BIO
Rob Wray was born in New York in 1957, the oldest child of an Air Force family. He spent his childhood in New York, Maryland, Alabama, Delaware, and South Carolina, graduating from high school in Charleston in 1975.
Navy Career
He graduated from the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland in May 1979, with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. While there, he earned three varsity letters and was captain of the offshore sailing team. He was also the chairman of the Brigade Honor Committee.
Upon graduation he entered the Navy’s nuclear power program. After a year of training and qualification, he was assigned to the nuclear cruiser USS Mississippi (CGN-40) in Norfolk, Virginia.
Rob served on the Mississippi for four years, leaving in the summer of 1984. He completed several deployments to the Caribbean, North Atlantic, and Mediterranean, including duty off Lebanon during the 1983 Lebanon crisis.
He then spent two years teaching and conducting reactor operations at the Navy reactor prototypes in Idaho Falls, Idaho. He transitioned to the Navy Reserve, and moved to New England.
Between 1986 and 2004, Rob served in a number of different reserve units, serving part-time on weekends and during summer training periods. He commanded five different units and had significant reserve leadership roles in New England, San Diego, and Naples, Italy.
In 2004, he returned to temporary active duty to support the transition of sovereignty back to the Iraqi government. Working as a Navy Captain on an interagency team reporting to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, Rob specialized in security for the contractors involved in the reconstruction of Iraq. He spent several months at the Pentagon working this issue, and then several more on-scene in Baghdad. There he founded and was the first chief of operations for the first-ever operations center coordinating contractor, military, non-governmental operations in reconstruction.
In 2007, he was promoted to Rear Admiral and in early 2008 returned to full-time Navy active duty, where he remains today. His first flag position was as Deputy Commander, Military Sealift Command, in Washington DC. Military Sealift Command operates approximately 180 ships for the Navy and Department of Defense, providing combat logistics force capabilities, special missions, pre-positioning of DoD supplies worldwide, and strategic sealift. MSC has approximately 10,000 employees around the world, and operates as a $3B+ working capital fund.
After three years at MSC, in October 2010 he was promoted to Rear Admiral (upper half) (O-8, or two-stars). He was assigned as Vice Commander of Naval Forces Europe and Africa, US Sixth Fleet, in Naples Italy.
After only six months in this position, he was assigned as President, Navy Board of Inspection and Survey (INSURV), Norfolk Virginia, in March 2011. INSURV was established by Congress in 1882 and is tasked with inspecting the ships, submarines, and carriers of the Navy, and reporting on their readiness to the Secretary of the Navy and Congress.
Civilian Career
Upon transitioning from active-duty Navy in 1986, Rob worked as a civilian nuclear engineer on Navy submarines in Portsmouth NH and Charleston SC. He then left the nuclear power industry, moved to Rhode Island, and began a varied entrepreneurial career spanning 20 years. His positions included: President of a real-estate development and construction company, CEO of a circuit-board manufacturing company, owner of a consulting firm providing services to banks, partner and general manager of a resort hotel, and owner of a diesel-engine services company.
In the late 1990s, in an effort to capitalize on the growing move toward electrical deregulation, Wray developed and patented a device which improved the use of electricity for medium-sized commercial and industrial users. He and partners formed a company, Powergy, to manufacture and sell the product. As electrical deregulation subsided with little real change to the energy markets, Powergy shifted to focus on web-based energy controls through a spinoff called Energy-Online (EOL). In early 2002, Wray sold Powergy and Energy-Online, and went to work for EOL’s acquirer, Pace Global Energy Services. Pace was later acquired by Siemens.
From Pace, Rob was mobilized to Iraq duty. Returning from Baghdad in November 2004, he became the Division Manager for the 300-person Newport division of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). For three years he led a turnaround of that division, and expanded into new products and markets. He left SAIC when brought back onto active duty as a Navy admiral.
In 2010 he received a Masters Degree in Leadership from the MacDonough School of Business at Georgetown University in Washington. He has written a book on leadership and lectures on the topic before academic, commercial, and military audiences.
Personal
In 1980 he married the former Tina Palso of Pasadena Maryland. They settled in Barrington, Rhode Island, and raised a family of three children. Wray was active in the community, including stints at church positions, youth sports management, and local political volunteering. In 2007 they were divorced.
In 2011 he married the former Maryellen Pool of Dover Delaware, who also has three children. They now maintain homes in North Potomac, Maryland, and in Norfolk, Virginia.
Rob is a licensed professional engineer, has a patent, and has written two books. He is a member of the board of directors of Dynadec, LLC. His interests include reading history, playing the piano, sailing, the Red Sox, his bucket list, and avoiding yard work.
