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MSC welcomes new commander (3/10)

The U.S. Military Sealift Command has issued the following news release: The U.S. Navy’s Military Sealift Command welcomes new commander Rear Adm. Robert D. Reilly Jr. will take the helm as commander of Military Sealift Command during a ceremony March 10 at 1 p.m. at the historic Washington Navy Yard in the nation’s capital. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael G. Mullen will preside at the ceremony. Reilly, a native of Winnetka, Ill., comes from a family with more than a century of service in the U.S. armed forces. He graduated from the University of Washington and was commissioned in 1975 through the Navy’s Reserve Officer Training Corps program. As the new commander of Military Sealift Command, Reilly will be responsible for a fleet of more than 120 government-owned and chartered ships, as well as a workforce of more than 10,000 civil service and military personnel operating worldwide. MSC ships transport critical fuel, supplies and ammunition to U.S. Navy ships underway and to U.S. forces ashore around the globe; preposition military equipment at sea to ensure rapid delivery to U.S. forces in support of possible future contingencies; and perform myriad at-sea special missions such as charting ocean bottoms and conducting undersea surveillance. In recent years, MSC has been at the forefront of the global war on terrorism, delivering 85.7 million square feet of combat power and more than 8.4 billion gallons of fuel to U.S. war fighters around the globe. This represents enough cargo to fill a bumper-to-bumper line of mid-size sport utility vehicles stretching from Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles, Calif., and enough fuel to fill the Empire State Building more than 30 times. Reilly comes to MSC from the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations in Washington, D.C., where he reported in June 2004 and served as deputy assistant chief of naval operations for information technology. Throughout Reilly’s 31-year Navy career, he has served in a wide variety of assignments at sea and ashore. Reilly’s previous commands include: Cruiser Destroyer Group Two and the USS Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group, homeported in Norfolk, Va.; Destroyer Squadron Fifty, the Navy’s Arabian Gulf destroyer squadron headquartered in Bahrain; and USS Halyburton. Reilly’s shore assignments include multiple tours on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations, as well as tours at the Naval Personnel Command; duties with the operations directorate on the Joint Staff; and at Headquarters, Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet. Reilly also holds a Master of Public Administration in National Resources from George Washington University and is a 1993 graduate of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces in Washington, D.C. Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, USAF, Commander, U.S. Transportation Command, the nation’s defense transportation manager based at Scott Air Force Base, Ill., will deliver remarks at the change of command ceremony. The outgoing commander of MSC, Vice Adm. David L. Brewer III, USN, who will retire after 36 years of distinguished naval service, has served as the commander of Military Sealift Command since August 2001. For more information about MSC, visit the command web site at www.msc.navy.mil. -USN-