Meet The Ambassador

Retirement Ceremony for Col.  Gray R. Donnalley, Office of Defense Cooperation: Remarks by Ambassador Lavin
July 14, 2004

Admiral Lim, members of the military community, embassy colleagues, friends, today we have come together to mark the distinguished career of Col. Gray Donnalley. Let me give you some background on this man who has been a key part of this embassy and Singapore-American relations over the past three years.

Col. Donnalley was born into a military family in Buffalo, New York. His father was career army. But it was when his father was stationed in Washington D.C. that Col. Donnalley finished high school and this pointed him to college in Virginia.

There began two of his life-long enthusiams: Virginia Tech and the U.S. Air Force. In fact, with a degree of prescience that seems to escape many high school seniors, he had a career focus as he graduated because he went immediately into the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps as a college Freshman, joining Virginia Tech's fabled Corps of Cadets. And while other embassy officers would review economic or security developments at our Monday staff meetings, Col. Donnalley would always give us Virginia Tech football scores. If you were not paying attention, I can advise you that the Hokies had an 8 and 5 season last year.

Second Lieutenant Donnalley was commissioned in 1976 and trained as a Weapons Systems Officer, or "Wizzo." He first went to Mather AFB in California for navigation training, then to Nellis AFB in Nevada for F-111 training. The F-111's carried nuclear weapons at that time, giving Wizzo Donnalley the most powerful weapon for the most powerful airplane of the most powerful air force in the world, but the pilot would refer to him only as the "verbal altimeter."

The F-111s are now out of service in the U.S. Col. Donnalley commented to me, poignantly, that if the F-111 had two vertical stabilizers, it would have been a great plane. This called to mind Milton Friedman's comment that if his grandmother had four wheels, she would be a trolley car.

Other duty stations and growing responsibility marked his career as he rose to Master Navigator, Instructor, and Flight Commander, with 2500 flight hours. But there was one mission that required him to draw on all of his Air Force training. In-depth reconnaissance, target acquisition, and a sense of daring-do. This took place in Britain, when he met an Air Force Lieutenant, Mary Dinneny. We know Mary today as part of the embassy medical team. In 1978, she out-ranked Gray. I am sure she does today as well. Somehow Gray managed to evade fraternization rules - stealth technology perhaps? -- and the Donnalley's celebrated their 25th anniversary about ten days ago. That marriage has given then two daughters, Sarah who is with us today, and Erin.

Beyond service in the air wings, Gray served with distinction in a number of difficult staff and management assignments, including running the Base Realignments and Closure program, which was responsible for the post-Cold War shrinkage of U.S. bases. He also ran a major study for the Office of Management and Budget. He earned a Master's degree. He served in exotic foreign locations like Turkey and Texas.

But the story becomes familiar to most of us in today when Gray came to Singapore in September of 2001.

Gray Donnalley has served as the Chief of our Office of Defense Cooperation for the past three years. This makes him responsible for all U.S.-Singapore military sales, technology transfer, repair and service agreements, and training.

Under his leadership, we moved ahead on release of a number of items, such as the Night Vision Goggles that Singapore used in its East Timor peace-keeping and AAMRAM's for the Singapore Air Force.

We increased the number of Defense Cooperation in Armaments Senior-Level Forums from three to seven.

And this helped spur the number of official U.S. visitors ODC hosted to over 1100 over the past three years. Gray also escorted senior-level Singaporean leadership during their U.S. visits

The Colonel ran all our relations with the defense industry, including the operations at Asian Aerospace 02 and 04.

And on training, he has a particularly proud record, with more training offered to Singapore than any other non-allied nation. Over 2400 Singaporean students were trained in the US during his tenure.

And last in ODC, but certainly not least, Col. Donnalley took the lead on the major areas of defense procurement cooperation. He succeeded in getting Singapore to participate as the second FMS participant in the Joint Strike Fighter. Has led support for the Next Generation Fighter and the Maritime Helo competitions. And if our Singapore friends do not go ahead with the F-15 and the S-70, you are going to make this dear Colonel cry.

So Gray has overseen a growth in the military relationship, but even more importantly, a growth in mutual trust and respect. Singapore and the U.S. are now about as close as one can imagine two security partners can be. Gray has been active in building the personal and institutional relationships that make these achievements possible.

Beyond his ODC responsibilities, Gray has served as Chair of our ICASS Council, which stands for the Interagency Cooperative Administrative Support System. This is the embassy's Board of Directors, which deals with housing, living conditions, and other important issues. Doing well in this job required good budget and finance skills, excellent inter-personal skills, and solid judgment.

And beyond ODC and ICASS, Gray has worn a third hat as chair of the American Employees' Association. He helped conceive and organize the dramatically successful Monte Carlo night, for example. Col., if the Monte Carlo night had been any more successful, we would all be testifying before the State Department Inspector General right now. The AEA also sponsors a Golf Tournament, an Appreciation night, and our wonderful Thanksgiving banquet. Through all of these events, he built excellent relations between our American and Singaporean employees.

To put it in Singapore terms, between the ICASS and the AEA roles, Gray served as the combined hear of our embassy's HDB, NTUC, and People's Association.

Colonel, it has been a pleasure to have you as part of our country team. We have all admired your energy, persistence, composure under pressure and - especially - good humor. If there were any way we could keep you here, we would. But we can't, so we'll have to content ourselves with wishing you - and Mary - all the best, as you go flying off, into the wild blue yonder.