At the Pinnacle
Of all the experiences Rear Admiral Dean Vander Ley ’91 valued about his Calvin education, top among them was the caliber of his professors. “The person with the PhD was actually teaching the class, and that same guy was willing to have an appointment with you and spend an hour explaining things.” He says it’s a feature that put his education “on par with the Ivy Leagues” and gave him “the confidence to keep up with anybody.”
Vander Ley grew up in Tacoma, Washington, where his dad pastored the same church for 36 years. Brought up in a home with strong Christian values, Vander Ley knew he wanted to pursue engineering at a university “that aligned with how I was raised and how I wanted to live my life.” But a few years into his degree program, he couldn’t envision himself in a traditional work environment. Instead, Vander Ley signed up to serve as a naval officer after a recruiter visited campus seeking recruits to work on nuclear submarines.
At the Navy’s “nuc school,” he graduated third in his class and later earned a master of science in civil and environmental engineering from Stanford University.
Vander Ley received his commission from Navy Officer Candidate School in 1991 and spent three years on the USS Michigan submarine, assigned to the same vessel as Calvin classmate Bill Schotanus ’91.
He was put in charge of a division of sailors who were mostly older than him and who had, in his words, “vastly more practical experience.” However, Vander Ley says, “You learn from who you lead.”
The “Calvin values of humility and intellectual curiosity were important character traits in that environment,” Vander Ley explains. “The Navy also puts a lot of value in integrity and character, and Calvin educates the whole person to have strong character.”
In 1998, Vander Ley transferred to the Navy Civil Engineer Corps (CEC), where he today serves as the Navy’s 46th Chief of Civil Engineers and Commander of Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command (NAVFAC). Stationed in Washington, D.C., he leads the nearly 20,000-member organization of CEC officers, Seabees, civilians, and contractors who maintain and construct infrastructure for Navy and Marine Corps bases worldwide.
Looking back, Vander Ley says one of his career highlights was serving in Seabee battalions in the Middle East. “Seabees are basically the construction forces for the Department of Navy. They started in World War II.”
During the Iraq invasion in 2003, Vander Ley led a detachment of about 200 Seabees who built roads and camps for the Marines. After the fall of Saddam Hussein, his unit partnered with Iraqi companies to help reconstruct infrastructure such as schools, courthouses, and fire stations. “Iraq has a lot of kids, so to get them back in school was a way to help stabilize the country. I know over time a lot changed there, but I’m still very proud of what the Seabees accomplished and the impact they made,” Vander Ley says.
In 2010, Vander Ley commanded a Seabee battalion deployed to northern Afghanistan to construct forward operating bases for two incoming U.S. Army brigades. He was awarded a Bronze Star for this service, just one of many naval decorations he has received over the years.
His current focus as Commander of NAVFAC is the Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP), an extensive program targeted at upgrading the aging infrastructure at the Navy’s four public shipyards, which maintain submarines and aircraft carriers, platforms important to the Navy’s mission and U.S. national defense. “These are complex projects—we’re restoring dry docks sometimes built more than a hundred years ago, infrastructure designed for very different ships and missions,” Vander Ley says. Optimizing the efficiency of industrial processes and bringing technology up to date are also key aspects of the project.
Vander Ley remains grateful for the opportunities his more than 30-year naval career has afforded. “The Navy has been a fantastic place to work, and Calvin did an amazing job of preparing me for that career. I’ve always been proud to have had my start at Calvin.”