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[[caption]] Navy Chief Petty Officer Othan Mondy explains a Navy human resource management policy to Personnelman Second Class Felix Wisgo. Chief Mondy, a veteran of 18 years in the Navy, is responsible for ensuring Navy men and women understand specific management programs available in today's Navy. (Photograph by Photographer's Mate First Class Barbara Wisegarver). [[/caption]]

Moving Up...
CHIEF PETTY OFFICER OTHAN MONDY

By JO2 Deborah A. Galloway
   
Naval Air Station North Island, San Diego, Ca.—As a black man emerging from a segregated society, Navy Chief Petty Officer Othan Mondy, a native of New Orleans, La., has learned to overcome age-old prejudices.
   
As a human resource management specialist he uses his experience to teach others.
   
Chief Mondy, an Aviation Structural Mechanic Emergency Equipment Specialist (AME), is assigned to the Human Resource Management division on the staff of the Commander of the Navy's Pacific Fleet air arm, headquartered at the North Island Naval Air Station near San Diego, Ca.
   
On the staff Chief Mondy advises members of subordinate units on the Navy's human resource management program, the drug and alcohol abuse program, race relations and, generally, on ways to utilize all of the Navy's resources for more effective management. 
   
Chief Mondy also is responsible for ensuring all the 60,000 men and women in the Pacific aviation commands are aware of the policies set by the Chief of Naval Operations and the details of specific programs. 
   
As a young recruit 18 years ago, Chief Mondy strove for improved relations among people. He explained, "My first exposure to cross-culture interaction came when I joined the Navy, having lived in what was at the time a segregated society and having attended segregated schools all of my early life in the Ninth Ward section of New Orleans, which is in the western part of town."
   
On a train going to recruit training near Chicago, Chief Mondy's first black-white friendship developed. "A white recruit and I discovered we were from the same part of town," Chief Mondy explained, "but we never had a chance to meet because of the separate schools." 
   
After recruit training the two Navy men remained close friends during the 2 1/2-years at the Navy aircraft torpedo unit at Quonset Point, R.I. Chief Mondy feels "he was instrumental in my cultural growth and development. That's where my real interaction became focused on what we can do to improve this kind of relationship."
   
Chief Mondy's involvement as a Navy human resource management specialist came as a result of an impressive record as a career counselor at Fighter Squadrons 126 and 213 at Naval Air Station Miramar, San Diego, where he was assigned following his tour in Rhode Island.
   
Chief Mondy's experience was called upon soon after he reported aboard the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk to work as an aircraft structural mechanic, his primary skill.
   
On October 12, 1972, a racial incident developed aboard the ship at sea off the coast of Vietnam.
   
"A lot of people may not look at this in terms of a positive statement," he said, "but I feel very, very proud to have had the opportunity to be aboard the Kitty Hawk that night. I feel fortunate having been a black First Class Petty Officer, having the respect of a number of senior officers, as well as junior enlisted.
   
"I was able to help by being there and being able to talk to a number of young men who were frustrated by a lot of pressures, not only by things that were going on internally, but just the atmosphere of society as a whole."
   
Chief Mondy believes the exact moment or cause of the confrontation on the ship now is incidental. "I don't think it (the incident) began on the ship. It began because of the scenario in the social environment. It was a manifestation of many years of frustrations.
   
"One has to understand what kind of environment the young men were brought up in—the civil rights movements, Watts riots, Detroit riots, the assassination of Martin Luther King, the anti-Vietnam marches on the college campuses. These all add up to a lot of social pressures."
   
The Chief took no sides in the situation; he acted as mediator. "I had a responsibility as a professional Navy petty officer to attempt to deal with the confrontation," he explained. "I tried to make the senior officers understand what the frustrations were and how they could corrected. The younger men needed to understand there were better ways to ease the frustrations."

The Chief firmly believes people should focus their attention on the positive outgrowths of the confrontation on the Kitty Hawk. Because of it, according to Chief Mondy, the Navy as a whole developed a more aggressive equal opportunity program, the level of awareness to human needs was heightened, and Navy Human Resource Management Centers were developed. 

Following his tour on the Kitty Hawk Chief Mondy attended the Department of Defense Race Relations Institute in Florida and was assigned to the Human Resource Management Center in San Diego as a full time human resource specialist.

In addition to working as a human resource management specialist Chief Mondy is enrolled in the United States International University in San Diego, working towards a bachelor of arts and master degrees  in human behavior.

He hopes someday to use his education and experience to work as a management consultant in a large corporation.

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