Command Performance: Quinn Matt, No Stranger to Avalon, Takes on New Role Aboard the USS Ashland
Running a tight ship is a cliché for most corporate executives.
It’s the literal truth for Quinn Matt.
The longtime Avalon summer visitor, whose parents Mike and Carol own a home here, recently gained the assignment of a lifetime. He became the Navy commander of the USS Ashland, a prominent vessel graced with a complement of 350 sailors and perhaps 400 marines.
It will gain deployment at a future date, patrolling the world’s waters as a safeguard for the United States.
Matt does not view the promotion through the lens of the Navy having roughly 330,000 personnel and 150 surface ships, figures that he gave when asked.
It’s more like taking a thrilling responsibility to the next level.
“This is a great opportunity to lead the sailors, coming from all over the world,” he says. “From Ohio to Texas, Montana to Puerto Rico, and from the Philippines, we have a chance to pull a team together and make something special.
“You see these folks working together and it is something to behold.”
Matt, who has adored the beaches and ocean in Avalon for decades, will guide several hundred sailors and marines in one of his favorite places – the water.
“We are part of the nation’s ready on-call force if something would ever require a military response,” he indicates. “It’s an honor to be doing this on behalf of my country.
“I also love driving ships,” he adds. “When we have to operate the ship in close waters, everything has to be right the first time in order for the marines to succeed. It’s an adrenaline rush. This is what I love to do.”
He has been doing it for 17 years in the Navy, and this command is special. Matt cut his career teeth on the Ashland several years ago and worked his way up through several levels before becoming its commander.
To reach this level, he learned engine maintenance, operation planning, ship board evolutions, launching aircrafts, and numerous other skills on the job. He gleaned leadership nuggets from several successful and unsuccessful bosses, added his own mixture, and now applies his own command style for hundreds of people.
Leading the ship on which he started gives him added satisfaction. Matt reported to Ashland as his first U.S. Navy assignment, serving the machinery division officer and electrical officer.
Following his tour aboard Ashland, his assignments included USS Doyle, USS William P. Laurence, and USS San Antonio.
Ashore, he served as a watch officer within the Middle East Division of the Multiple Threat Alert Center at NCIS Headquarters. Most recently, he completed a tour as the lead instructor for both diesel engineering and common core engineering at the Surface Warfare Officers School Command in Newport, R.I.
The Navy lists Matt as an Avalon resident.
Matt hails from Willow Grove, Pa., and lived part of his life at the naval station there. His father was a Navy captain. The family moved around, to states including Rhode Island, Florida, Maryland, and Louisiana.
Throughout this time, his grandparents maintained an Avalon home on Ocean Drive. That became a family magnet and source of summer reunions. Mike and Carol moved to Avalon full time a few years back.
“Wherever we were living, we always loved coming back to Avalon,” Matt recalls. “Avalon had my favorite beaches. The sand was nice. It was a calm, pleasant and beautiful place. I had fun boogie boarding when I was 3 or 4 years old.
“Avalon was a wonderful place for me.”
Vacations here morphed into summer construction jobs for him with D.L. Miner in Cape May Court House for several years.
Along the way, Matt enrolled in the ROTC naval program at Villanova and its required five-year postgraduate service commitment. The setup is similar to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.
Among other skills, Matt learned teamwork at Villanova, playing on the Wildcats football team as a backup tight end. As a freshman, he was on the same team as Brian Westbrook, the running back who became a Philadelphia Eagles star. His sophomore team finished 11-4 and was No. 4 in the country for Division I-AA in 2002.
After he graduated, his mandatory five-year Naval tenure was no more than an introduction. He clearly lives for this.
Now 41, Matt has achieved his highest advancement. Yet 17 years into his career, the adrenaline burns like he just started.
“I love being on the water and I love being in the Navy,” he asserts. “I am proud of that because the Navy is the nation’s first line of defense. One of the things I was taught by my parents is the Navy motto of ‘not for self, but for country.’ We all have an obligation to this country, whether you are part of the military or not.”
This is his sixth ship.
Matt accepted the tradeoffs that came with this calling. Traveling the world means months of separation from family members. For enlisted personnel, the quarters are usually much smaller than the comforts of their homes. That changes at the executive level he has reached, but Matt recalls several years of cramped living space.
“It’s often just you and about 350 of your best friends,” he laughs.
His household has made this arrangement work. Balance the separation with the compensation, and the isolation with the vacations his family has gotten to enjoy here.
Based in San Diego, Matt returns here most summers with wife Kelly and three school-age children: Joseph, Caroline, and Brendan. Kelly is due to give birth to the couple’s fourth child in May.
Matt calls his wife an “absolute champion” as the couple juggles separations from long deployments with the perks and compensation of a Navy career.
“She has kept the family going and together in my absence,” he says. “This life is not for everyone. You cannot have this kind of life without a strong support network.”
During absences, the family communicates by e-mail as “there usually isn’t cellphone service in the middle of the ocean,” he laughs.
Matt has been on five deployments, which usually last several months apiece. His list of favorite places differs from what you might think.
He cites Haifa, in Israel, as opposed to the popular Jerusalem, because of the beaches and “incredible Israeli food.”
He loves the old port city of Muscat, in Oman, with its castles spotlessly-clean look. There is the country of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean; Riga, the capital of Latvia, and then Singapore. Matt experienced them after coming ashore during his deployments.
As he launches this new role, Quinn Matt can savor a reciprocity with his job. By being willing to guard parts of the world, he can see it like few do.
