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| Captain Kavon Hakimzadeh | |
|---|---|
 Kavon Hakimzadeh | |
| Native name | کاوون حکیم زاده |
| Birth name | Kavon Hakimzadeh |
| Nickname | Hak |
| Born | 1960s[1] |
| Place of birth | Texas, United States[2] |
| Service/branch | United States Navy |
| Rank | Captain |
| Awards |
 [3] |
Kavon "Hak" Hakimzadeh (Persian: کاوون حکیم زاده) (born 1960s) is an Iranian-American Captain in the US Navy. Since August 2021, he has served as the Director of Aircraft Carrier Requirements in the office of the Chief of Naval Operations.[4] He previously served as Commanding Officer of the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier from 2019 to 2021.[4]
Early life[]
Kavon Hakimzadeh was born in Texas in the 1960s to an Iranian father and American mother. When he was a baby, his family moved to Iran.[5]
Hakimzadeh attended an international school where they spoke both Persian and English. He kept the faith of his Southern Baptist mother.[5]
Hakimzadeh lived in Iran until 1979, when his family was forced to flee to the United States during the Islamic Revolution.[5]
Military career[]
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Capt. Kavon Hakimzadeh, commanding officer of the Blue Ridge-class amphibious command ship USS Mount Whitney (LCC 20) carries a bouquet of flowers for his wife following the ship’s arrival at its forward-deployed port of Gaeta, Italy Oct. 27, 2017.
Hakimzadeh enlisted in the Navy in 1987 and then earned a Navy ROTC scholarship to Carnegie Mellon University.[6] Upon commission, he became a flight officer on the E-2 Hawkeye.[6] He later joined the Tigertails of VAW-125 for his initial sea tour. Additional sea duty assignments include Carrier Strike Group Eight as Flag Lieutenant, VAW-123 Screwtops as a department head and VAW-126 Seahawks as executive officer and commanding officer. These tours included multiple deployments embarked aboard USS Enterprise (CVN 65), USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69), USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) and USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75).[7]
He served ashore with the VAW-120 Greyhawks as an FRS instructor, as a student at the Naval War College, and duty under instruction as an Arthur S. Moreau fellow. Additionally, he completed three Pentagon assignments with the Joint Staff (J-3) readiness division, SOUTHCOM Washington field office and OPNAV N00X and N9I as a strike warfare analyst and assessment branch head.[7]
Captain Hakimzadeh holds Masters Degrees from Old Dominion University, the Naval War College and the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. He is a Joint Qualified Officer and has completed the Aviation Nuclear Officer training pipeline.[7]
He assumed his current role as Director of Aircraft Carrier Requirements in the office of the Chief of Naval Operations in August 2021[4] His command tours include the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) from 2019 to 2021 and the USS Mount Whitney (LCC-20) from 2016 to 2018.[4] He served as Executive Assistant to the Director of Air Warfare in the office of the Chief of Naval Operations from 2018 to 2019 and as Executive Officer of the USS John C. Stennis (CVN 74) from 2014 to 2016.[4]
References[]
- ↑ Ashley Coolman (January 8, 2020). "An Iranian-American who fled during the 1979 revolution is commanding the US aircraft carrier posted to the region". Insider Inc.. https://www.businessinsider.com/kavon-hakimzadeh-iranian-american-commanding-us-middle-east-aircraft-carrier-2020-1?r=US&IR=T.
- ↑ Dave Philipps (January 7, 2020). "He Fled Iran as a Child. Now He’s Commanding a U.S. Aircraft Carrier.". The New York Times Company. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/07/us/uss-truman-navy-iran.html.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 "Kavon Hakimzadeh LinkedIn profile". https://www.linkedin.com/in/kavon-hakimzadeh-33b530137/.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Virginian-Pilot, Brock Vergakis, The (2019-08-17). "This skipper fled Iran. Now he’s preparing to deploy there." (in en). https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/08/17/this-skipper-fled-iran-now-hes-preparing-to-deploy-there/.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Philipps, Dave (2020-01-07). "He Fled Iran as a Child. Now He’s Commanding a U.S. Aircraft Carrier." (in en-US). The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/07/us/uss-truman-navy-iran.html.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 "Amphibious Transport Dock Photo Index LPD-15 Ponce". 2020-01-27. https://web.archive.org/web/20200127231012/https://www.navsource.org/archives/10/01/0120g.htm.
The original article can be found at Kavon Hakimzadeh and the edit history here.