Radm venlet biography

The Navy’s senior foreign area officer and director of International Engagement, Rear Admiral Douglas J. Venlet, told a group of more than 80 officers at a Foreign Area Officer Conference that their job is to use their unique language and culture skills in order to build and maintain international relationships and partnerships throughout their careers.

“We live in a globalized world. If we are not connected linguistically, we are out of the picture,” Venlet said, at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center in Monterey, Calif. “You need to be elite…Focus on the language you are studying now and get to that 3/3 level,” he said, referring to a high level of foreign language proficiency. “Study, study, study. Don’t settle for anything less than full capability,” he advised.

Foreign Area Officers are a specialized group of officers from all branches of t