Captain Jim Harvey, USN (ret)
40+ years of Submarines
Raised on a dairy farm near Boyceville, WI and married to teenage sweetheart, Jim enlisted in the Navy in 1958. He served on various submarines with unique missions. He was onboard ETHAN ALLEN during the nation's only submerged launch of a Polaris missile with a live nuclear warhead in 1962, on patrol in 1963 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, onboard QUEENFISH for North Pole ICEX operations in 1985. As ET1 (SS) he was selected for Naval Enlisted Scientific Education Program (NESEP) and commissioned via OCS in 1968. He commanded QUEENFISH, WEST VIRGINIA and SUBRON 17. During his 40+ year career he served on two SSs, one SSN, and five SSBNs; three were new construction. His twilight tour was as COMSUBPAC COS retiring in 1999. He holds a BSEE from Purdue University and an MBA from University of New Haven.
Post USN he was certified as a Senior Reactor Operator (SRO) and worked in the commercial nuclear electrical generating industry in Illinois and later at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory’s Advanced Test Reactor ultimately retiring in 2010.
He helped establish the first Wisconsin High School Aviation STEM curriculum in Boyceville. Jim instigated a letter writing campaign that resulted in a bipartisan letter from WI Senators & Representative to SECNAV recommending a future submarine be named USS Wisconsin. He is one of the three Founders of the USS Wisconsin (SSBN 827) Association, Inc.