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Hornell's admiral back in the U.S.A.

Posted November 04, 2007 10:00 pm

Rob Montana

After spending two years in southeast Asia, Hornell native Bill Burke is back on American soil.

Burke, a rear admiral in the Navy, spent the last two years as commander of the Western Pacific Logistics Group and Task Force 73. Now he's back working out of the Pentagon, in the Navy's assessment division.

"It's nice to be back on the East Coast," he said. "I haven't seen much of my kids over the last few years, so it was nice to see them when I got back."

He is working in the Navy's assessment division, something with which he's familiar.

"I've been in the organization (assessment division) previously, now I'm in the fortunate position of being in charge of it," Burke said. "What we do here is there are lots of things the military buys for ships and aircrafts, and they have to have an assessment of how those things will perform.

"And, if they'll perform at a level that's expected," he added.

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Burke said his division will look at a capability that is needed for a specific task, then determine the best way to get that capability and what kind of impact it will have on a particular fight or scenario.

"It's very interesting work," he said. "One of the things I like about it is I get to play in all parts of the Navy," he said. "I'm submarine trained, but that's just one of the many things we look at.

"We're involved with tactical aviation, surface ships, aircraft carriers and the equipment they carry, as well as their support functions," Burke added. "We need to make sure it all works. I'm lucky to have a job that has so many interesting facets to it."

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His job doesn't include the actual testing of equipment, but the use of models in simulations to test the effect of the equipment, if it was operated at the expected level.

"We do it in advance, so we know if the equipment is valuable to us before we even purchase it," Burke said, "to know if the equipment will scratch the itch the way we need it to."

While his previous several years were spent with lots of traveling among the southeastern Asia countries of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, Burke said his new job keeps him in one place more. He also had about 40 ships under his command while he was out to sea; now, he's got none.

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"In my last job, because I was in charge, I kind of set the tone," he said. "This job, I'm in charge of my organization, but I don't typically decide what the schedule is.

"Out there my impact was felt more day-to-day, whereas here in the Pentagon, much of what you do, you will not see the fruit of your labor during your tour. It will happen after you've left; in fact, some of the things I saw in my last tour at the Pentagon are just getting into the fleet right now."

The differences also include Burke's budget - it's bigger at the Pentagon.

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"Out there I was near the top (in terms of authority), yet out there I had a far smaller budget than I have here," he said.

It's not all different, though, as Burke said there are some key similarities between his current job and previous one.

"The quality of people was good in both places," he said. "Though out there I had several different organizations under me and here I have just one organization, the biggest thing is there are good people, all with a good sense of purpose about them, looking to do a good job."

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Burke also said the units past and present all focused to get a grasp on the situations they were involved with so they can keep on top of the projects they are working on.

"In both cases, people were working to bring them together to a cogent end point," he said.

Despite enjoying being back in his home country, there is at least one thing Burke will miss about working in the South Pacific - the trip to the office.

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"The commute was a lot better there than here," he said. "There it was about a mile to work; here it's about 10-12 miles and usually in a lot of traffic."

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