Great Decisions Group Profile: Kilmarnock Great Decisions Group

Every two weeks we'll profile a different Great Decisions group from around the country. This week we spoke to Tom York, a group leader, and Bud Ward from a Great Decisions group in Virginia, 150 miles southeast of Washington, D.C.

Location: Kilmarnock, Va.

Group leader(s): Tom York

Number of participants: 32-35 each Friday; 62 participants enrolled.

Schedule: Two hours, from 10 to 12, on Fridays in February and March.

How long have you been using Great Decisions?  

Tom: I think the group in Kilmarnock was organized in 1984, [but] I can't confirm that.

What is the format of the group?   

Tom: The format is very simple:  for each weekly topic, there is a volunteer who introduces the topic, and based on the material in your source document and some independent research, frames the discussion. I act as chairman/moderator.

Can you give us a brief biography?

Tom: I am a native Kansan, transplanted to Virginia by my career in the USN. Educated at Kansas State University (English major) [and] taught there while doing graduate work. My graduate education was interrupted by the Selective Service System, and I took a commission in the USN to avoid army service. Found I liked the Navy more than I did my library carrel and teaching reluctant sophomores the wonders of English and American Literature.  So, I stayed for a career. I served from 1960-1990 as a Surface Line Officer (destroyers, mine warfare craft, and a cruiser). Served two tours of duty in Japan for a total of five years.  

During tours of duty ashore in the U.S., I attended Joint Staff College and worked in D.C. on the USN staff as a speechwriter and specialist in politico-military affairs and strategy concentrating on the mideast and Indian Ocean regions. (I came to Great Decisions quite naturally.) With my wife, I lived for three years in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia where I was senior advisor to the Commander, Royal Saudi Navy and managed in-kingdom efforts to build them a modern navy.  Subsequently, I was posted to Turkey, where I headed the USN advisory group.  I was trained by the USN in both Arabic and Turkish languages.

I retired from the USN in October 1990 as a Captain, equivalent to USA/USAF/USMC Colonel and settled in Kilmarnock, Va., a town of 1,200 on Chesapeake Bay.

Can you tell us a bit about your group?

Bud: Add to the provocative nature of the annual Great Decisions subjects the frequently first-hand experiences of numerous group participants – both through their work and through personal travel – and you have something of a sense of the discussions that have taken place at the rural Kilmarnock, Virginia, Community Library over the past few years.

To be honest, this strictly rural area – located in a five-county peninsula with no major highways, no railroad, few fine-dining restaurants, and the nearest movie theater roughly an hour away – isn’t the first place one might think of when it comes to the richness of the professional and personal experiences of many of the Great Decisions loyal participants.  In part it can be explained by the influx to the area of  retirees previously employed in top federal positions in Washington, D.C., about 150 miles north: They come to avoid the hub-bub, congestion, and 24/7 work lives that long had consumed their waking hours. Tennis, sailing, fishing, crabbing, and recreational boating have for them by and large taken the place of long conference calls and staff meetings, performance evaluations, and other workaday “fire drills.”

As a result, the Kilmarnock Great Decisions group benefits substantially from first-person experiences with the global issues addressed. A few examples of the backgrounds represented around the table:

  • A retired Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Navy for  research, development and acquisition;
  • A West Point graduate, retired Army Colonel, and former West Point faculty member who since retirement has continued travels to exotic places worldwide;
  • Two retired Navy Captains, each of whom had been a destroyer commanding officer, and each of whom has traveled to and lived in places around the planet;
  • A former Marshall University (West Virginia) professor who taught courses in the fields of history and social studies;
  • A former World Bank senior official who in his day led economic and educational projects in Nigeria, Kenya, China and the former Soviet Union;
  • A retired U.S. Marine Colonel;
  • A retired U.S. Navy captain who during the Vietnam conflict was awarded a Navy Cross, the nation’s second highest military honor, and who upon retirement, with his wife, joined the Peace Corps to serve in Ukraine;
  • A current editor of an online climate change journal operated by the Yale University School of Forestry & Environmental Studies;
  • A retired teacher who taught and was head of the department of social studies at a high school in Westfield, New York;
  • A retired Ph.D. in mechanical engineering whose Department of Defense work focused on electric-power generating concepts and who helped establish a Polish-American mine safety\health center in Katowice, Poland.
  • A retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and transport pilot, who had later worked with the National Transportation Safety Board;
  • An international management expert who had worked with safaris in Kenya, who lived for many years in Iran, and who now directs a nonprofit wetlands conservation program.
  • A Ph.D. sociologist and legendary vegetable gardener;
  • An economist and educator active in training high school teachers from around the state of Virginia.

Tom: I’ve often said that if someone came to me with a concept for profound dialogue as part of our Great Decisions get-togethers. I would be able to find right here in the ‘Northern Neck’ the kind of first-hand expertise that would really enrich our discussions. The fact is, it happens virtually every time we meet for our annual Great Decisions meetings at the start of each new calendar year.