New NJROTC commander stresses resilience, respect
Sometimes a failure can be as valuable as a success. So says one of Ramona High School’s newest teachers.
Commander Brad Davis of the Navy Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps was hired this summer to succeed retired Navy Lt. Cmdr. Mike Ernst, who had led the program since 2006 and left to take an assistant principal job at Orange Glen High School in Escondido.
Now Davis, a newly retired Naval aviator, leads 130 students in Ramona’s NJROTC program, with help from co-teacher retired Navy Chief Bob Richardson.
“One thing that makes me happy, indirectly, is when they don’t do well,” said the 44-year-old Davis. “It’s OK for them, cadets, in the high school environment to work really hard, to set a goal, to try to accomplish something and then to fail, because when they learn from those mistakes, they become better later on and that’s a big deal.”
Congress launched the NJROTC program in 1964 with the official purpose of teaching young people good citizenship and leadership skills. Ramona’s program was founded in 1995 and is one of only 10 NJROTC programs in San Diego County.
Though cadets are enrolled in NJROTC classes and receive academic credit accordingly, the program is viewed as a club and quite possibly the largest club on campus with 130 participants spanning all four grade levels, said Davis, who stresses though cadets learn about Navy history and tradition, they are not there to be recruited.
In fact, the overwhelming majority of cadets do not pursue military service after high school graduation, and that’s perfectly OK with Davis, who is far more focused on concepts like respect, discipline and resilience.
“They could be in college one day, they could be in the military one day, they could be doing something completely unrelated one day,” said Davis of his cadets. “Their boss will expect things and maybe they’ll do well or maybe they will fail and if they apply some of the lessons learned here, it’s wonderful.”
Davis’ interest in teaching was sparked during a five-year stint as a Navy flight instructor in Pensacola, Fla.
“From that, I was able to realize that I enjoyed teaching and coaching and mentoring, and that was very rewarding to me,” said Davis, son of Ramona honorary mayor Sharon Davis. “I also enjoyed working with those who struggled and finding out what could turn them around.
“Taking my love of the Navy and wrapping that around teaching just made sense,” he said.
Davis lives in Eastlake with his wife and college sweetheart, Katy, and their three children.