First qualified female engineer in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. First female commodore in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. First female to head the engineering branch in the Royal Fleet Auxiliary.
That’s just scratching the surface of the biography of Cdre Morgan, who has just taken up the post of the RFA’s Commodore (E)—the most senior engineering post in the Royal Navy’s essential support flotilla.
She takes over responsibility for the big picture engineering challenges affecting the Service, its ships and most importantly its men and women.
Cdre Morgan was inspired to join the RFA while working in a hotel near Cardigan three decades ago; among the guests was a talkative chief steward whose tales of adventure around the globe—coupled with a few recruiting leaflets.
The chance encounter sowed a seed: the opportunity to see the world, embark on adventures, and to forge a career—with a definite goal: “to get to the top.”
Which was an admirable if unlikely ambition when she joined in 1998 as the only female engineer on the RFA’s books.
The Royal Fleet Auxiliary of the late 90s was “very different”: attitudes, culture, training and career paths were not as they are today, when females account for approximately 10 percent of the RFA workforce (compared with a mere one to one-and-a-half percent in the commercial sector).
In those intervening 28 years Kate Morgan enjoyed those adventures—catapulted off a US carrier having watched live F-18 operations, standing in the dock bottom looking up at a Tide-class tanker, sea time in much of the flotilla, a string of engineering and leadership qualifications.
For the past few years she’s held the post of Captain (E), and now the top post—the ambition of 28 years ago.
Cdre E Kate Morgan said: “I think my younger self was committed to the practical engineering side and hadn’t thought much wider than that until I began to understand early on that there were other possibilities. I’ve always been ambitious and have seized challenging opportunities where I could, to try to develop my understanding as well as try to make a difference.”
Making a difference at the Commodore (E) level embraces a series of responsibilities from making sure RFA vessels are safe to operate, to overseeing the support they receive and assuring the maximum number of vessels remain available to accomplish the tasks set by the Service.
Cdre Morgan takes the reins from another engineer who has dedicated his entire adult life to both the Royal Fleet Auxiliary and the machinery which makes it tick.
Cdre Stuart Peters has served for 42 years, joining as a junior engine room rating aged 16 before deciding he preferred the opportunities offered by a career as a mechanic, powered by an inner drive to learn and push himself—all too often fighting against naysayers and, happily, proving them wrong.
He realized he could only go so far and achieve so much as a rating and took advantage of the ‘rating to officer’ initiative, striving to attain the qualifications needed to become a junior officer.
He later added further qualifications such as an Open University degree and became a Chartered Engineer during his seagoing days… in the face of comments from some shipmates that he’d never progress as he’d come from the ranks.
“The opportunities are out there—you just have to find them and take them, or they will pass you by,” he said.
“You need a vision and passion. Have a plan and adapt that plan as your career develops. As you work towards your goals, take every effort to achieve them and, when you attain them, look back over them. Along the way you will get people who knock you—just ignore them.”
Side-by-side with his passion for the RFA and engineering, Cdre Peters juggles a busy family life (a wife, three daughters, six grandchildren) and a love for endurance sports: long-distance cycling, running and triathlons, including a couple of Ironman events.
