Members of the 2023–24 class of the Robert and Marion Oster National Security Affairs Fellows Program are participating in an interview series in which they discuss their career experience, how they plan to spend the academic year, and their mentoring of Stanford undergraduate students. They also reflect on leadership lessons they learned in service to the nation.
Today, we speak to Lt. Cdr. Bradley Hoffman, a US Navy officer with professional expertise in the areas of intelligence, information warfare, and submarine warfare.
Why did you join the US Navy?
I would like to say that the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City in 2001 drove me to join the service, but that’s not true. It did, however, reinforce my preexisting desire to fly in the military. At the risk of appearing cliché, being a product of the ’80s and ’90s, I was heavily influenced by the film Top Gun and became infatuated with the idea of becoming a fighter pilot in the F-14D Tomcat, which unfortunately was retired from service by the time I finished officer training. One of my most memorable gifts from childhood was a toy model of the Tomcat attached to a joystick that made explosion and afterburner noises while lighting up the missiles on the pylons below the fuselage when the various buttons were pushed. In later years, my infatuation with the Tomcat developed into an infatuation with flying in general. I would spend hours taking video lessons and practicing various aviation skills in Microsoft Flight Simulator.
Being from Colorado and having attended the Air Force Academy soccer camps each summer since I was 12 years old, I naturally wanted to apply to the Air Force Academy. To maximize my chances of somehow reaching a job as an aviator, I also applied to the Military Academy at West Point and to the Naval Academy in Annapolis. During the application process I recalled my love of the Tomcat and shifted my focus to the Naval Academy. However, my grades in high school, despite my being in many advanced courses, were not good enough to merit an interview with either of my two senators to apply for a nomination from them, and I did not earn a nomination from my US representative. Not to be deterred, I walked into my local Navy recruiting office and scored well enough on the entrance screening test to have my pick of any career field as an enlisted sailor.
While I was at first drawn to the aviation electronics technician rating, my recruiter steered me toward the nuclear electronics technician rating under the auspices of improving my chances at being selected for an officer program. He turned out to be right; I applied the next year while I was enrolled in Nuclear Field “A” School and earned a nomination from the secretary of the navy and an appointment to the Naval Academy based on my performance during that training. Long story short, I joined the navy in the attempted fulfillment of a childhood dream, but it didn't quite turn out as I had planned.
Will you tell us about your educational background?
I will try to answer beyond what you can find in my web biography. I graduated from Douglas County High School in Castle Rock, Colorado, in 2003. I completed Nuclear Field “A” School for electronics technicians in 2004, took nine days of leave, and then reported to the Naval Academy in Annapolis for Plebe Summer that same year. In 2008, I graduated from the Naval Academy with a bachelor of science degree in history and a commission as an ensign in the US Navy. In 2020, I earned a master of arts degree in defense and strategic studies from the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, and I concurrently completed the requirements to graduate from the Maritime Advanced Warfighting School. Lastly, I earned a master’s certificate in space systems fundamentals from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, in 2022. Each one of my academic forays was entirely funded by the public, so, with tongue in cheek, I like to joke that I am entirely a product of the public education system.
Some might cock their heads at the idea of a bachelor of science degree in a humanities subject, but BS degrees are the only offering at the Naval Academy. Having originally selected mathematics as my undergraduate major, I fell in love with history, which I had previously detested due to the requirement for writing. This newfound passion stemmed from enrolling during my youngster (second) year in a pilot curriculum for one of the core humanities courses that was required for all midshipmen regardless of major; it was called World Civilizations II. In this curriculum, we studied the various patterns of emigration to North America as laid out in the textbook, which I found fascinating. The final exam for this course was not an exam at all but a 25-page paper on how closely each student's familial pattern of emigration to North America matched the models in the textbook. This required a great deal of ancestral research, in which I was exposed to a wealth of historical primary source material in the Library of Congress. The experience was awe inspiring. I also stumbled upon several volumes of family history that one of my great aunts had written and published, and which reached back to the sixteenth century AD. This project gave me a great sense of connection to something that transcended time, and it also turned the loathsome task of writing into a joy I had never experienced up to that point in my life. That same year, I experienced a great deal of frustration with mathematics as a discipline. In my pure mathematics course, I grew very bored with writing proofs of mathematical theories. In my applied mathematics course, I grew increasingly frustrated with building models that I viewed as perpetually inaccurate because there was always another variable that I could think of that would influence the results. These factors combined with a desire to branch out from my comfort zone in math and science and to become a better-rounded individual by learning to write more effectively.
My passion and skill for writing grew the most during my graduate studies. The systematic approach that the Naval War College taught really honed my skills for crafting an argument. It also gave me a new appreciation for the viewpoints of others on the same topic, which I developed in the practice of crafting counterarguments to my thesis that truly challenged my ideas rather than simply being straw men for me to knock down. Studying warfare also draws entirely from history, which rekindled in me a love of reading and gave me a new hunger for studying the classics that evaded me as a younger student.
My certificate program in space systems is really what brought all my previous experience and training into synthesis. Not only did this program give me a deep understanding of the science of the use of space, but it also married the policy affecting the use of space with my penchant for making a logical evaluation of that policy. I have applied this synthesis to all aspects of the policies that govern my work, which is what ultimately drew me to the Naval Strategist Program and the National Security Affairs Fellowship Program here at Hoover in pursuit of earning designation as a naval strategist in the furtherance of sound defense policy.
Will you tell us about your career arc?
My career arc is very unorthodox, but I have gained so much insight into myself, into naval warfare, and into leadership as a result of such a nonstandard path. As I mentioned in my response about my path into the navy, my career has not turned out the way I had dreamt about as a child. But I wouldn't trade the experience I have gained nor the opportunities that opened to me for a chance to do it differently.
Like most graduates from the Naval Academy, I was commissioned into what is called the unrestricted line officer community (URL for short). The URL is characterized by the officer specialties one generally thinks about in any preconceived notions of the navy; these are surface warfare, submarine warfare, naval aviator, special warfare (Navy SEALs), and explosive ordnance disposal (EOD). These career fields all have the prospect of a future command at sea or in the field of combat units in the execution of orders from the National Command Authority (i.e., the president and the secretary of defense). My specialty, oddly enough, put me right back into the nuclear pipeline from which I was plucked to become an officer. I interviewed with the deputy commander of Naval Sea Systems Command for Naval Nuclear Propulsion during my second-class (third) year at the Naval Academy for a chance to become a submarine officer. I ultimately went into the submarine pipeline because of some life-planning factors, which distracted me from studying for and performing well on the Aviation Selection Test Battery. This was a valuable life lesson that I hope to pass on to future generations, and I always bring it up in mentorship situations when a mentee is confronted with a dilemma between career and personal fulfillment.
I joined my first command as a division officer in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in 2009 on the USS Chicago (SSN 721), which had just started a 26-month engineering overhaul (a complete refurbishment of the propulsion systems). I quickly burned myself out in this assignment, neglecting my overall health. However, I did become a qualified submarine warfare officer, and I went on deployment in 2010 with USS Jacksonville (SSN 699), which was one of the best experiences of my entire life. I made lifelong friends and memories on this deployment, and I got intimately involved with the mission, which I found very fulfilling. I really enjoyed the mission of fast-attack submarines in general, and I thoroughly enjoyed driving the boat as officer of the deck. This opportunity imparted valuable operational experience that I still use in my current specialty. My burnout caught up with me when it was time to prepare for the engineer officer exam, which every URL submarine officer must pass to become a department head. It involves an eight-hour written exam on the operation of the nuclear power plant, followed by three interview exams in Washington, DC, with the engineers who designed the power plant. I compensated for my burnout by using the self-study program too much for rest and recovery from busy division officer life, which led to my failure of the exam, forcing me to redesignate into a different officer specialty. This was another formative lesson for me that I likewise try to impart on anyone I have the honor to mentor. The lesson was both about failure, which I had yet to experience in any real sense, and proper work-life balance, which requires consideration of work’s expectations of you and your expectations of work. It is a two-way street that requires healthy boundaries, which are only possible in a healthy work environment. I carry this lesson with me and apply it to my leadership of other personnel.
My next assignment was to Naval Intelligence Officer Basic Course at the Navy-Marine Corps Intelligence Training Center, located at Dam Neck Annex of Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia. This course lasted six months and taught me the basics of my current officer specialty, but I really credit my previous operational experience with my success. Having arrived at the intelligence profession from the URL gave me a unique perspective on what they need from intelligence support, which helped to ingratiate me (half the battle) to the other URL communities I have served as an intelligence professional. This included tedious work as a transportation intelligence analyst in a Joint Intelligence Center, as a targeting officer providing target intelligence to aviators, and as a school-trained planner at a four-star commander’s headquarters. Leaving the submarine force, while devastating, afforded me the opportunity to start a family, which I think has taught me far more about leadership than I otherwise would have learned. It also gave me the chance to study warfare from a much broader perspective, which has helped me see the bigger picture earlier in my career than is generally available to URL officers, who don’t leave their tactical specialty until much later in their careers.
Will you tell us how you heard about the Hoover National Security Affairs Fellowship and how you hope to make the most out of this academic year?
I learned about the National Security Affairs Fellowship from my mentor at my most recent staff assignment, who encouraged me to apply. Hoover has a longstanding relationship with the navy’s Federal Executive Fellowship (FEF) program, which facilitates the placement of navy personnel at various fellowships throughout the country each year. I deliberately placed Hoover at the top of my priorities listing when institution assignments were being considered by the FEF program leadership. I placed it at the top because of the access to experienced policy makers and practitioners that Hoover offers, its proximity to the Indo-Pacific region and the security issues therein, and its location at the world’s center of technological innovation. I knew that I wanted to gain more insight on Indo-Pacific security issues as they intersect with new and emerging technologies. I hope to gain perspectives that I might not necessarily agree with but are important to understand nonetheless, which I thought would be more readily available on a campus with Stanford’s reputation. At worst, I will hone my own ideas on the whetstone of debate, and at best, I will be persuaded to a new view of any issue that I pursue in more depth. My goals for this year are to audit courses that few have the opportunity to take, to meet and engage with people outside federal service, which can sometimes be an echo chamber, and lastly to publish both in one academic journal and one public news outlet.
Part of the National Security Affairs Fellowship (NSAF) has been teaching and mentoring Stanford University undergraduate students. Could you tell us about your experience mentoring them?
It has been both illuminating and encouraging to mentor undergraduate students. It has given me a chance to hear fresh points of view that are not colored by a lens of career service in the federal government. It has given voice to concerns about the future that I was unaware existed among the younger generations other than what might appear in the headlines. It also gave me a glimpse into the minds of the future commercial, political, and service leaders that will guide our society when my children have families of their own, and it has brightened my outlook. Finally, it has shown me truly how much I take for granted the experiences I have had in my career when I see the interest with which the students inquire further into what I previously considered to be mundane detail and “common” knowledge. The mentorship program at Hoover has been a wonderful, broadening experience, and I genuinely appreciate NSAF’s goal for the program. I just hope that I add some value to it.
What does leadership mean to you?
To me, leadership is about building a team and supporting that team in its achievement of a common goal or objective. Support of the team certainly involves inspiration, but inspiration alone is insufficient to generate success in any endeavor. Successful teams must have specialized roles that are mutually supportive and commonly understood. They must be staffed by personnel who are placed in each role that best utilizes their strengths. And the team must have an environment and circumstances that minimize or eliminate impediments to team members’ fulfillment of their role in the team’s success. Lastly, the team’s mission must be clearly defined and clearly comprehended by each member. This includes setting ethical boundaries to guide the members’ actions in pursuit of mission achievement. Beyond these obligations, leaders should not intervene in the team’s operations but, rather, allow the team to function and provide correction either in direction or velocity to focus the team’s output toward reaching objectives.
