Capt. Aaron Bowman, commanding officer of Mayport Naval Station, presents a command coin to 8-year-old Sea Cadet Jesse Carter on March 9 for having the best uniform during an inspection on base. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communications Specialist 2nd Class Daniel Gay)

Capt. Aaron Bowman, the new commanding officer of the Mayport Naval Station, is no stranger to the Jacksonville area.

Of his nearly 25 years in the Navy, Bowman has spent 14 of them in Jacksonville. A former aviator with more than 300 carrier landings, Bowman’s first fleet assignment was as an A-7 Corsair pilot at Cecil Field in 1985.

“I wanted to be on the East Coast and I wanted to fly an A-7 because it was a single-seat aircraft,” Bowman, a Knoxville, Tenn., native, recalled in a phone interview recently.

“Fortunately, I got what I wanted.”

Bowman, who became Mayport’s CO last September, was the guest speaker at Thursday’s monthly meeting of the Mayport Council of the Navy League of the U.S.

The dinner meeting was at Mayport’s Ocean Breeze Conference Center.

Bowman said he had hoped to report on an environmental impact statement concerning Mayport’s capability of homeporting additional surface ships, including a nuclear-powered carrier, but a draft of that study has yet to be released by the Navy.

“I will review what the purpose [of the environmental impact statement] is and what options are being looked at,” he said.

“I’ll also talk about the community involvement of our sailors and what we are doing on base right now.”

Founded in 1902, the Navy League of the U.S. is a civilian-based organization that supports the sea services. The Mayport Council is one of the league’s 265 chapters.

Bowman, 47, is the first jet pilot to ever command NS Mayport, the country’s third-largest naval base and a home port to 22 surface ships and six helicopter squadrons.

“My experience is flying jets and landing on aircraft carriers and we don’t have that out here right now,” Bowman said.

“It’s been a pretty good learning curve for me.”

Bowman was a program manager and weapons specialist with the Naval Air Systems Command before being appointed to his current shore command.

Before he transitioned into the “acquisition side of naval aviation,” Bowman was an F/A-18 instructor pilot who logged more than 2,300 accident-free hours during his flight career.

“I grew up in landlocked Tennessee and went to the Naval Academy thinking I would be involved in ships,” said Bowman, who graduated from Annapolis in 1983.

“But when they showed us a movie of a F-4 taking off from an aircraft carrier I said, ‘I got to do that.’”

Bowman got his wish. He flew T-2 Buckeye trainer jets and A-4 Skyhawks before earning his wings in 1985. He came to Jacksonville to fly the A-7 attack jet, a forerunner to the F/A-18, and to make his first night carrier landings.

He was eventually assigned to his first squadron, VA-72, and deployed for his first carrier tour on the USS Eisenhower.

After serving stints as an instructor pilot, first with A-7’s and later with F/A-18’s, Bowman became a department head with a strike fighter squadron aboard the carrier USS Roosevelt.

Between graduating from flight school and his first jet training assignment in Kingsville, Texas, Bowman managed to squeeze in a wedding to his high school sweetheart, Deborah.

“I had all of three days off to get married before I reported to Texas,” Bowman recalled.

“I met my wife in a band competition in high school. She has her own CPA practice. She goes to about every function with me because we really take this job as a joint venture.”

The couple have a son who attends fourth grade at Jacksonville Beach Elementary School.

“I’m a big Tennessee fan and my wife is a University of Tennessee grad, but our son says he’s a Gator because he was born in Florida,” said Bowman, who was living in Orange Park when his son was born in 1998.

Two years earlier, Bowman earned a master’s in business administration from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, graduating with distinction.

“I wanted to see the business side of naval aviation,” said Bowman, who served as a training and operations officer for Cecil Field-based VFA-106, while attending night school for an MBA.

“It was a lot of late-night studying. The only time I got down to the Embry-Riddle campus was for graduation.”

Bowman eventually became a deputy program manager with the Navy’s Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) program.

During Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, Bowman’s work helped the Navy introduce the JDAM as a weapon of choice within the F/A-18 community.

When the Navy elected to make former aviators such as Bowman eligible for major shore commands, Mayport was in need of a replacement for outgoing Capt. Charlie King, who was scheduled to retire.

When Bowman relieved King last September in a change-of-command ceremony, he snapped a streak of consecutive Mayport commanders with ties to the helicopter community.

“I think I’m the first [jet pilot to become a Mayport CO],” said Bowman, whose decorations include two Meritorious Service Medals and three Navy Commendation Medals.

“We had input on which bases we could be considered for and Mayport was on the top of my list. And I was fortunate enough to get it.”

For more membership information about the Navy League of the U.S., visit http://www.mayportnavyleague.com.