William Owens ( admiral ) William A . " Bill " Owens ( born May 8 , 1940 ) was an Admiral in the United States Navy and later Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff . Since leaving the military in 1996 , he served as an executive or as a member of the board of directors of various companies , including Nortel Networks Corporation . Early life . Owens was raised in North Dakota and graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1962 with a bachelors degree in mathematics . On a Rhodes Scholarship , he earned bachelors and masters degrees in politics , philosophy , and economics from Oxford University , graduating with honors . He later earned a masters degree in management from George Washington University , again graduating with honors . Military service . Owens was appointed to vice chairman of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff , the second - ranking military office in the United States , by Bill Clinton in March 1994 . Previously , Owens has served as Commander of the U . S . Sixth Fleet from 1990 to 1992 , which includes Operation Desert Storm . He retired in 1996 . He also served as the deputy chief of Naval Operations for Resources , Warfare Requirements and Assessments , from 1991 to 1993 . Owens was a senior military assistant to Secretaries of Defense Frank Carlucci and Dick Cheney , and director of the Office of Program Appraisal for the Secretary of the Navy . Owens began his career as a nuclear submariner . He served on four strategic nuclear - powered submarines and three nuclear attack submarines , including tours as Commanding Officer aboard the USS " Sam Houston " and USS " City of Corpus Christi " . Owens spent a total of 4 , 000 days ( more than 10 years ) aboard submarines , including duty in Vietnam . In April 2000 , Owens co - authored " Lifting the Fog of War " with Edward Offley . Business career . After leaving the military , Owens served as president , chief operating officer and vice chairman of Science Applications International Corporation ( " SAIC " ) . In August 1999 , Owens served as vice chairman and co - chief executive officer of Teledesic LLC , a satellite communications company . In June 2003 , he became the chairman and chief executive officer . On April 28 , 2004 , Owens became the chief executive officer of Nortel , where he had previously served on the board of directors since February 2002 . Owens stepped in to replace Frank Dunn , who was fired following an investigation into financial reporting . Owens served until November 15 , 2005 , when he was succeeded by Mike Zafirovski . On April 1 , 2006 , Owens became the Chairman and CEO of AEA Holdings Asia overseeing all Private Equity , and Real Estate investments in Asia . Admiral Owens is also a chairman of privately held Intelius , an information commerce company based in Bellevue , Washington . Owens serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Polycom Inc . , Daimler Chrysler AG , Embarq , Intelius , and Force 10 . Since July 1 , 2006 , Owens has also served as a director of a highly controversial Indian global information technology services company called Wipro . Wipro is recognized for outsourcing tens of thousands of American jobs to India . In July 2009 , Owens assumed the post of non - executive Chairman of US telecommunications company , CenturyLink . In August 2009 , one month after his appointment at CenturyLink , Owens founded Amerilink Telecom Corp . , a US telecommunications consultancy which partnered with China ' s Huawei Technologies in an effort to win a major contract with Sprint for its multi - billion dollar network upgrade project . Amerilink ' s role in this effort appears to have been to provide independent verification by trusted Americans that Huawei Technologies would not represent a security threat to the U . S . as well as to monitor Huawei Technologies activities on an ongoing basis were it to win the contract . In addition to Admiral Owens , the Amerilink Board included Gordon England , who served as deputy secretary of defense and homeland security under former President George W . Bush , former Speaker of the House , Richard Gephardt , and former World Bank President James Wolfensohn . Huawei Technologies provided considerable guarantees concerning security concerns , included offering to convey its code to security officials . But security concerns prevailed and may help explain Sprint ' s decision not to work with Huawei .