Smooth Sailing

POINT MUGU —  He strides through the crowded community gathering dressed in his crisp Navy whites, shaking hands confidently, smiling, listening to his critics as easily as his fans.

Though he’s not a politician, Capt. Stephen Beal, head of the Naval Air Weapons Station at Point Mugu, has been shaking a lot of hands lately and lending his ear in a manner more characteristic of a community leader than a military commander.

In these days of defense cutbacks and looming base closures, the 45-year-old Beal has found himself becoming part community outreach advisor, part political strategist--while remaining first and foremost a Navy officer.

Since his transfer in September 1995 to Point Mugu, Beal has been carefully steering the base through threats of closure, downsizing and consolidation.

To do this successfully, Beal has realized the importance of open communication and easy access to the public.

“The military can be somewhat reclusive in its mission and projects,” said Beal, a Navy helicopter pilot. “Sometimes there are misunderstandings. I think openness is vitally important and we have tried to ensure that to keep our credibility.”

Beal is also taking advantage of the tremendous natural resources the base has to offer and is willing to publicize and use them. He has pushed to build a Visitor Environmental Learning Center at Point Mugu so the public can tour the wetlands and saltwater ponds on the base.

He is also considering creating an injured and sick sea animal resting site on the southwest beach area.

But his chief mission is to save Point Mugu--through cutting costs and building up the military and civilian presence at the base south of Oxnard. To reduce the base’s costs, Beal has been pushing to increase the number of private sector companies to share their research and resources on base.

And he is an active member of the Ventura County Regional Defense Partnership lobbying group formed after the 1995 base realignment and closure process.

In light of last month’s announcement from Washington calling for more rounds of cutbacks, Beal is ready and cautiously optimistic.

“I believe the base will continue to be examined,” he said. “But I’m hoping that between our cost saving, tactical advantage and our community life, we will stave this off.”

He is aware that community support--including elected officials, business leaders and military veterans--is valuable when the Pentagon’s budget knife is unsheathed.

Even some of the toughest critics of the military, namely some environmentalists and resident activists in the nearby beach communities of Silver Strand and Hollywood-by-the-Sea, acknowledge that Beal has made a significant effort to keep them in the loop.

“I think Capt. Beal is very good at communicating with the surrounding neighborhoods,” said Vickie Finan, who sits on the board of the Channel Islands Community Services District. “He seems to have an interest in having us know what is coming down at the base. He is trying to understand the community, and I think that is great.”

Born Aug. 23, 1951, in the Navy shipyard town of Bremerton, Wash., Beal began dreaming of flying as a youngster, when he and his brothers would enclose themselves in cardboard boxes, push off a ledge and send themselves hurdling through the air.

But his military career began, of all places, in a used-car lot.

Hoping to kill an hour while waiting to buy a used car, the 20-year-old college junior strolled into a Navy recruiter’s office next door and walked out a Navy recruit.

He went through basic training under Marine drill sergeants in Pensacola, Fla., in 1972 and soon began his career as a Navy helicopter pilot.

His tours of duty have included search and rescue flights in the High Sierra, helicopter landings on destroyers in the Indian Ocean and winter missions in the Arctic Circle.

The discipline he learned and the danger he has encountered have helped make his 24 years in the Navy extraordinary, he said.

“I find the discipline rewarding,” said Beal, who exudes an easy-going style. “With that discipline you find the ability to go beyond where you think you can go.”

His focus and discipline have boosted him up the ranks, making captain--one of the highest ranks in the Navy’s officer corps--by 1993.

Though the rigorous training he underwent and the mental toughness he has acquired have helped him through some tough missions, Beal is also a spiritual man who credits the Virgin of Guadalupe with looking after him.

“She has gotten me out of some tough spots,” he said.

Like any family in the military, Beal, wife Sharon and daughters Tosha and Tamara have moved from coast to coast to bases in New Mexico, Florida, Washington, D.C., and California. He credits his wife with being the “hub and the queen” of the family, enduring the lonely separations and frequent relocation.

Beal said when he was assigned to Point Mugu he cringed in horror, imagining the base as an environmental wasteland full of toxins and dead animals surrounded by a raucous, anti-military civilian population.

What he found instead shocked him.

“I’ve got a fine environmental staff and the community is exceptional,” he said happily.

Indeed, restoring Point Mugu’s natural resources after years of neglect and abuse has been paramount, Beal said.

With thousands of acres of wetlands, salt marshes, dunes and wave crests that are home to brown pelicans, seals, snowy plovers and other endangered species, Beal has been pushing for more environmental restoration and projects, said Tom Keeney, senior ecologist at the base.

“Capt. Beal has been a great supporter of these projects,” he said, referring to the environmental learning center plans and a $2-million wetlands restoration project. “We didn’t have to do this. The Navy could have just built a fence, turned around and walked away.”

But the most important task facing Beal has been to trim the base’s budget and bring in new military projects and planes to help keep Point Mugu off the chopping block.

Beal and a host of civilian lobbyists, including Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) and Ventura County Supervisor John K. Flynn, began aggressively pursuing the relocation of 16 E2-C Hawkeye planes from a San Diego base to Point Mugu more than a year ago.

In a major victory last month, the Navy’s official nod came down in favor of Point Mugu despite an early recommendation to send the planes to another base.

“It’s been a pretty hectic time,” Beal said. “How do we spend our dwindling dollars? We are certainly getting down to the bone. We need to do things better and cheaper and bring in more people to help share the costs. The E2 became a key focus.”

With the E2 radar planes likely to come to Mugu by fall 1998, Beal is now brainstorming other ideas, including the possible relocation of a Coast Guard squadron from McClellan Air Force Base.

There is also preliminary discussion of merging Point Mugu’s administrative functions with the Seabee base at Port Hueneme for additional cost savings, but no decisions have been made, he said.

In addition, there is a possibility that Point Mugu could detach itself from its sister base in China Lake, the Naval Air Warfare Center, and become part of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. This could result in more cost-saving if some of Point Mugu’s facilities were used by the fleet, Beal said.

His relationship with the community can be critical when it comes to jet relocation and expansion of the base. Some proposals, like the recent talk of basing 92 F/A-18 strike fighters at Point Mugu, raise the ire of environmentalists, senior citizens who live below the planes’ flight path and other residents opposed to the noise and potential flying danger.

At a recent environmental review community meeting on the strike fighters, dozens of environmentalists and residents voiced opposition to the plan.

Beal then initiated a meeting with Silver Strand residents, including Finan and environmentalist Lee Quaintance, to discuss their concerns. Finan and another board member even toured the base.

Meeting with those groups, Beal said, gave him a better understanding of their perspective and how the Navy can help avoid conflicts.

Although, the military’s strict chain of command and secrecy restricts his decision making and discussion, Beal said he is doing what he can within those limitations.

“They have valid concerns,” he said. “We need to treat people with respect. That is part of building trust. The public has a right to air their concerns. That is part of the process.”

Quaintance, a member of the BEACON environmental activist group that fended off Navy plans to fly jets near their homes in 1995, said he hopes the open communication bears some fruit.

“I would like to think it is a relationship of mutual respect,” he said. “I’m glad to believe that he likes to draw his own conclusions--we are not anti-Navy just because we are concerned about the Navy and the coastal environment in the area which we live.

“[But] this is not about hugs--this is about results,” said Quaintance, adding he is anxious to see the environmental impact report on the E2 radar planes. “More is expected than just being listened to.”