Rear Admiral Cristóbal González-Aller Lacalle of the Spanish Navy is currently the base commander of Naval Station Rota. He was the captain of four Spanish ships: the Marola, the Sentinel, the Alvaro de Bazan, and the Juan Carlos I. He attended the U.S. Naval War College in 2008-2009. He is the first Sarantakes student to obtain flag rank.
Balazs Kiss is the first Sarantakes student to have his own page on Wikipedia. He took History 191xg at the University of Southern California, which was required of all foreign nationals and Sarantakes was the teaching assistant for that course. Balazs lettered in track and field at USC from 1993-1996. As a student he was good natured and diligent. During that semester he was taking the course, he won the national championship in the hammer throw. He also competed internationally for Hungary. He only won once in international play, but it was the one that mattered—the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.
Balazs Kiss – Wikipedia Profile
Balazs Kiss Gold Medal Performance – 1996 Hamer Toss Finals
Neptune is the first Sarantakes student to write and publish a book. He wrote his MA thesis on Philips Petroleum during World War II. Philips pioneered the development of high-octane jet fuel that gave the allies a real advantage against the Axis powers. This jet fuel was particularly important in giving planes of the Royal Air Force an advantage over the Germans in rate of climb and turns during the Battle of Britain. This argument, which runs counter to the “arsenal of democracy” mass production argument and Neptune turned it into a book: Heart of the Matter: The Phillips Petroleum Company during World War II.
Hillary Gleason was the first Sarantakes student to earn a Ph.D. She was a student of his at Texas A&M University—Commerce, where her MA defense took place via trans-Atlantic telephone call. She went on to earn a Ph.D. at the State University of New York—Binghamton. (Sarantakes was in England at the time.) Her dissertation was on the early days of the Central Intelligence Agency. She examined the interagency conflicts that made the intelligence apparatus of the U.S. government unstable in the years prior to 1950. Gleason is now a history instructor at Laredo Community College in Laredo, Texas.
Sarantakes dedicated his third book Allies Against the Rising Sun to a number of people including Seminar 3. (This photo includes Sarantakes and other instructors that were members of the seminar teaching team.) Front Row: Lt. Col. Douglas Fehrmann, U.S. Air Force; Lt. Col. Jeff Jackson, U.S. Air Force; Lt. Col. John “Elwood” Amidon, U.S. Air Force; Lt. Col. Chris Valle, U.S. Air Force; Col. Milan Merek, Czech Air Force; Col. Liu Tung-Hai, Republic of China Air Force; Lt. Col. Jonathan “Scott” Phillips, U.S. Air Force; Lt. Col. Kevin Booth, U.S. Air Force; and Lt. Col. Dave Sutton, U.S. Air Force. Back Row: Lt. Col. Dennis Crimiel, U.S. Air Force; Lt. Col. Consuella “Connie” Pockett, U.S. Air Force; Lt. Col. Mark “Last” Chance, U.S. Air Force; Col. Odirile Mashinyana, Botswana Self Defense Force; Col. Michael Kirsch, U.S. Air Force; Dr. Nicholas Evan Sarantakes; Col. Carol Risher, U.S. Air Force; CDR Christopher Burkett, U.S. Navy; and Dr. Stephen F. Burgess.
Reed-Rowe is the first Sarantakes student to become an ambassador. She earned a Master’s Degree in National Security and Strategic Studies from the Naval War College in 2008. From 2010 to 2013 she was the first U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Palau. She hold the Foreign Service rank of Counselor and has her own Wikipedia page. Her Washington assignments included management positions in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, Bureau of European Affairs and the Overseas Building Operations. She also served as a Desk Officer in the Bureau of African Affairs and on the Board of Examiners for the Bureau of Human Resources. She worked on Capitol Hill as a Pearson Fellow. Her overseas assignments include stints at the U.S. Embassies in Jamaica, Ecuador and Niger. Before arriving at the War College, she was Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Majuro, Republic of the Marshall Islands. Since running her own embassy, she has taught at the U.S. Army War College.
Alfred R. Magleby was the first of seven Sarantakes students to join the faculty at the Naval War College. He earned a Master’s Degree in National Security and Strategic Studies from the College in 2010, graduating with distinction before joining the Strategy and Policy Department. A graduate of Brigham Young University, he did graduate work at the University of Tokyo, and then secured a full-time staff position with the Liberal Democratic Party, which at the time controlled the Cabinet. A Political Officer with the U.S. Department of State since 1991, he has focused on political-military issues in U.S. Embassies in Abu Dhabi, Baghdad, Cairo, Riyadh, and Tokyo. Leveraging well-developed Japanese skills he acquired during his time in Tokyo, he was designated the U.S. Foreign Service Linguist of the Year in 2000. His subsequent study of Arabic was useful in monitoring proceedings in the Iraqi Parliament in 2007. In 2012 he became the counsel general in Okinawa, Japan.
