Herald staff
OAK HARBOR — A U.S. Navy officer who has spent most of his career at Whidbey Island Naval Air Station will return today to take over command of the largest Navy installation in the Pacific Northwest.
Capt. Stephen Black will take the reins from Capt. Larry Salter, who has served as commander of the air station since January 1999.
Salter, a 28-year veteran who will retire during the invitation-only change-of-command ceremony this afternoon, will start a new career as director of marketing for Envisioneering Inc. The company, based in Silverdale, provides engineering, computer and logistic services to a variety of government and public organizations.
The change marks a homecoming for Black.
After earning his Navy flight officer wings in 1982, he reported to his first duty assignment at the Whidbey station in May 1983. He served with the "Vikings," Electronic Attack Squadron 129 (VAQ-129), for initial fleet training as an EA-6B Prowler electronic countermeasures officer. The Prowler is an all-weather jet used to provide radar-jamming cover for fighter jets.
Black was based out of Whidbey until 1998, serving next with the "Black Ravens" of VAQ-135. He completed two deployments aboard the aircraft carrier USS America and was also sent to the Mediterranean Sea aboard the aircraft carrier Coral Sea.
During that deployment, Black participated in Operation El Dorado Canyon, the airstrike against Libya in 1986 that came after a terrorist bomb exploded in a West Berlin disco, killing one American soldier and wounding 63 others.
Black subsequently returned to VAQ-129 as a flight instructor, then reported to the "Zappers" of VAQ-130 in September 1991 as an electronic warfare officer and maintenance officer.
During his time with Whidbey-based squadrons, Black also participated in Operation Provide Comfort, the humanitarian relief effort for Kurdish refugees after the Gulf War; Operation Provide Promise, the humanitarian airlift to save war-torn Sarajevo, Bosnia; and Operation Southern Watch, the enforcement of the no-fly zone over southern Iraq.
Whidbey’s newest commander also served as an experiment director at the Navy Warfare Development Command, and is a graduate of the College of Naval Command and Staff at the Naval War College. He has also attended the U.S.-Canada Institute in Moscow and the Kuznetzov Naval Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Black has more than 2,500 flight hours in Prowlers and has made more than 700 carrier landings. He is a native of Aldan, Pa., and a 1981 graduate of the University of Notre Dame.
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