LegiStorm

By Mike DiCicco | Marine Corps Base Quantico | July 24, 2013

Col. Thomas Weidley, the brigadier general-select who took leadership of Education Command on July 3, is making himself at home in his new office and new position at “a great command with a great mission,” he said. (Photo by Mike DiCicco)

Col. Thomas Weidley has taken the helm of Education Command during a busy time for the Marine Corps’ hub of professional military education.

With a major expansion of the Marine Corps University underway, a sizeable addition being planned for the National Museum of the Marine Corps, an expansion of the university’s online education about to take effect, and the school coming up for renewal of its accreditation, Weidley, who took over the command July 3 after being selected for brigadier general, will have no trouble staying busy.

He also noted that all of this is happening during a time of cuts to budgets and manpower, requiring leadership to use the same skills Education Command tries to instill in its students.

“That’s really what we’re trying to do here, is produce leaders who can think in that sphere of uncertainty,” Weidley said, adding that the command will need to be creative to figure out how to accomplish its mission with reduced resources.

Weidley said he thought Brig. Gen. William Mullen III, Education Command’s last commander, had set the unit “on a true course and speed,” and his job is to maintain that trajectory.

Mullen has gone on to direct the Capabilities Development Directorate of Marine Corps Combat Development Command.

Weidley came to Quantico from Camp H. M. Smith, Hawaii, where he had served as director of operations for Marine Corps Forces, Pacific, since the summer of 2011. There, he worked closely with longtime colleague Col. Jeff Davis, the command’s chief of staff.

Responsible for almost 90,000 Marines, sailors and family members from Yuma to India, Marine Corps Forces, Pacific, encompasses two-thirds of the Corps’ operational forces, Davis said, adding that Weidley’s former position there “is the hardest job on the staff, and he made it look easy.”

Having worked with Weidley in several billets over the course of 17 years, Davis said, “He’s a tremendous officer and team player, the kind of team member who makes everyone else on the team better.”

In addition to being a “warfighter’s warfighter … the guy you want in the Cobra giving you close air support,” Davis said, Weidley also exemplifies the same kind of thinking he is looking for in Education Command leadership, finding creative, original solutions to difficult problems.

Weidley will oversee construction of both the John Warner Center for Advanced Military Studies and the Simmons Center of Marine Corps History, which are expected to be completed in late 2014 or early 2015 beside the Gray Research Center. Three of MCU’s schools will move into the Warner Center, and the Simmons Center will house the command’s History Division and Archives and Special Collections Division.

The Simmons Center is part of Education Command’s mission to preserve, promote and display the history and heritage of the Corps, Weidley said, as is the unit’s work with the museum. Phase 2 of the museum’s construction is to break ground in the next two years, and the university is working with the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation to develop displays for the addition.

MCU will also begin offering widespread blended seminar groups, combining online educational activities with periods of residence, this fall, to meet the commandant’s guidance to triple the number of officers in the university during a time of constraints in infrastructure, faculty and budgets, he said.

“I’m very excited to be able to influence the direction of the education sphere within the Marine Corps,” Weidley said. “This is a great command with a great mission and the opportunity to impact a lot of Marines.”

When he’s not working on Marine Corps education, Weidley spends his time with family, including 10-year-old twins — a boy and a girl — and a 17-year-old daughter. “That’s really my focus outside the wire,” he said.

He wanted to join the Marine Corps since high school, looking for the opportunity to fight within “an organization that’s the top of the heap, if you will,” he said, and finding that fighting spirit in others is what keeps him energized about the job. “No matter how mundane it might get in the office, you can always walk into the hallway here and you’ll run into some hard-charger who will just motivate the hell out of you,” he said, adding that this person might be an active duty or civilian Marine.

“Operating around people like that is a privilege and an honor,” Weidley said.

— Writer: mdicicco@quanticosentryonline.com

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