PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii –
Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility (PHNSY & IMF) Deputy Commander, Hawaii Regional Maintenance Center (HMRC), Capt. Timothy R. Halladay retired from the Navy after 30 years of service on March 23, 2019, onboard the USS Missouri (BB-63).
Family, friends and colleagues gathered to honor Halladay, but Halladay had plans to honor his guests.
Halladay took a different approach to his retirement ceremony. Rather than speaking about his career, he brought the USS Missouri’s history to life, with an interactive lesson that included audience participation. He invited the attendees to become battleship sailors and then simulated what it would’ve been like to launch out to sea on the Missouri.
“Do you realize what just happened here?” retired Cmdr. Shannon Terhune asked the audience after Halladay spoke. “He could’ve talked about himself all day today, but he was more concerned about your educational edification. That was beautiful everyone!”
As a young junior officer, Halladay was assigned to the “Mighty Mo” from 1989 to 1991. It was there on the battleship where he developed his outstanding work ethics. After being assigned to various divisions, he qualified for the Engineering Officer of the Watch where he would supervise approximately 80 sailors.
One of the practices he learned early in his career was to, “Take care of your people and they will take care of you.” During Halladay’s time onboard “Big Mo,” played a major role in the Gulf War.
The “Mighty Mo” is a United States Navy Iowa-class battleship: the last U.S. battleship commissioned. In the Pacific Theater during World War II she fought in the battles of Iwo Jima and Okinawa and shelled the Japanese home islands, and she fought in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953. She was decommissioned in 1955 into the U.S. Navy reserve fleet (the "Mothball Fleet"), but reactivated and modernized in 1984 as part of President Reagan’s 600-ship Navy plan, and provided fire support during Operation Desert Storm in early 1991. Missouri received a total of 11 battle stars for service in World War II, Korea, and the Persian Gulf, and was finally decommissioned on March 31, 1992, after 6 years of active service.
In 1998, USS Missouri Memorial Association took charge of “Mighty Mo” and it became a museum. Today USS Missouri rests at the location where battleships USS Oklahoma and Maryland were moored on December 7, 1941.
Halladay volunteered on the historical battleship where he supported the Memorial Association staff and trained tour guides. By sharing his memories and insights, the thousands of people who climbed aboard took a piece of history home with them.
Halladay, a native of Yellowstone National Park, Wyo., attended high school in Montana and studied electrical engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. After graduation, he attended Officer Candidate School in Newport, R.I., and was commissioned in February 1989.
His other sea duty assignments included the cruiser USS Gridley (CG-21), and aircraft carrier USS Independence (CV-62). He was forward deployed at Yokosuka, Japan. Halladay also had shore tours at the Defense Language Institute and the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.; U.S. Atlantic Fleet Detachment South at Rodman Naval Station, and Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (PSNS) in Bremerton, Wash.
Halladay left active duty in 2000 for a civilian job at PSNS, qualifying as a Nuclear Shift Test Engineer for USS Nimitz class aircraft carriers. He was assigned to various waterfront projects, test engineering, and radiological emergency planning assignments.
Halladay joined the U.S. Navy Reserve in 2002, supporting Naval Sea Systems Command naval shipyards. In 2015, he was recalled to active-duty as the Deputy Commander, Northwest Regional Maintenance Center at PSNS.
Fair winds and following seas!
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