Brendan Murphy, shown at left, grew up in the Annapolis Maryland area and then attended the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. After the academy he became a helicopter pilot, which the Navy labels an all-purpose pilot since they can fly fixed wing aircraft and helicopters. He has been retired from the Navy for several years now after rising to a Captaincy during his 25 year naval career. Currently Brendan is a financial adviser. Brendan's wife Tina is an interior designer. They met when they were 15 and have been together, except for one breakup in high school, since. They married shortly after Brendan graduated form the Naval Academy, marrying in the Academy chapel in a traditional Academy ceremony. Since Brendan thought the idea was to procreate between tours of duty away from home, they had their daughter, Emily, and son, Andrew, pretty quickly. Emily was a semi-professional ballet dancer through college. She stopped dancing after an injury and is now an occupational therapist. Andrew followed Brenda into playing lacrosse in school, though he may not have achieved the same level as Brendan, who played on two NCAA championship teams while at the Academy. Andrew is now looking to have a career in medical devices.
Brendan's naval career took he and his family across the country multiple times. Their longest stop was in Norfolk Virginia. They ended their 5 year tour on the Texas coast just before the hurricane struck. The coastal town they were living in was totally destroyed. Good timing counts. His deployments included 4 ship board tours and 2 land based. One of his land based tours was in Busan South Korea.
One of Brenda's more interesting tours was in the US Joint Forces Command in Irag early in the war effort there. The role of the Command was to enter their assigned geographic area and set up headquarters before the forces arrive, and start planning for their use when they arrived. Brendan was stationed in Al Anbar province when the local population decided to start defending themselves from the terrorists. The local leaders set up their own defense force which the Americans advised. The result was the withdrawal of 7,000 US forces, who were replaced with a team of 200 advisers, and the pacification of the province.
Because the Navy believes in developing well rounded leaders, Brendan served as the ship navigator on two ship board tours. This is the third highest command position on a ship. Not bad for a hunter/killer helicopter pilot.
Brendan's last major command position was the Director of Safety and Occupational Health. He was selected for the position to instill the air safety culture into the broader navy. A challenging position but Brendan made it work.
Brendan joined Longwood Rotary to continue his career of service. In addition to being a member of our club, he is a member of the VFW, the American Legion, Knights of Columbus and several Navy related service organizations.