by Richard Prior
Staff Writer
To see him on the street or pass by him in the mall, Karl Yeakel could be mistaken for just another guy.
But five minutes of conversation is all it takes to realize he is more than that. This is someone used to being in charge. And he’s comfortable with that role.
Yeakel’s occupation has taken him across the oceans and around the world, maintaining the aircraft needed to deflect threats and pursue villains.
He has managed the largest Cruise missile command and control systems in the fleet.
He worked on the software for those missiles, whose accuracy is said to be precise enough to hit the left heel of a boot under a dictator’s bed.
And now he’s ready to move on.
Capt. Karl Yeakel will begin retiring from the U.S. Navy on July 18, a process that starts with a change of command ceremony and ends with his formal retirement on Nov. 1.
He won’t be retiring, exactly. It’s more the turn of a page than the closing of a book.
“I’m transitioning,” said Yeakel, preparing to turn over command of the Naval Air Depot in Jacksonville. “I plan to go on and seek a second career, preferably along the lines of what I’m doing now.
“I love aviation, and I love the type of industrial work I’ve been doing.”
Following the change of command ceremony at the Naval Air Station, Yeakel will go on “terminal leave” until his retirement becomes official on
Nov. 1.
He would prefer to stay put while he follows his next dream.
“I would like to stay here,” Yeakel said in his office at the sprawling 102-acre depot. “I love Jacksonville. I left here 20 years ago, hoping that someday I would have the opportunity to come back. And I got it.”
Yeakel was born in Port Arthur, Tex., but actually spent very little time there. Most of his formative years were spent overseas.
“My dad worked initially for some oil companies and then he ended up going to work for the State Department,” he said. “From the time I was 8, we lived in Baghdad, then Athens, Greece. Then Sierra Leone, Africa. Next was Vientiane, Laos. That was during the war years. That was an interesting time.”
He returned to the United States and went to high school in Houston. He enrolled in the University of Texas at Austin, graduating in 1977 with a degree in aerospace engineering.
“I actually took off my first semester of college and went to flight school because I wanted to fly so badly,” Yeakel recalled. “It was a wonderful little flight school in Fort Worth called Meacham Flyers, run by a lot of retired Air Force officers.
“They kind of took me under their wing. In about four and a half months they took me all the way from private pilot through my multi-engine flight instructor. So I instructed while I was going through college.”
Early in his career, Yeakel realized he wanted to diversify into technical, industrial and facilities management. That required an advanced degree, so he attended the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif., and earned a master’s in space systems.
He has served as officer in charge at the Navy’s only forward deployed aircraft depot repair facility at Cubi Point in the Philippines; P-3 projects officer and flight check department head at Alameda, Calif.; executive officer of the Naval Air Pacific Repair Activity in Atsugi, Japan; and as executive director for aviation depots at Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md.
His first stop in Jacksonville came in 1980, when he reported to the Naval Air Station for replacement pilot training in the P-3C. He took part in deployments to the Atlantic and the Mediterranean and flew in support of numerous detachments in South America.
In 1992, Yeakel was selected to go to the Cruise missile office in Washington, D. C., where mission planning software was being developed for the missiles.
“Basically, it was the software that told the missile what to do after it was launched,” he said. “I ended up in the office right after Desert Storm, and it was a very busy time.”
Yeakel reported to the NAVAIR Depot in Jacksonville as executive officer in June 2000. He assumed his duties as commanding officer in January 2002.
The 4,000 employees at the depot perform a wide range of repair and maintenance work on weapon systems, accessories and equipment. They manufacture parts and assemblies. They provide engineering services in development changes to hardware design.
And, particularly since Sept. 11, 2001, they have been particularly busy.
Two J52 engines power the EA-6B Prowler, which provides high-speed electronic countermeasures for the Navy.
Upgrades over the years have given the Prowler better jamming equipment and a “hard kill” capability with four Harm missiles.
In November 2001, with the country preparing to answer the attacks on the World Trade Center, “potential problems” were discovered with the Prowler engines, Yeakel said. Engines were pulled from the equivalent of six squadrons of planes.
Engineers worked on the problem until July, when a series of improvements was recommended to relieve stress on an engine bearing.
With the solution in hand, the next challenge was to make the needed changes fast enough so that all those Prowlers didn’t spend one more day than necessary on the ground.
“Now we were getting close to that point where it was anticipated, but not known, that we could be going to war,” Yeakel said. “We increased aircraft production 500 percent with the J52, going from a requirement of three engines a month to 15 engines a month.
“And that’s just in one product line.”
The efficiency and speed with which the changes were made far exceeded expectations.
“All the program managers — not those here — were briefing that it would take a year to do that,” Yeakel said. “We did it in four and a half months. And we continued engine production such that we had the EA-6Bs read to go to war on March 20 when they made that strike against an undisclosed target (in Iraq).
“That was a challenge. It was probably the hardest job I’ve ever had to do in the period of time I had to do it. It was a tremendous effort.”
Last year, depot workers broke all records in repairing between 47,000 and 50,000 aircraft components — on top of all the other aircraft that were produced.
“It’s the busiest anyone can recall, at least since World War II,” he said.
Yeakel has come to expect that extra effort by those under his command at repair facilities and depots across the globe. Their performance, in fact, has reminded him of the Brothers Grimm story about the cobbler and the elves.
“I drove down to the repair facility at Cubi Point one day, and there were all these airplanes that had to get out, and I remember they were all coming in the night before,” Yeakel said. “The next day, sure enough, they were all lined up. I thought, ‘I’ll never see that again.’”
But he has seen it again. Several times.
“You get to a facility like this, and you have so much stuff here, and, well ... you basically go to war, and you do it again. It’s the story of the cobbler and the elf all over again.”
Those attachments, the people who have worked with and for him, are what Yeakel said he will miss most after he “transitions.”
“It’s the teamwork I’ll miss; the people,” he said. “Certainly this job has been the most challenging job I’ve had in the Navy. I love jobs that are challenges, and this has been wonderful. The people have been wonderful.”