Rear Adm. Bill Daly is a career Surface Warfare Officer, son of a Navy Captain, and a native of Ponte Vedra Beach, FL. He is a 1993 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, and has master’s degrees from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where he was the Navy’s Arthur Moreau Scholar for International Relations, and from the United States Naval War College. At the Naval War College he was the American student selected for the first full-year curriculum of the international officer’s program at the Naval Staff College. RADM Daly was an MIT Seminar XXI fellow and a fellow at the Department of State Foreign Service Institute’s National Security Executive Leadership Seminar. He also completed extensive Executive Education at the Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia.  He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

During his career, RADM Daly has operated with 72 militaries or governments, and has visited 34 nations in a work capacity. In addition to his operational tours, he has trained for and been utilized in jobs requiring expertise in political-military affairs, strategy, and financial management and resourcing.

Afloat, RADM Daly has deployed in every tour and to operational areas in the Middle East, Western and Eastern Asia, Europe, and South America while serving on numerous cruiser and destroyer type ships. He commanded USS Farragut (DDG 99), the famed Little Beavers of Destroyer Squadron 23, and Carrier Strike Group Fifteen (CSG 15).

Ashore, RADM Daly served on the staffs of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs (J8, Program and Budget Branch Chief), the Chief of Naval Operations (four tours), and the Commander, Pacific Fleet. From 2019-2021 he was the Chief of Staff to the Commander, Naval Surface Forces and Commander, Naval Surface Force Pacific Fleet. As a flag officer, he was the U.S. European Command Deputy Director for Strategy, Policy, and Plans (DJ5/8) from 2021-2023.   He is a proven Naval Strategy sub-specialist, a Financial Management (FM) sub-specialist (with emphasis on resourcing and requirements), and a Political-Military (POL-MIL) sub-specialist.

He assumed his role as Director, Surface Warfare in June 2024.

Last Updated: 10 July 2024