Margaret "Peg" DeLuca Klein '81, Rear Adm, U.S. Navy, Retired is the Dean of the College of Leadership and Ethics at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, RI. 

A native of Weymouth, Massachusetts, Rear Adm. Margaret Klein was commissioned in May 1981 upon graduation from the U.S. Naval Academy.

Klein completed a 35-year Navy career in March 2017. As Rear Admiral Klein, she served as the SecDef’s Advisor for Military Professionalism. Klein served as Chief of Staff for the newly-created United States Cyber Command. In 2008 she served as director of operations for the Navy’s Network Warfare Command. In 2011, she commanded an American military force of five ships, 30 aircraft, and over 3,300 Sailors and Marines in combat operations in the Mediterranean Sea. She served as the 82nd Commandant of Midshipmen at the US Naval Academy, where she was responsible for 4,400 Navy and Marine Corps officer candidates. Klein flew in and commanded an aviation squadron and wing.

Klein was the 82nd Commandant of Midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy from December 2006 to June 2008 and was responsible for the military and professional development of the Brigade of Midshipmen. She was the first woman to ever hold this position.

She joins Grant on the podcast and tells the story of what brought her to the Naval Academy in 1977 only one year after the academy began accepting women. 

She shares stories from her time at the academy as a midshipman and her return to the Yard as the 82nd Commandant of Midshipmen.

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Resource List for Academy Insider Followers

Links Mentioned in the Show

Rear Adm Klein's Book Recommendations:
The Undoing Project by Michae

The mission of Academy Insider is to guide, serve, and support Midshipmen, future Midshipmen, and their families.

Grant Vermeer your host is the person who started it all. He is the founder of Academy Insider and the host of The Academy Insider podcast and the USNA Property Network Podcast. He was a recruited athlete which brought him to Annapolis where he was a four year member of the varsity basketball team. He was a cyber operations major and commissioned into the Cryptologic Warfare Community. He was stationed at Fort Meade and supported the Subsurface Direct Support mission.

He separated from the Navy in 2023 and now owns The Vermeer Group, a boutique residential real estate company that specializes in serving the United States Naval Academy community PCSing to California & Texas.

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