Commodore Kim Frederick Peter PITT RAN (rtd)

Assistant Director (Expedition Operations)
Australian Antarctic Division - Department of the Environment & Heritage

Kim joined the Australian Antarctic Division in October 1997 as Assistant Director in charge of Expedition Operations. In this role he is responsible for providing the operational infrastructure (Station and Field Operations, Shipping & Air Operations and Engineering & Construction programs) necessary to support Australia's interests in the Antarctic and the sub-Antarctic.

Prior to joining the Division Kim spent 32 years in the Navy, primarily in submarines, but with the odd excursion to serve in surface ships, to interact with the Defence Intelligence community and to be a senior manager in the Navy's Support Command.

He retains an interest in submarines as Vice President of the Submarine Institute of Australia, through his Presidency of the Tasmanian Chapter of the Submarine Association of Australia, and as Chairman of the Board of the submarine sonar and combat system company - Sonartech Atlas Pty Ltd.

Kim's passions and interests are simple - his wife and two year old daughter, his three adult children, his grand daughter and grand son, bush-walking, his R80 motorcycle, his small wooden ketch, woodwork, red wine and next (somewhat hopefully) developing his yet to be tested skills as a banjo player. Despite gossip to the contrary, subtle attempts by his wife Eril to move his musical interests from Rhythm & Blues to Opera, are tolerated for purposes of domestic harmony alone.
19 October 2000

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The following is an expanded summary of Kim’s Naval career:

Kim entered the Navy as a Cadet Midshipman at the Royal Australian Naval College, Jervis Bay, in 1965 and graduated as a seaman specialist.
In 1967 he volunteered for and joined submarines; after initial training with the Royal Navy he served two years on loan to British submarines based in Scotland and Northern Ireland. Here, as a junior officer in HMS PORPOISE, HMS ODIN and HMS OTTER he learned at first hand the realities of submarine life in the Cold War of the Atlantic, including operations inside the Arctic circle.

He enjoyed postings to all Australian Oberon class submarines, and served in various operational staff postings in Fleet and Maritime Headquarters but counts as the highlights of this part of his career, being a member of the building and commissioning crews of HMAS ONSLOW and HMAS ORION when those submarines were constructed in Scotland.

Kim graduated from the Royal Navy’s Submarine Command Course, "Perisher", in 1978 and went on to command three Australian submarines. He also was delighted to be chosen to serve as the inaugural RAN exchange officer to serve with the First Canadian Submarine Squadron in Halifax, Nova Scotia. In this "sea command" time of his career, Kim won the Submarine Squadron’s Fighting Efficiency Shield twice and the Fleet-wide Operational Efficiency Shield "the Gloucester Cup", served as Deputy Squadron Commander and as Fleet Submarine Operations Officer, as Chief Staff Officer Operations to the Commander of the Australian Fleet and eventually was privileged to be posted as Commander of the Australian Submarine Squadron itself.

He left "the sea" in 1990 after 23 years of operational service and next went into the policy arena. He served in Naval Headquarters Canberra from 1990 until 1993 as the Director of Submarines, Security and Intelligence and as Director of Naval Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence. In 1993 he was promoted to the rank of Commodore and was posted to the Defence Signals Directorate as the first ever Director General of Operations. In 1996 he joined the Naval Support Command as Chief of Staff and in 1997 was awarded membership of the Military Division of the Order of Australia for leadership in that position.

He transferred to the Royal Australian Navy Reserve in October 1997 so that he could join the Australian Public Service in order to fulfil his ambitions to work in the Antarctic.