Photo By Julius Evans | Capt. Matthew E. Newton, former NOSTRA Commanding Officer, stands with new Commanding...... read more read more
YORKTOWN, Va. - Naval Ophthalmic Support and Training Activity (NOSTRA), Williamsburg, Va., hosted a change of command ceremony July 11, where Capt. Paul A. Andre relieved Capt. Matthew E. Newton as commanding officer.
Held at the Navy Cargo Handling Battalion ONE Auditorium at Cheatham Annex, the ceremony was well attended by family members of the departing and incoming officers, students attending the Tri-Services Optician School, NOSTRA employees, and friends of the official party.
Leaving Cheatham Annex en route to Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, Capt. Newton succinctly recapped an impressive list of accomplishments credited to NOSTRA when he addressed the audience.
“The name says it all. We provide optical fabrication support by fabricating military eyewear, prescription gas mask inserts and combat protective eyewear inserts,” he said to a keenly intent audience. “We also train military opticians and optical fabricators -- I’m referring to the Tri-Services Optician School, also known as TOPS, the Department of Defense’s only training program for Opticians and Optical Fabrication Specialists.”
Capt. Newton explained that NOSTRA has trained jointly for nearly 20 years, setting a high standard for successful inter-service cooperation. The instructors not only teach optics and fabrication, they also provide effective ‘sailorization’ and ‘soldierization.’
“Pushing through record numbers of students over the past three years and with the highest levels of professional accreditation and licensure, the TOPS team has revitalized the future of this technical specialty for the armed forces,” Newton said.
He then explained the optical fabrication aspect of NOSTRA which has been described as the Department of Defense’s largest and leading optical fabrication laboratory.
“With Navy as the lead service for optical fabrication and the commanding officer of NOSTRA as the executor for the Military Health System Optical Fabrication Enterpriser Program, NOSTRA sets the pace for 27 Army and Navy labs worldwide. NOSTRA and its six east coast Detachments from Maryland to Florida are responsible for more than one third of the 1.7 million pairs of military eyewear produced by the Enterprise last year,” he explained.
NOSTRA is the only laboratory to deploy Sailors and Soldiers with mobile optical fabrication capability in support of National Guard and U.S. Navy Reserve missions, prefabricate eyewear for overseas humanitarian relief and medical civic action program missions. It is the only laboratory to produce eyewear for the Coast Guard, Public Health Service, NASA, NOAA, and other Federal agencies. And it is the only laboratory to produce eyewear for the G-Eyes Program in support of warfighters deployed in the combat theater.
“It has been my pleasure to serve and work here and I’m proud to have represented NOSTRA while working with the great professionals on our own staff and at these fine commands. And I’m especially proud of the fine work accomplished by the Army, Navy and Air Force representative on our Tri-Service Optical Fabrication Advisory Board,” Newton said.
Capt. Paul A. Andre Returns to NOSTRA
Twenty-one months earlier, as the executive officer, Capt. Andre departed NOSTRA en route to 29 Palms Naval Hospital, CA, where he was a staff doctor and a department head. In 2013 he was selected to the rank of captain.
As the crowd looked on, waiting with bated breath for Capt. Andre to address them, he did not disappoint. Having served as the former executive officer, many in the audience were well aware of Capt. Andre’s ability to ‘shoot off the cuff.’ Without a script or notes in hand, he laid out the key points he wanted to mention in his return speech.
“I am excited to be back. I have been in the Navy for 20 years and have been assigned to nine duty stations, but have never been "back" to any of them, so this is a cool, new experience,” he said. “This is a place where I know people from my previous time here. I know the landmarks and restaurants. Having been stationed here before, I already know some the things I love about this location, such as picking fruit in Williamsburg right off trees at farms in the country.”
Taking a moment to collect his thoughts, he went on to describe the second point he wanted the audience to know – and that was he felt lucky to be back.
“I am only the second commanding officer ever to relieve the CO he was under as XO. And I'm the only one to come back this quickly, so this gives me first-hand look into the incredible job this CO has done.
“I am so impressed with the staff, directors, the executive officer, and everyone, with how they have accomplished such process improvements in the last year and nine months .... all under the leadership of Capt. Newton,” he continued. “This makes me so lucky to come in and follow on with this crew and the great policies and changes that Capt. Newton and staff are working on.
“Finally,” he said, “It's an honor to return as the commanding officer. To be the CO of ‘anything’ is an honor. Very few Sailors get to wear the rank of captain in the Navy, or very few people make colonel in the other branches. Even fewer of these people, ever have the opportunity to serve as a commanding officer. So to be a CO is an honor.
“You know, the Navy decided to make me a captain about a year and a half ago, and if the job of being a captain is to be the commanding officer of something, well then I could do that job as well as anyone else,” Capt. Andre expressed to the audience. “In fact it does not matter rank a person holds, either HN, Senior Chief, LT, Gunny, Petty Officer, Sergeant, GS-13, CEO. Whatever rake we are; it means we are capable of doing the jobs that come with those ranks that we hold, and the most important thing for us to remember is that we should always rise up and do them.”
NOSTRA History
The military ophthalmic program was established by the Navy Appropriation Act of 1942, authorizing funds for prescription eyewear to Navy and Marine Corps personnel serving abroad. In 1945, a program to provide prescription eyewear for all Navy personnel was introduced.
In June 1945, the Optical School at the U.S. Naval Medical Supply Depot was established in Brooklyn, NY. Later, the school was relocated to the Naval Medical School, National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, MD, and renamed the Optometric Fabrication School. In 1950, the Brooklyn optical fabrication laboratory was moved to the Naval Supply Center, Edgewater, NJ, where it remained until 1954 when it was re-designated the Naval Ophthalmic Lens Laboratory and relocated to Naval Supply Center Cheatham Annex, Williamsburg, VA.
Expansion of ophthalmic support services significantly increased demand and necessitated several additions to the Cheatham Annex facility. This change in mission resulted in the activity being re-designated as Naval Ophthalmic Support Activity in July 1964. Relocation of the optician training program from Bethesda to Williamsburg was approved and the activity was granted command status as the Naval Ophthalmic Support and Training Activity (NOSTRA) in 1968. To meet its expanding mission requirements, NOSTRA relocated to Naval Weapons Station Yorktown, VA, in 1973.
NOSTRA is a subordinate command to the Naval Medical Logistics Command (NMLC), Navy Medicine’s center of logistics expertise. Led by Capt. Mary S. Seymour, NMLC supports big Navy objectives by designing, executing and administering individualized state-of-the-art solutions to meet customers’ medical materiel and health care service needs. Its MISSION is to deliver patient centered logistics solutions for military medicine and its VISION is to continue as the Department of Defense premier medical logistics support activity.
| Date Taken: | 07.17.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 07.17.2014 16:10 |
| Story ID: | 136431 |
| Location: | YORKTOWN, VA, US |
| Web Views: | 885 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Newton Transfers, Andre assumes command of NOSTRA, by Julius Evans, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
LEAVE A COMMENT