Ronald Eugene Narmi

Ronald Eugene Narmi was born in Council Bluffs on June 27, 1933.

Growing up he loved to build model airplanes.  As a boy in WWII he watched Army Air Force glider pilots train at Eppley Airfield in Omaha while standing on the Iowa side of the Missouri River.  He was in ROTC during high school. His brother, Joe, served in WWII at Admiral Nimitz’s headquarters in communications; and his sister, Kathryn, was a “Rosie the Riveter†driving rivets on the B-29 Enola Gay at the Glenn L.  Martin bomber plant at Offutt Airbase.

Narmi served with distinction in the U.S. Navy for 30 years and accumulated 4,653 hours of flight time.  He has been awarded 14 military decorations including the Air Medal. His assignments include: Command an aviation squadron, duty in the fleet Ballistic Missile Program in the missile branch, 5 tours in Vietnam flying combat fights; command of an aviation wing composed of six squadrons, command of the nation’s largest war college; the Industrial College of the Armed Forces; Commander Fleet Air Keflavik (Iceland); Commander Iceland Defense Force, commanding Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and NATO Forces.

Admiral Narmi is the first Iowa State University Navy ROTC graduate to be promoted to Rear Admiral.  In addition to a BS degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Iowa State, he has an MS degree in Physics from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School; a MSSM degree in Systems Management from the University of Southern California; a MSA degree in Administration of National Security Policy from George Washington University; and a Distinguished Graduate of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.  He also attended summer executive training courses at Harvard and at Oxford University in the UK.

He received fourteen military decorations, including the Air Medal.