing it with a smile on your face. Beat this stuff up. We want to throw some more at us. As you reflect on your time in the Navy and the conversation we've been having, are there any particular wetsuit moments that come to mind to you?
- [33:27]
Rear Admiral Michael A. York
I have a couple. And I've been thinking about this question. So I have a personal example. And then as a little bit more of a senior officer, back again to my Naval Academy laundry and dry cleaning job. At the end of the day, you know, there was always a pickup of laundry in the morning and a delivery of laundry in the afternoon. Big metal carts. The facility was off campus. You had to blow all that stuff up into a truck and drive it down to the campus and push these carts off the loading dock into the freight elevator and up and pushing stuff down the hallway. Well, if we get behind on a particular day of the stuff that was supposed to go out for a particular set of midshipmen would still be sitting there because the workday would clock out. We couldn't mandatory or somebody didn't want to do overtime. It would just sit. So Lieutenant York figured out how to drive a, you know, 30 foot stake. Stake truck and load a bunch of laundry carts up into the back of the truck and drive down to downtown Annapolis to deliver laundry to the midshipmen fleet. Got behind, Right. So since I wasn't on, I wasn't working by the hour. And early on, like, you know, hey, it's okay for me to roll up my sleeves and get a little dirty. But I think what's more, you know, when I was thinking about question was more about what I observed, especially when I was on the. On the Truman. And like every sailor, every supply sailor is like this. And everywhere I've been, they don't have very glamorous jobs on board the ships. They're serving food and washing dishes and doing laundry. They're in storerooms and stuff like that. But some of those sailors are the happiest, most productive sailors that I've ever been around. Like you go down to the laundry in the fifth or sixth deck of the aircraft carrier and it's hot down there and loud. But those sailors are loving it. They just cranking it out, enjoying what they do. They provide a service, just loving what they do. Just sailors, they're in the scullery, you know, wet, loud, hot, dirty, loving it. Yeah. So I really enjoyed popping in on some of those folks when I was on board the ship. When you see sailors like that that are having a good time and enjoying what they do and feeling proud of what they do, it makes you feel pretty proud of what you're doing. Doing too. So those are the things I would offer to you.
- [35:38]
Marshall Spivak
Emerald York, thank you very much for joining us on Wetsuit Today. Hearing about your career, the mission of Napsup WSS and how critical supply and sustainment are to readiness, I think helps give our listeners and the people who love the battleship deeper appreciation for the often unseen backbone of the fleet, which is very much what the Supply Corps does. For everyone listening, whether you're on the deck of a carrier, aboard a destroyer, on a base, or simply interested in how the Navy works behind the scenes, know that commands like Napsup WSS are what keep the fleet ready, whether they're at sea or ashore. So thank you again, Admiral York, for coming back on board battleship New Jersey today. And until next time, thank you very much for joining us on wetsu and thank you for continuing to support the battleship New Jersey.
- [36:25]
Rear Admiral Michael A. York
Thanks for having me over and to your team and what you're doing here, keeping the spirit and legacy of Battleship New Jersey alive in the community. And happy New Year to you. Thank you, sir.
- [36:35]
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