Former Deputy Secretary of Defense to Receive 2023 Lone Sailor Award
The United States Navy Memorial will present former Deputy Secretary of Defense, United States Marine Corps veteran, and National Security professional Robert Work with the 2023 Lone Sailor Award.
The Lone Sailor Award is given to Sea Service veterans who have excelled with distinction in their respective careers during or after their service.
“Secretary Work has served our country his entire life, from a military family member, to a junior officer, to the most senior levels of the Department of the Navy and Defense, and continues to have a major impact on our national security,” said retired Navy Rear Admiral Frank Thorp, President, and CEO of the Navy Memorial. “His service has had a profound impact on our nation, including on those he has led at the individual level and the institutions with whom he has shared his intellectual expertise.”
Bob Work was the thirty-second Deputy Secretary of Defense, serving alongside three Secretaries of Defense across two administrations from May 2014 to July 2017.
In 2001, he retired as a Colonel in the United States Marine Corps after 27 years on active duty. He subsequently was a Senior Fellow and then Vice President and Director of Studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA). In May 2009, he was confirmed as the thirty-first Under Secretary of the Navy in the first Obama administration. Mr. Work stepped down as the Under Secretary in March 2013 to become the Chief Executive Officer for the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). He remained in that position until he assumed the role of Deputy Secretary of Defense in May 2014.
He currently is the President and Owner of TeamWork, LLC, which specializes in defense strategy and policy, programming and budgeting, military-technical competitions, revolutions in war, and the future of war. He is a Senior Fellow/Counselor for Defense at the Center for a New American Security, the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, the MITRE Corporation, and the Telemus Group.
He sits on the Board of Directors of Raytheon Technologies and several smaller high-tech firms. Most recently he was Co-Chair of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence and is now a member of the Board of the Special Competitive Studies Project.
Mr. Work holds a B.S. from the University of Illinois; an M.S. from the University of Southern California; an M.S. from the Naval Postgraduate School; and a Masters in International Public Policy from the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute of Strategic Studies.
Mr. Work will join an impressive list of men and women who have distinguished themselves by drawing upon their military experience to become successful in their subsequent careers and lives while exemplifying the core values of Honor, Courage, and Commitment.
His award will be presented during a celebratory gala dinner in Washington, D.C. hosted by the U.S. Navy Memorial in September 2023.
To learn more about the Lone Sailor Award and see past recipients, visit www.NavyMemorial.org. If you’re interested in attending or becoming a sponsor of the 2023 dinner, contact Kendra Greenwaters at kgreenwaters@navymemorial.org or 202-380-0726.
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The US Navy Memorial is a not-for-profit, 501(c)3 organization whose mission is to Honor, Recognize and Celebrate the men and women of the Sea Services, past, present, and future; and to Inform the public about their service. The Navy Memorial is located at 701 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20004.