CAPT Michele Lockwood, USN (Ret.)
Past Commander General, Naval Order of the United States

Learn about the role of the geophysics community in the Navy, the hydrographic survey efforts of the Makassar Strait in Indonesia, and the grounding of the USNS Chauvenet and heroic salvage recovery efforts.

CAPT Michele Lockwood, USN (Ret.)

Michele Lockwood, a fourth generation native of San Francisco, California, graduated from the San Francisco College for Women in 1969 with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and joined the US Navy to see the world. As a newly minted Ensign, she was assigned to the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations as a Social Secretary/Protocol Officer followed by the Office of Legislative Affairs, where she served as a Congressional Reporter and later as a Congressional Liaison Officer.

Michele graduated from the Naval Postgraduate School with a master’s degree in meteorology, then became the Program Manager for Meteorological Applications for the Navy High Energy Laser Office in the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington, D.C. She later became a Forecast Duty Officer for the Naval Oceanographic Command Center in Rota, Spain, then deployed to the Makassar Strait region of Indonesia as Commanding Officer of Oceanographic Unit Four, a hydrographic survey group embarked on the USNS Chauvenet. Her last assignment on active duty was as Operations Officer for the Naval Oceanography Command Center/Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Guam.

Prior to her retirement with the rank of Captain from the U.S. Naval Reserve in 1995, CAPT Lockwood co-authored nine management and organization studies for flag level commanders in the Pacific and Atlantic Fleet. Her last study evaluated the distribution and capability of military and civilian airfields throughout the Pacific and Indian Oceans, the strategic implications of which are still used in planning contingency operations. She also drafted the Navy’s first Inspector General Manual which was eventually published and disseminated throughout the Navy.

Her civilian career included positions as president and CEO of her own company, vice president for operations with a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley, and vice president and shift manager for Wells Fargo’s data center in San Francisco. She graduated from Notre Dame de Namur University with an MBA in finance.

Michele is married to Captain Hanford N. (“Sandy”) Lockwood IV of Pasadena, California who is also a life member of the Naval Order of the United States. The couple reside in San Mateo, California.