Leadership – The first African American woman to join NOAA Corps – Rear Admiral Evelyn Fields
Rear Admiral Evelyn Fields - the first African American woman to join NOAA Corps, the first woman to command a NOAA ship and the first woman and African American to serve as Director of the NOAA Corps and OMAO.
Rear Admiral Evelyn Fields is a trailblazer in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). As the first African American woman to join NOAA Corps, the first woman to command a NOAA ship and the first woman and African American to serve as Director of the NOAA Corps and OMAO it is no debate that RADM Evelyn Fields has paved the way for women in an ocean-related industry.
“Being selected to command McArthur (an oceanographic and fisheries research vessel based in Seattle, Washington) was a real high point in my career. It’s the kind of assignment you look for, and it never occurred to me to turn it down because I’m a woman.”
-Rear Admiral Evelyn Fields, NOAA Interview
“Being selected to command McArthur (an oceanographic and fisheries research vessel based in Seattle, Washington) was a real high point in my career. It’s the kind of assignment you look for, and it never occurred to me to turn it down because I’m a woman.”
-Rear Admiral Evelyn Fields, NOAA Interview
After graduating with a degree in math in 1972, Evelyn Fields began her professional career as a cartographer at NOAA’s Atlantic Marine Center in Norfolk, Virginia, where she worked on nautical charting surveys. Within a year, NOAA Corps Director Rear Admiral Harley Nygren decided to start recruiting women as commissioned officers. Fields became the first African American woman to join NOAA Corps.
Fields’ first sea assignment was on Mt. Mitchell – a hydrographic survey vessel (now decommissioned) with a home port in Norfolk.
Fields’ career was spent almost entirely within the field of hydrography, with the exception to her time spent on the NOAA ship McArthur. In 1989, Fields was chosen by NOAA’s Selection Board to serve as commanding officer of the NOAA ship McArthur, an oceanographic and fisheries research vessel based in Seattle, Washington.
Fields’ time on the research vessel turned out to be what she considered one of the highlights of her career as a NOAA Corps officer. “This gave me the opportunity to work with a different scientific complement on a project not involving charting.”
Commanding a ship is an important step along the career path of an officer. Never before had a woman been chosen for this responsibility in NOAA. Fields was the first female officer to command a NOAA ship and the first African-American woman to command a ship for an extended period within the nation’s uniformed services.
“Once you leave the pier, you are really the one in control—the one making the decisions. As a junior officer, you always have someone to fall back on, someone else who has the final responsibility. As commanding officer, you are that person.”
-Rear Admiral Evelyn Fields, NOAA
In 1999, and as Rear Admiral Evelyn Fields, she became the first woman and first African American to become director of NOAA Corps and NOAA’s Office of Marine and Aviation Operations.
Another highlight for Fields was her position as director of the Commissioned Personnel Center (CPC), which is responsible for all aspects of a uniformed service personnel system in support of the NOAA Corps officers. But it was not all easy sailing, and this position was probably the most difficult point in her career. NOAA Corps faced possible disestablishment as a commissioned service and a recruiting freeze was announced in 1995. Fields reviewed and implemented creative ways to support NOAA platforms by having officers in shore-side assignments supplement, for short periods of time, officers assigned to ships and aircraft. Under her leadership, CPC continued to provide uninterrupted services to the officers, despite a reduced staff.
In 1997 Fields returned to the National Ocean Service as its acting deputy director. She was able to influence programs that she had been a part of throughout her career. With a perspective gained from working both at sea and on shore as a NOAA Corps officer, she provided direction and implemented ideas that made current practices more effective.
Fields reached the top of her profession in 1999 when she became a rear admiral and director of both the NOAA Corps and the Office of Marine and Aviation Operations. Which includes all NOAA Corps officers as well as civilians. As director, she was responsible for the management of NOAA’s fleet of research ships and aircraft and for the officers who serve not only on these platforms, but throughout various program offices within NOAA. Most importantly, she was in a position to influence policy and see the organization from a broader perspective. “This was the ultimate challenge of my career,” she said.
Fields retired in 2002.
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