NAVAL HEALTH RESEARCH CENTER PERFORMS CHANGE OF COMMAND
Capt. Marshall R. Monteville Relinquishes Command to Capt. William M. Deniston
SAN DIEGO – Capt. Marshall M. Monteville turned over command of Naval Health Research Center (NHRC) to incoming skipper, Capt. William M. Deniston, June 14. In a traditional Navy change of command ceremony, presiding official, Capt. Adam W. Armstrong, commander, Naval Medical Research Center, and honored guest speaker, Rear Adm. Paul D. Pearigen, Navy Medicine West commander and chief of the Navy Medical Corps, were present as part of the official party to conduct the time-honored ceremony.
Monteville assumed command of NHRC in August 2017, as the Department of Defense’s premier deployment health research facility, and has since reaffirmed this designation with many accomplishments during his command tenure. Monteville said NHRC’s three research directorates, Operational Readiness, Military Population Health and Operational Infectious Diseases, all contributed to the command mission.
“There exudes a true passion for science and care here throughout our 400 research and support staff,” said Monteville. “Having the most presentations and authored works ever selected from this command at last year’s prestigious DoD scientific meeting, the Military Health System Research Symposium, certainly attests to the great work from our staff.”
Monteville, whose next naval command assignment is in Italy, said he is leaving NHRC with a heavy heart, but with many new friends and the new commanding officer in good hands.
Arriving Commanding Officer Deniston came to NHRC from Naval Medical Research Center, Silver Spring, Md., where he served as executive officer. Deniston graduated from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and master’s and doctoral degrees in experimental psychology. After attending Officer Indoctrination School, then-Lt. Deniston was assigned to NHRC, his future post as commanding officer.
“It’s great to be back – it’s great to be home. As a young research investigator, at my first real duty assignment, I only imagined that someday I would be back here in a leadership role,” said Deniston. “NHRC’s research mission is all about ensuring the health, readiness and well-being of our nation’s military, and that’s a remarkable responsibility that I take on with great pride.”
In the years following his first assignment at NHRC, Deniston’s assignments included Naval Information Warfare Center, formally SPAWAR Systems Center San Diego, the Office of Naval Research, the Office of the Naval Inspector General and multiple tours at the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery. His Navy career has brought him full circle, back to Naval Base Point Loma, where he now serves as the commanding officer of NHRC.
The NHRC mission is to focus on the unique health needs of our nation’s warfighters and military families by conducting cutting-edge research and development. NHRC’s team of distinguished scientists and researchers consists of active duty service members, federal civilian employees and contract professionals, whose expertise includes physiology, microbiology, psychology, epidemiology, and biomedical engineering.