A (not so) Brief Bio

I grew up in mid-Michigan, in a small town (Birch Run) half-way between Flint & Saginaw. Upon graduation from Birch Run High School in 1983, I attended the University of Michigan on a Navy ROTC scholarship. Due to a variety of reasons (mostly immaturity involving alcohol and irregular class attendance), that did not work out so well.

While flipping burgers the next summer as a short-order cook at the Exit Restaurant, I realized a change was needed. Going back to Ann Arbor was cost prohibitive, so I joined the Navy, signing up for the Nuclear Power Program.

After a cold & snowy 12-week boot camp in Great Lakes, IL, I returned home in at Christmas 1984 and asked Ann Worden, now my wife of 24 years, to marry me. We married in early mid-May, one week before my graduation from Electricians Mate “A” School, coincidentally allowing me to forevermore say I was an E-3 (Navy Fireman) when I got married. Upon graduation I was promoted to E-4, Petty Officer Third Class.

My next duty station was the Navy Nuclear Power School in Orlando, FL. We used the PCS (permanent change of station) move driving from Michigan to Florida as our honeymoon. Leaving Michigan, we went the long way, over to Washington, DC and then down along the coast, using the scenic US-17 more than I-95.

While at Nuclear Power School, I applied for, and was accepted into, the Nuclear Enlisted Commissioning Program (NECP). Despite my acceptance into the NECP, I did not have orders yet, so I remained in the training pipeline. After graduation as the #1 Electrician’s Mate, and #2 overall out of 600+ students, we moved to Saratoga Springs, NY for assignment at Balston Spa Navy Nuclear Power Training Unit (aka “prototype”). One-third of the way through that training, the Navy finally figured out what I already knew – I could not complete the program before leaving to attend Auburn University. So I was removed from the training program and assigned to a paint team to prepare for an upcoming inspection. On the bright side, that meant 8-hour days (instead of 12-hours) and I also met Dave Burdick, my future brother-in-law. He was also leaving for NECP, to attend the University of Kansas, we did not meet again for several years.

In May 1986, we moved from New York to Auburn, AL, buying our first home – a 12′ x 52′ trailer. Rachel, our daughter, was born in September 1987. We made room for her crib in our bedroom, as the 2nd bedroom in the trailer was the computer room/office, probably not surprising to anyone that knows me. In 1988 we added an addition to our trailer for Laura Worden, my wife’s sister, who came down from Michigan to attend school at Auburn. Graduating from Auburn with a BSE in Computer Engineering in August 1989, I then attended Officer Candidate School (OCS) in Newport, Rhode Island, starting in October and commissioned in February 1990. (Coincidentally, that established a linkage to my boot camp experience, as I ended up “shoveling snow” in both my enlisted and officer training programs.)

In my final year at Auburn we sold our trailer and moved into a townhouse for several months, then Ann and Rachel moved in with Debbie Manning, another Navy wife while her husband Jeff and I attended OCS. Enroute to OCS, another Auburn NECP graduate, Kendall Gennick, and I stopped off at Atlantic City, New Jersey. (An experience that could warrant a completely separate post sometime in the future.)

Moving to Orlando, for the second time, we lived in an apartment just a couple miles south of our first one, along 436 on Orlando’s east side. The officer version of Nuclear Power School differs from the enlisted curriculum, so I had to repeat the experience. We were expecting our second child, Aaron, who was born in May 1990. I requested and received a deferment to start Nuclear Power School in June so I would not miss class due to his birth. Throughout March, April & May I worked as the Orlando Naval Training Center (NTC) Command Duty Officer (CDO), along with Kendall Gennick who was also deferred to a later class. While working as the CDO, Kendall and I met Daniel Tressler, a Navy Sailor on temporary duty while recovering from a near-fatal motorcycle accident. Dan later went on to achieve incredible success at the University of Florida and is now a partner at the Unger Law Group in Orlando, FL. Kendall is now the Commanding Officer of the USS Milius (DDG 69). At Nuclear Power School, I ran into Dave Burdick again, who I’d last seen before leaving New York to attend Auburn.

In December 1990, we moved from Orlando to Goose Creek, SC for my assignment at the Moored Training Ship 635 (MTS-635) (aka “prototype” again). The training there consisted of 12-hour days in a shift-work basis, three different shifts: 8AM – 8PM, noon to midnight, and 8 PM – 8 AM. Each shift would last for a week, with 2-4 days off for transition to the next rotation. Upon qualifying, we were reduced to 8-hour days and stood proficiency watches. But, in my case, I ended up not standing those watches, instead I was assigned to customize a program that simulated the reactor’s response to various transients. This was the first, but no means the last, occasion that my programming skills worked out to my advantage.

Late that summer we moved to Groton, CT for my attendance at the Submarine Officer Basic Course (SOBC). I had follow-on orders to the PCU Maryland (SSBN 738) under construction at the Electric Boat shipyard. Dave was also in my SOBC class, with orders to the PCU Nebraska (SSBN 739). SOBC finished in November, the family and I went home to Michigan for Thanksgiving. While home, we mentioned Dave to Ann’s sister Laura, ended up introducing them and they eventually married.

Upon commissioning in June 1992, the USS Maryland was assigned to the Kings Bay Navy Submarine Base. Ann and I moved down to St. Marys, GA and bought our first real house. The next year, prior to the USS Nebraska moving down, the house next door came up for sale. So two sisters from Michigan, both married to Navy submarine officers, ended up as neighbors in Georgia! On the Maryland, assigned to the Gold crew, I started out as the Reactor Control Assistant (RCA) and finished up my tour as the Communications Officer (COMMO). While studying for the Nuclear Engineer Exam, I met Duane Sand – as it turns out, we had a very similar background, including sharing the exact same birthday.

My next assignment (1995-1997) was as an instructor at the Nuclear Power School in Orlando, our 3rd time stationed there for those that lost count. This time we had school-age children, so we were more selective about where we lived, choosing SW Orlando so they could attend the Dr. Phillips Elementary School. While there, I taught Reactor Dynamics (RD) & Core Characteristics (CC) to the officer students. RD is the nuclear physics of how the reactor works and responds. CC gets into the “how & why” of the actual physical construction & arrangement of the core & fuel cells. While in Orlando, I attended Webster University, earning a MA in Computer Resources & Information Management. I also enrolled in their sequential MBA program.

In 1996, we took an extended “Great American Vacation” road trip from Orlando, FL to Monterey, CA to visit Dave & Laura. After his time on the Nebraska, Dave attended the Naval Postgraduate School. The entire trip was a little over three weeks, with different routes on the way there and back. Unknown to us at the time, that trip was going to set the stage for another trip nearly 10 years later.

Leaving Orlando in the summer of 1997, we once again moved up to Connecticut, this time to attend the Submarine Officer’s Advanced Course (SOAC). Following SOAC, a six-month course, we moved back to Georgia, into the house we had kept, for my tour as the Navigator/Operations Officer on the USS Nebraska (SSBN 739)(GOLD). My first CO on the Nebraska was William Porter, now the CEO of WFS Defense. In the summer of 2000, we visited Dave & Laura in Montgomery, AL where Dave was attending the Air Force Staff College. Going to school again looked like a good gig, and he had follow-on orders to U.S. Strategic Command in Omaha, NE, so I requested to attend the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC) in Fort Leavenworth, KS. In May 2001, we sold our house in Georgia and moved to Kansas.

While on leave enroute, I found out I had screened XOSS (Executive Officer, Submarine Support). Sometimes known as an “alternate list” in other services, XOSS means “you’re good enough to be an XO, but we don’t have enough XO slots for you.” More significantly, it meant I was able to retain my submarine pay and nuclear power bonus for an additional three years.

Shortly into my attendance at CGSC, I found they had an opening for a Navy instructor to meet the Joint manning requirements. With our kids in middle school, it was a great opportunity to have some family stability. Webster University has a satellite campus at Fort Leavenworth, so I was able to complete the MBA started in Orlando. We purchased a house (across the street from where we rented the first year) in May 2002 and have been here 7 years now.

Upon retiring in the summer of 2005, I was hired on as a Department of the Army Civilian to continue teaching in the Department of Joint, Interagency and Multinational Operations. Remember that big coast-to-coast trip in the mid-90s? Well, we figured out the entire family had been everywhere except the Northwestern U.S. So we bought a pop-up tent trailer, pulled it behind our Honda Odyssey and spent three weeks, a little over 5000 miles, exploring that area of the country. Upon crossing from Washington into Oregon, Ann, Rachel, Aaron and I completed our goal of visiting all of the lower 48 states.

Another Introduction – From GovLoop.com

Hello World!

Well, that’s probably an overstatement, but as a computer programmer, that’s always the first thing we write when learning a new language.

My name is Bob King, currently an instructor at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC), in the Department of Joint Interagency and Multinational Operations (DJIMO), at Fort Leavenworth, KS. Within our core curriculum, as part of our mission for Joint Professional Military Education, I teach lessons within our strategic and operation blocks of instruction. I also teach electives related to my specific areas of interest: Information Operations, Cyberspace Operations and Homeland Security.

As a result of my hobby and my formal education, I am also the Information Management Officer for my department. Translation: “The guy that provides the first line of support, as an additional duty, for 100+ users on any computer related problems – hardware or software – because the Department of Defense always under staffs the supporting IT departments.” Yea, a little cynicism there, but after 21+ years in the Navy and now 8 years at an Army installation, I have no confidence we will ever adequately resource the people that should be doing that job.

There’s something inherently wrong in hoping that someone within an organization has the necessary skills for such a critical function. I’ve not yet been anywhere that, when a leak occurred in the bathroom or a pipe broke in the galley, someone asked: “Is there anyone here that’s an amateur plumber?” Yet, in practice, that is what I’ve seen with IT everywhere.

My formal education supports that duty, my interests and my hobby: BSE Computer Engineering (Auburn University), MA Computer Resources & Information Management (Webster University), and MBA (Webster University). Prior to retiring from the Navy, I served on ballistic missile submarines and taught Reactor Dynamics & Core Characteristics at the Navy’s Nuclear Power School in Orlando, FL.

For the last seven years I’ve leased a linux box as a dedicated server at a network center in Texas that I use for a small web-hosting business. Managing that server allowed me to experiment with several different applications, as well as getting an increased appreciation for the challenges of protecting against a broad range of threats.

Recently I converted a home desktop to Mythbuntu (version of linux), setting up a MythTV desktop DVR accessible from anywhere. MythTV is a free Open Source digital video recorder (DVR) project.

Just last month I stood up Joint Chatter, a public blog for my department. As described in the About Joint Chatter page, it provides a place for our faculty to offer topics for further discussion on a wide range of topics. Those topics ranges from the highest strategic level down to the seams at the operational/tactical level, and includes regional studies, operational design, national security and policy, space operations, information operations, homeland security, civil-military relations and many others.

Recently several of my hobbies, interests and work functions have started to intersect. Throughout my life I’ve always been into computers and an avid gamer (board games, wargames & online games). Within the last few months I attended a Cyberspace Education Workshop at the National Defense University (Theme: “Enhancing Coverage of Cyber Topics in Curriculum of DoD Schools”) and Phoenix Challenge 2009 at Johns Hopkins APL (Theme: “Executing Information Operations in Cyberspace”).

At Phoenix Challenge 2009, a TS/SCI conference, who would have imagined a few years ago that the keynote speaker would be Noah Shachtman, editor of Wired Magazine’s national security blog, Danger Room? Or that several of the presentations would include references to Facebook, Twittter, World of Warcraft, Second Life and a myriad of other mainstream social media applications & games?

The ongoing convergence of cyberspace, virtual worlds and the growth of communities through Web 2.0 applications has grabbed my attention. Next month I am attending the USSTRATCOM Cyberspace Symposium and InfowarCon.

Recently I read Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations…. His book aptly describes the shift that is occurring and I highly recommend it for anyone here.

Within my own organization, I am promoting the use of blogs and other “new media” (Web 2.0). Thursday evening I was preparing a lesson for my Information Operations elective about my experience at Phoenix Challenge. As I searched for supporting information, I ran across Maxine Teller’s presentation “Social Media 101: Social Media for Government.” After adding her in Twitter, I picked up on the discussions about this weekend’s Government 2.0 Camp. I’ve also since made several other valuable contacts in the last 48 hours.

My lesson was taught in a SCIF, with no access to the Internet, so I was not able to demonstrate many of the Web 2.0 applications. The students are all field-grade officers (Major or equivalent Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines), ranging in age from mid-30s to early-40s. Out of two different classes, only a handful had ever used Facebook, Twitter, etc. After the lesson, they were so interested that many agreed to come in an hour early on Monday morning for a demonstration session in regular classroom, where I’m able to access the ‘Net. I also sent Maxine’s presentation to all of the faculty in my department, some of whom will also be attending Monday’s social media overview.

The manner in which this all occurred – and how it so aptly supported the lesson I was teaching the next day – is in itself a testament to the power of net-enabled collaboration.

Twitter: subbob
Email: subbob (preferred)
Alternate Email: AKO Address (if you must send to a .MIL address)
SIPR & JWICS: available upon request

Gmail is preferred – I can access it anywhere. My work email is inflexible, difficult to access when away from my office and hard to search. Perhaps yet another symptom of why this Government 2.0 initiative and collaboration is so important.

Learning Should Be Fun

Several years ago, when tasked to write a one-page paper about my teaching philosophy, I wrote about having fun in the classroom. Learning should be fun. If you enjoy class, or the activities associated with it, you’ll look forward to it and learn more.

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Learning should be fun!

Learning should be fun! The best teaching tip for any new instructor is to establish a fun and relaxed environment in the classroom. Instructors succeed through creating a comfortable classroom for a variety of reasons. Injecting humor into the daily routine helps to break down communication barriers. Students that enjoy their classroom experience are more likely to participate in the educational process. Furthermore, people learn better when they are enjoying themselves.

The regular addition of humor into the daily routine helps breakdown communication barriers. Many of the students attending the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College are returning from forward deployments where they experienced intense stress and a high operational tempo. They understand the importance of their education and deserve to approach it in a relaxed fashion.

When students are miserable and dread coming to class they are less likely to prepare for lessons and participate in discussions. A friendly classroom atmosphere, spiced up with a little fun now and then, helps to keep them engaged.

People prefer to remember and dwell upon positive experiences. Creating a fun environment enhances the educational process and they learn better. In addition, students enjoying themselves perceive time to pass more quickly which increases their positive perception of the lesson.

A new instructor should strive to establish a fun and comfortable learning environment in the classroom. When students are having fun, they are more likely to participate and remember the material. The instructor that finds the right balance of fun and learning will succeed on a daily basis.

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What do you think? What is the linkage between having fun, enjoying the class, and the learning process?