Robert Walmsley
Vice Admiral Sir Robert Walmsley, (born 1 February 1941) is a retired senior officer of the Royal Navy who served as Chief of Defence Procurement at the UK Ministry of Defence from 1996 to 2003. Early career. Robert Walmsley was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, on 1 February 1941, a son of the anatomist Robert Walmsley and Dr Isabel Mary Walmsley. He was educated at Fettes College in Edinburgh. He joined the Royal Navy as a Dartmouth Cadet in 1958, and went on to read Mechanical Sciences at Queens' College, Cambridge, before taking up a range of seagoing appointments , mainly in submarines, developing an expertise in nuclear propulsion. During his naval career he was at times Chairman of the Naval Nuclear Technical Safety Panel and Director General, Submarines. For three years, he was the Assistant Chief of the Defence Staff for Communications, Command, Control and Information Systems. His final naval appointment (in 1994) was as Controller of the Navy and member of the Navy Board as a vice admiral. He was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1995. Walmsley is a former Cambridge Blue, having coxed the light blue boat to victory in the  108th Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race in 1962. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Royal Society of Arts, and the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), and is an Honorary DSc of Cranfield University. Chief of Defence Procurement. After retiring from the navy, Walmsley held the position of Chief of Defence Procurement at the UK Ministry of Defence from 1996 until his retirement on 30 April 2003. He retired from the Her Majesty's Civil Service after serving longer in the Defence Procurement post than any of his predecessors. During Walmsley's period in post  he led the transformation of the procurement organisation into the Defence Procurement Agency (DPA, now Defence Equipment and Support) and made numerous appearances as a witness to Parliamentary select committees. Personal life. In 1967, he married Christina Melvill, they had one son and two daughters, and divorced in 2009. In 2010, he married Alexandra Ashbourne. Walmsley's daughter, Emma, is the chief executive of the global pharmaceutical company Glaxo Smithkline.