Terry McCreary Admiral Terry " T " McCreary ( born March 20 , 1952 ) is a retired one - star admiral in the United States Navy and served as the Chief of Naval Information ( CHINFO ) reporting to the Secretary of the Navy . In this capacity , he oversaw all aspects of the Navy ' s global public affairs program . Prior to that , McCreary served as Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff . His naval career included leadership positions in a variety of naval and joint assignments . McCreary retired from the Navy in 2006 after 27 years of service , then served as the Strategic Communication Director of the U . S . Special Operations Command and the National Counterterrorism Center . Early life . McCreary was born in Cincinnati , Ohio , to Paul McCreary and Dolores Orcutt Thelen . He traveled from 1968 - 1971 with the Internation cast of " Up with People " and received his high school diploma while touring with the musical troupe " Up With People " in 1970 . He graduated from Northern Kentucky University with a B . A . in history in 1978 . Navy career . McCreary was commissioned as a surface warfare officer in the Pacific Fleet in 1971 , where he served as an electrical officer and main propulsion assistant aboard the destroyer USS " O ' Brien " ( DD 975 ) . During his sea tour in the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean ( from 1971 to 1978 ) , he applied for and received re - designation as a public affairs officer ( PAO ) . McCreary spent the first two years of his PAO tour in the Navy Office of Information in Atlanta , handling regional media issues in Florida , Virginia , Alabama , and Mississippi . He then went to Yokosuka , Japan , where he served as the assistant public affairs officer for the commander of the U . S . Seventh Fleet . After completing a master ' s degree in Mass Communications and Public Relations at San Diego State University in 1986 , McCreary headed to Washington , D . C . , as the news director for " Navy News This Week , " the Navy ' s half hour internal TV news show . He returned to the waterfront in 1989 as the public affairs officer ( PAO ) aboard the " USS Missouri " ( BB - 63 ) . McCreary served on the battleship during Operation Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf , and remained on board until it was decommissioned in March 1992 . McCreary next reported to Submarine Group Five in San Diego where he served as a public affairs officer until June 1994 . From there , he moved to Manama , Bahrain , where he served as the public affairs officer for Commander , U . S . Naval Forces Central Command , U . S . 5th Fleet . Among other events , he dealt with media after 19 U . S . military service personnel were killed in the Khobar Towers bombing of 1996 in Dhahran , Saudi Arabia . In August 1997 , McCreary returned to Washington , D . C . , to serve as the public affairs officer for the Bureau of Naval Personnel . In February 1999 , McCreary became the director of public affairs for the commander of U . S . Pacific Command , headquartered in Pearl Harbor , Hawaii . He returned to Washington in August 2000 . McCreary was serving as a Special Assistant to the 14th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , General Hugh Shelton at the Pentagon when it was attacked on September 11 . He remained in that position for the first two years of General Richard B . Myers tenure as Chairman . During that time Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom were conducted , and he routinely worked with senior Pentagon officials and national news media . McCreary was part of the public affairs team that pushed to embed journalists in military units , insisting that the face of war should be the troops and that the reality of the danger would lead to more accurate media coverage . If people could not agree on the reason of the war , they could at least unite behind the troops in a show of support for America ' s sons and daughters . " What better way for people to understand [ the issue ] than to put the face of the troops as the face of the war , rather than one or two spokesman up on a podium ? " he said . McCreary became the U . S . Navy ' s Chief of Information in July 2003 . As CHINFO , McCreary was responsible for the largest transformation of the Navy ' s public and internal communications since its inception . He was responsible for creating the Mass Communication Specialist ( MC ) rating for Navy personnel combining the skills sets of Photographers , He also helped lead a complete overhaul of the Navy ' s globally ranked website , revamping its structure and content , and keeping it up - to - date on new technologies such as podcasts and RSS feeds . Post - Navy career . After 27 years of service , McCreary retired as a rear admiral in July 2006 . Following retirement , McCreary served as the Director of Communication for the National Counter - Terrorism Center and U . S . Special Operations Command before becoming as the president of Military . com ( Military Advantage ) in December 2008 . He currently serves as the Vice President of Monster Worldwide . He pushes to hire veterans , teaming up with the U . S . Chamber of Commerce , USO , and other organizations to host nationwide job fairs catering to returning vets , seasoned vets , and their spouses . He joined the Corps of Support honorary National Campaign Committee in March 2011 , an organization dedicated to raising funds for various troop - support services . Personal life . McCreary and his wife , Maria Josephina McCreary , have two children ; they currently live in Northern Virginia .