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The ROTC cadet and physics major turned naval aviator turned admiral was appointed commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet in early 2024

University of Colorado Boulder grad Stephen T. Koehler (Phys’86) has a really, really big job.

How big?

It covers an area encompassing 100 million square miles—roughly half the earth’s surface—from Antarctica to the Artic Circle and from the western U.S. coast to the Indian Ocean. The job includes oversight of about 200 ships, 1,500 aircraft and 150,000 military and civilian personnel.

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CU Boulder grad and U.S. Navy Admiral Stephen Koehler (Phys’86) was selected as the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet in April 2024, following a succession of leadership positions in the Navy.��

Admiral Koehler is the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, a position he assumed in April 2024 after a series of successive leadership positions during his 40-year career in the Navy. He became the 36th commander since Admiral Chester Nimitz assumed command on Dec. 31, 1941, at Pearl Harbor.

Koehler’s ascension to a top leadership post in the Navy is perhaps even more notable given that his initial goal was modest: He wanted to fly jets like his dad, who was a Navy fighter pilot.

“Honestly, I didn’t know I would stay in the Navy this long,” he says. “But from a very young age, I watched my dad go to work to fly airplanes and I just thought he was so cool, and I remember thinking, ‘I want to do what he does.’ My dad loved being a fighter pilot. So, I knew I wanted to fly jets and land them on ships.”

After being commissioned in 1986 through the Naval�� program at CU Boulder, Koehler became a naval aviator in 1989 and went on to fly more than 3,900 hours in the F-14 Tomcat and F-18 Hornet, with 600 carrier landings.

Koehler subsequently served in leadership positions that included commanding a fighter squadron, serving as the captain of a nuclear aircraft carrier, commander of a carrier strike group, commander of the U.S. Third Fleet and director for strategy, plans and policy for the�� in ���Ĺ���ý, D.C., which was his last post.

Recently, Koehler spoke with Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine about how his time at CU Boulder helped him prepare for his career in the Navy, what it was like to be a naval aviator and what his job entails as commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. His responses have been lightly edited and condensed for space.

Question: Why did you decide to attend CU Boulder? And why did you choose to get your degree in physics?

Koehler: The main reason I ended up applying to CU Boulder was that the summer before my senior year in high school, I was taking a Greyhound bus around the country, rock climbing with my cousin. We stopped in Boulder for a week and we stayed with this guy who was a friend-of-a-friend type thing. We climbed nearly every day.

One day it rained bad enough we couldn’t climb, so we heard there was a campus in town and we decided maybe we should walk around it. I picked up an application at the UMC (University Memorial Center), where it stayed in my backpack for the rest of the summer. Later, I filled it out and sent it in, and then I got accepted.

I saw CU had a physics major and it had ROTC, so I said, ‘I’ll give it a go.’

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Admiral Stephen Koehler (right) with his father, who was also a naval aviator, following the younger Koehler’s commissioning in 1986 during a ceremony held at Old Main on the CU Boulder campus.

I knew I wanted to be as competitive as I could going into Navy flight school. And initially, I thought I might want to be a test pilot—and I knew you had to have hard-science capability for that, so that’s why I majored in physics. I was not a natural physics guy, so it was a slog for me, but I did it to keep my options open.

Question: Do you feel like your time at CU Boulder helped prepare you for entering the Navy?

Koehler: Yes. Certainly, the ROTC piece provided an understanding of the Navy even beyond what I learned as a child of a Navy parent, and it taught me about leadership.

The physics background proved very beneficial, not only for flight school, but it led to me being selected to be a nuclear-trained officer. There is a technical degree that’s required to do that, and so, yes, my time at CU set me up for that.

Question: When people think of naval aviators, they likely think of the movie��Top Gun. What is it like to be a naval aviator in real life?

Koehler:��People who watch Top Gun think you are all tan and spend your days playing volleyball at the beach, or they watch Top Gun: Maverick and think you’re all tan and you play football on the beach (laughs). And arguably, I would love to do some of that, but being a carrier-based fighter pilot is about being steeped in professionalism.

Naval aviators train and train so that they make the extremely difficult look easy and routine when it’s not. It takes skill to land a plane on a pitching (ship) deck, day or night, and it takes dedication to be a fighter pilot, to make sure that you are better than the adversary. It’s about having a warrior mindset and making sure you are good at it, because you’ve got to be better than your opponent.

Question: What is your call sign and how did you get it?

Koehler:��It’s Web. I won’t go into the whole boring story, but it’s short for Webster’s Dictionary. I received it during a very public display for a lack of spelling prowess (laughs). And I’m actually not a bad speller, but I was on that day.

I wish it (the call sign) was for something cool, like ‘spiderweb,’ or ‘he’s on the web.’ That’s probably half the reason it stuck—because it sounds cool even though it’s not (laughs). …

Now, even at this level, people call me by that name instead of my (given) name. I was sitting in the situation room in the White House in my last job and people would call me Web—not Steve or Admiral Koehler. They would be like, ‘Hey, Web, what do you think about this?’ So, that’s just what ends up happening.

Question: How does one go from being a naval aviator to a command where you are responsible for hundreds of ships and planes and tens of thousands of sailors?

Koehler: So, it’s a process. The first step of it is staying in the Navy and being promoted to the command of a squadron, which is 12 planes and about 250 people. You’re evaluated and then there’s normally two paths after that. You either go the nuclear power route, which means you learn to drive aircraft carriers, or you stay in the air wing and you’re in command of an air wing on a carrier.

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The U.S. Pacific Fleet (a portion of which is pictured here) encompasses 100 million square miles from Antarctica to the Arctic circle and from the west coast of the United States into the Indian Ocean. The U.S. Pacific Fleet consists of approximately 200 ships, 1,500 aircraft and 150,000 military and civilian personnel. (Photo: U.S. Navy)

I was chosen to go the nuclear power route, so my physics degree proved useful. I went to nuclear power school and then I was the No. 2 guy on an aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson. I went on to command the USS Bataan, which is an amphibious assault ship, and then I was selected to be the captain of a nuclear aircraft carrier for two and a half years, which was the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Pending your performance and time in service, you may be selected to the rank of�� (or flag rank). If you are not selected, there’s mandatory retirement at 30 years.

I was selected after my command of the aircraft carrier and have progressed through operational and staff command that yielded additional flag rank promotions. There was a decision by Naval leadership at some point to promote me to full admiral and select me to be the Pacific Fleet commander. So, it was a natural progression, and I’m very honored to be here.

Question: Can you share the scope of your duties as Pacific Fleet commander and the role the position plays in the world today?

Koehler:��The scope and scale of the Pacific Fleet, of the area I’m responsible for as far as naval interests, is from the coast of California to the west coast of India, and Antarctica to the Arctic. It’s a huge area. …

The Pacific Fleet command is of vital importance to national security, resulting from the economic ties and the commerce that travels on the ocean, for which I am responsible on the Navy side to be ready to respond. There’s just a real importance to the job and there’s a lot of work to do out there. We must continue to improve our position and capability to maintain and ensure the freedom of the seas. The intent is a ‘free and open Indo-Pacific,’ with freedom of commerce, sovereign rights and the ability to sail and operate in accordance with international law, and those things the Pacific Fleet works continuously to provide.

Question: What is the best thing about being Pacific Fleet commander? And what is the most difficult thing?

Koehler: The best thing is having the opportunity to lead all of these sailors. With sailors and civilians, there is on the order of 150,000 of them working toward a common goal, which is to achieve our national objectives. The opportunity to go out and see them and lead them is the best. That also delves into the challenge, which is that it’s a large scale and scope of operations that I oversee. The challenge is to be able to get out and see them as much as I would like and revel in the success they have. They are a pretty amazing group of people who do some outstanding work.

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Admiral Stephen Koehler salutes during a 2024 ceremony at Pearl Harbor. (Photo: U.S. Navy)

Question: Do you still get to fly jets?

Koehler:��I wish I did. I did get to fly as an admiral when I was the carrier strike group commander and we were on deployment in 2017. I got my last carrier landing in April of 2018.

Flying is a young person’s game. Not that I wouldn’t continue to go flying … but there’s no time to maintain my currency and while it would be fun for me, I’m not sure it would be the best use of my time now.

Question: With your four decades of service in the Navy, are there a few standout moments in your career?

Koehler:��That’s a really hard one. First of all, it’s been 40 years, but it doesn’t seem like it. I got to Colorado (as a freshman) in 1982, and it feels like I was just there. …

There are all sorts of things I remember. Taking command of an aircraft carrier, with 3,000 people assigned to it, and with the air wing it’s 5,000 people. That was the first huge command for me, and you have all of these sailors that you get the privilege to lead.

Certainly, the news that I was going to be Pacific Fleet commander was memorable. That was something I would never expect. It’s the honor of a lifetime to do that, and to follow in the footsteps of some amazing people, starting with Admiral Nimitz in World War II.

Another standout thing was being the demonstration pilot for the F-14 at air shows and having the opportunity to fly in front of my family at the Miramar Air Show in 1996. It was an amazing day to fly for my dad that day.

Looking back, there are many memories, and it’s been nothing but a really fun, challenging, rewarding experience. I have been able to enjoy it with my wife, Gina, who’s been with me since college, where we met in 1983 in Boulder in the Baker Hall dorm. She’s been with me the whole time, which has just been amazing.

Question: Anything else you would like to add?

Koehler: Go Buffs!��

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