Benjamin F. Montoya

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Benjamin F. Montoya (May 24, 1935 – December 19, 2015) was a United States Navy rear admiral and the first Hispanic chief of naval civil engineers. Born in Indio, California and raised in La Quinta, he graduated from Coachella Valley High School in 1953, where he played football, baseball and tennis. After a year at California Polytechnic Institute, he entered the U.S. Naval Academy, played baseball, served as team captain, and earned a B.S. in 1958. He later earned a second B.S. in civil engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1960), an M.S. in sanitary engineering from Georgia Tech (1968), and a J.D. from Georgetown University Law School (1980).

Montoya’s Navy career spanned 1958–1989. He served as resident engineer at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard, completed two Vietnam tours supervising Seabee construction camps in Da Nang and Chu Lai, and held senior commands including director of the Navy Environmental Quality Division (1974), commanding officer of the Navy Public Works Center in San Diego (1981), and head of the Western Division Engineering Command in San Bruno (1984). He was promoted commodore in 1985, later became director of the Shore Activities Division in Washington, D.C. (1986), and, after being promoted to rear admiral in 1987, commanded Naval Facilities Engineering Command and served as chief of the Civil Engineer Corps until his 1989 retirement.

After leaving the Navy, Montoya was chief executive officer of the Public Service Company of New Mexico (1993–2000). President Bill Clinton appointed him to the Naval Academy Board of Visitors in 1994, where he served as chairman for two years. He was named to the Defense Base Realignment and Closure Commission in 1995 and later joined NASA’s Space Operations Committee in 2006. He died from cancer in 2015 and was buried with full military honors.

Montoya received several honors, including the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, two Legions of Merit, the Bronze Star Medal with Combat “V,” and the Meritorious Service Medal. He was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering (2001) and the National Academy of Construction (2006). He was the son of Benjamin Conrado Montoya and Margaret Ramirez Montoya, married Virginia Cox in 1958, and had five sons, two daughters and seventeen grandchildren.