Acting Secretary of the Navy to Speak at Free UTEP Lecture

Last Updated on January 23, 2020 at 12:00 AM

Originally published January 23, 2020

By UC Staff

UTEP Communications

Thomas B. Modly, the Acting Secretary of the Navy, will be the guest speaker at a Centennial Lecture at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2020, in Room 106 of the Undergraduate Learning Center on The University of Texas at El Paso campus.

Thomas B. Modly, the Acting Secretary of the Navy, will be the guest speaker at a Centennial Lecture at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2020, in Room 106 of the Undergraduate Learning Center on The University of Texas at El Paso campus.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

Modly was sworn in as the 33rd Under Secretary of the Navy on Dec. 4, 2017, and serves as Chief Management Officer and Chief Information Officer for the Department of the Navy. He has served as Acting Secretary of the Navy since Nov. 25, 2019. 

He was raised in Cleveland, the son of Eastern European immigrants who escaped from behind the Iron Curtain after World War II.

Throughout his tenure, Modly has focused on increasing agility and accountability throughout the department’s workforce and in vital business operations.

Modly created the Office of the Chief Management Officer for innovative, engaged leadership of business processes, data systems, and risk management. He led the creation of the department’s first business operations plan, a planning and execution tool designed for all naval and Marine leaders, uniformed and civilian. He orchestrated the efforts of thousands of professionals who completed the first-ever audit of all departmental resources, resulting in millions of dollars of recovered property and increased readiness.

As the Chairman of the Department of the Navy’s Education for Seapower (E4S) Study, Modly, along with a blue-ribbon panel of national-level leaders, undertook the most comprehensive review of naval education in more than 100 years, which will better support the development of strategic and critical thinking so keenly needed for naval leaders.

Before entering his current position, Modly was a managing director with PwC Public Sector practice and was the firm’s Global Government Defense Network Leader. He was also the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Financial Management, a role in which he drove broad business transformation efforts across the Department of Defense. He also has more than 10 years of experience in the aviation support and IT services industries.

Modly graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1983 with a Bachelor of Science degree, with distinction. He earned a master’s in government/international relations from Georgetown University in 1984. In 1992, he graduated from Harvard Business School with a Master of Business Administration with honors with a concentration in business, government and strategy.

The University of Texas at El Paso’s Centennial Lecture Series invites noteworthy speakers to the UTEP campus to share their perspectives on a broad range of contemporary issues that are likely to impact our society, culture and lives in the years ahead.