Wayne E. Meyer, RADM, USN (Retired) Dies

Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughhead said it pretty well yesterday: "I am deeply saddened by a great loss to our Navy family. Rear Admiral Meyer’s passion, technical acumen, and warfighting expertise served as the foundation of our Navy combatant fleet today. On behalf of the men and women of the United States Navy, I extend my deepest and most heartfelt sympathy to the Meyer family. He was a close friend and mentor to so many of us. His legacy will remain in the Navy forever."

I have written on several occasions about the differences between management and leadership. It is my contention that leadership is a quality of the soul while management is a quality of execution. Without leadership there is no common goal and without management there is no way to execute that goal.

Wayne E. Meyer was a leader. And, damn what a leader he was!

Unless you have seen the sausage-making up close in the acquisition community you have little idea how challenging it is to get a well thought-out program to life. There are technical challenges, cost challenges and political challenges all to be conquered before a ship comes to life. You have only to look at the DDG-1000 class and LCS-1/LCS-2 class to see how easily a good idea can go wrong for any number of reasons.

So why so little leadership? An easy answer is to look at the Air Force and the F-22 program. The F-22 is an extremely expensive and extremely capable aircraft: it is the finest aircraft in the world. Air Force leadership understood this and wanted to keep it. In fact, two Air Force Chief's of Staff went down in flames defending the program until they found someone without the necessary leadership component: someone who'd say "yes" to killing the program. The two that were fired had Wayne E. Meyer in their blood. The one that succumbed to political pressure bleeds a cold mixture of ambition and indifference to the force.

Wayne E. Meyer's vision was an integrated shipboard combat system. It was that simple, but it has paid dividends for years and will continue to do so into the foreseeable future.

I have watched the Admiral up close for nearly twenty years and had come to see him as a fixture, something permanent, something immune to the laws of nature. At this moment I work in the Navy organization responsible for building, integrating and testing Aegis guided missile destroyers he created.

As the word of Admiral Meyer's death spread across the floor there were many who stopped to remember or to tell their favorite stories about the old man.

And, among the old-timers, there were tears.