Strategic thinking; proposals for strengthening and advancing the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard; challenges to conventional wisdom; and histories published in Proceedings since 1874 collectively are a national treasure. One of our top strategic priorities is the need to unlock this treasure by digitizing all back issues of Proceedings and making their content easily searchable and accessible online.
I am pleased and honored to report that retired Navy Captain Roger Ekman, a Naval Institute Member for 61 years, has concurred on the importance of this initiative and has stepped forward with a donation of $100,000 to fund this extremely important goal. I know all Members will join me in thanking Captain Ekman for his farsighted generosity. His gift enables us to meet a very important objective as we now expect to complete this work in 2014. It also underscores the dedication of our Members to enable and act on the Institute’s mission and goals.
In his 100-year history of the Naval Institute published in the October 1973 Proceedings, retired Navy Captain Roy Smith III addressed the centrality of the Institute’s prize essays: “Almost from the earliest days of the Institute, its essay contests have been one of its most important functions. The idea for such a competition was first proposed by Lieutenant Commander Allen D. Brown at the 9 May 1878 meeting when he moved ‘that a committee of three be appointed to devise a scheme to prepare a prize to be offered to such member of the Institute, or other person, who shall present . . . a paper which shall be deemed the best of those selected . . . said prize to amount to about one hundred dollars in value, either in plate or in cash.’”
In 1909, Lieutenant Ernest J. King won the General Prize Essay Contest with a submission on shipboard organization. He believed this recognition had a positive impact on his future career. Fleet Admiral King’s Naval Institute prize medal is currently in the collection of the Naval Academy Museum. Junior officers have been contest winners down through the years, as recently as Lieutenant (junior grade) Matthew Hipple’s award recognition for “Cloud Combat: Thinking Machines in Future Wars,” published in the July 2012 Proceedings.
Building on this proud tradition, the Naval Institute—with the generous assistance of individuals and corporate sponsors—is launching new essay contests focused on key issues. Ground rules and submission timelines can be found on the Institute website and in Proceedings. The Naval Mine Warfare Essay Contest winner appears this month. Future issues this year will carry the winners of the 2013 Leadership Essay Contest, sponsored by Dr. J. Philip London and CACI International; the Global Defense Burden Essay Contest, sponsored by Finmeccanica NA under the auspices of DRS Technologies; and the Unmanned Maritime Systems Essay Contest, sponsored by Textron Systems.
These essay contests are terrific examples of promoting the open forum and the exchange of ideas on important naval and defense issues. They are especially valuable in encouraging young authors. The generosity and vision of a few create a legacy that endures for decades.
We continue to see increased traffic on our USNI News site, and we have now surpassed a million page views. It has been gratifying to see USNI News receive citations on Fox News, CNBC, CNN, the San Diego Union-Tribune, The Virginian-Pilot, NPR, Federal News Radio, The Huffington Post, Wired, Military.com, Stars and Stripes, the nationally syndicated Mark Levin Show, and several U.S. regional television and radio outlets, including WAVY TV in Norfolk. Internationally, USNI News been cited by news outlets in France, Australia, Cambodia, Italy, Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom, China, and the Czech Republic. We have also begun advertising on the site.
If you have not checked out USNI News, I ask that you take a moment to do so. We feel it fills an important requirement we have to be relevant and timely in delivering information. We are able to cover the issue that is hot today while it is still playing out. We can then follow through with a more thorough treatment in Proceedings. USNI News has been featured five times on The Drudge Report in the last six months. Please do take a look, and I remind all of you that an easy way you can gain access to the site is through our free Naval Institute App.
Peter H. Daly VADM, USN (Ret.), Life Member and Member since 1978