Capt. Gisele Bonitz, executive officer of the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific, has been appointed commanding officer of SSS Pacific.
She took over the post from Capt. Kurt Rothenhaus, who has been SSC Pacific’s commanding officer since 2013, during a change-of-command ceremony held Monday at SSC Pacific in San Diego, the U.S. Navy said Thursday.
Rothenhaus received the Legion of Merit award from Rear Adm. Dave Lewis, commander of the Space and Naval Warfare Command, during the ceremony in recognition of his performance and contributions to SSC Pacific.
Bonitz held leadership roles at SPAWAR that include chief of staff and executive assistant as well as adviser to the chief engineering on information technology issues.
She became chief of information assurance at the Combined Joint Task Force Seven in Iraq in 2003 and months later assumed the role of deputy of the innovations and experimentation directorate at Commander, 3rd Fleet in San Diego.
The 20-year Navy veteran led the development of a communications infrastructure that supported operations of the expeditionary strike group one as assistant chief of staff for command, control, communications, computers and information.
She also served in various IT leadership posts at the U.S. Strategic Command such as computer network defense and information assurance branch chief, deputy for the cyber space, C2 requirements division and division chief for the IT enterprise system and plans division.
Bonitz is a recipient of numerous awards that include the Defense Meritorious Service Medal and Legion of Merit.
SSC Pacific serves as SPAWAR’s lab that works to provide information warfare capability for naval, joint and coalition forces through research, development, test and evaluation efforts.
This story was originally published on January 13, 2017.