VADM Peter H. Daly, USN (Ret.), pictured at right speaking to a Midshipman, serves as CEO and Publisher of USNI. Photograph by U.S. Naval Institute, creative commons license.
How did you get interested in naval affairs?
I was influenced very heavily by my father, who had served in the Navy in World War II on a destroyer escort. When the war ended, he left active duty and stayed on as a reservist. For as long as I can remember, I grew up in a house with bookshelves full of Naval Institute books and copies of the monthly Proceedings magazine, the big member benefit…I basically learned to read with the magazine and those books.
So that inspired you to join the Navy?
I went through NROTC and was commissioned at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts. Very shortly after that, I was commissioned and given a six-month trial membership in the U.S. Naval Institute. I joined in 1978 and have been a member ever since.
What did you tell your crew members to make them want to be members?
I stressed to them that the exchange of ideas is extremely important in any organization, The Naval Institute was founded based on those exchanges, up and down the chain of command.
How do you spread the word, nationally and internationally, in today’s constantly evolving electronic environment?
As you know, the current trend is to measure one’s “reach”—the number of times contacts were made on the internet—how many times a particular article was “clicked on” or not. It’s not a static measure, it’s “impressions.” We now generate more impressions in a day than we did in an entire year a decade ago.
We’re also reaching more people with our events, such as the annual WEST conference in San Diego with our partner, the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association (AFCEA). We had more than 10,000 people signed up for 2023.
About eight years ago, one of our trustees suggested that we bring in junior to mid-grade participants and ask them to brainstorm a couple of questions posed by one of the Sea Service chiefs. Every year, we rotate the questions among the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. Each service chief poses two questions to the group. The junior officers then debrief the service chiefs with their answers—a “truth to power” direct communication unlike any other. We call it DARE.
