Capt. Tim 'Lucky' Kinsella hands over command of NAS Pensacola after historic three years

In March 2019, Capt. Tim "Lucky" Kinsella took over the command of NAS Pensacola for what would become perhaps one of the most historic three years the base has seen since a Navy base was opened in Pensacola in 1826.

On Thursday, Kinsella will hand over his command of the base to Capt. Terrence "Village" Shashaty and will retire from the Navy with plans to call Pensacola his permanent home base.

Kinsella told the News Journal that he's tried not to think about what it means to be leaving the command because he becomes too emotional.

"I've lived and breathed NAS Pensacola for the past three years, and I hardly remember what life was like before I was the (commanding officer) of NAS Pensacola," Kinsella said. "It just becomes such a part of you."

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Kinsella saw the base through the impacts of a deadly terrorist attack that killed three people and wounded eight others, Hurricane Sally that did $500 million worth of damage to the base and a global pandemic caused by the COVID-19 virus.

"When we talk about morale, I prefer to talk about it like the fighting spirit," Kinsella said. "After the terrorist attack, after the hurricane, during the pandemic, there was never a question of the folks of this base doing their job and doing what they had to do to keep the doors open and keep the mission going."

The three years of Kinsella's term as base commander have demonstrated the depth and strength of the bond between the base and the community.

"The biggest takeaway from this (is) just how amazing the folks are here, and how close the ties really are between the people of the city and the people of this base," Kinsella said. "There's a lot of love between them, and that was very, very gratifying to see."

Being commander of a base like NAS Pensacola is basically like being mayor of a small city, and Kinsella said anyone in the job has to understand there isn't another job like it in the Navy.

"We are trained to take a ship out to sea, to fly aircraft into harm's way, but we're not trained, very well, to stand in front of a bunch of cameras when there's a crisis happening," Kinsella said of naval officers. "We're not trained very well to interact with elected officials, or to be in the newspaper or to run a fire department."

Shashaty has been in Pensacola since July and has worked to get his instructor rating to teach new pilots and keep flying. But in the last few weeks, he has been shadowing Kinsella and learning about becoming the base's commanding officer.

Shashaty said he's inheriting a great team from Kinsella.

"I'm fully confident in not only the staff that's going to be working with me, but the tenant commands because they've been through probably the hardest punch you can get in the last three years," Shashaty said.

Shashaty is from Brooklyn in New York City. He decided to join the Navy after visiting the Naval Academy for a water polo tournament when he was 10 years old. He fell in love with Pensacola when he came here to learn to fly for the Navy.

After flight training, Shashaty flew the EA-6B Prowler, a carrier-based jet that specializes in electronic warfare. Shashaty later cross-trained to fly the F-18E/F Super Hornet, which he said was a childhood dream come true.

"The first day I actually got to solo in the aircraft, I picked up the phone and said, 'Hey Mom, guess what? I got to do it,'" Shashaty said.

Shashaty then got the best of both worlds, becoming a commander of an EA-18G Growler squadron. The EA-18G is a specialized version of the Super Hornet that replaced the EA-6B Prowler as the Navy's carrier-based electronic warfare attack aircraft.

Shashaty's previous job in the Navy was serving on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

Shashaty said being selected as base commander of Pensacola was a dream come true.

"They called me to say, 'Congrats you're going to NAS Pensacola,' and I'm like, 'You've got to be kidding me,'" Shashaty said. "I told my wife, 'Honey, we got Pensacola, and I'm buying a Jeep.' So, I ended up buying a Jeep Rubicon to try to fit in with the locals and be able to do my wave and whatnot."

Shashaty will take command in a ceremony Thursday under the Blue Angels display at the National Naval Aviation Museum, where he once worked as a tour guide when he was an ensign awaiting training in Pensacola.

"I gave flight line tours over at the museum," Shashaty said. "So to even think about coming back here to be the installation commander, again surreal. I don't know if that's the right word, but talk about excited. I used the word a little earlier — stoked — the emotion of being selected to take over the cradle of naval aviation."

As Kinsella leaves, the priorities that Shashaty will take over include increasing educational opportunities in the community by helping start a dual-enrollment charter high school at Pensacola State College and re-establishing the STARBASE program at the National Flight Academy, working on a permanent solution to restore access to the public assets of the base like the National Naval Aviation Museum and Barrancas National Cemetery and overseeing $400 million in projects to repair and make the base more resilient after Hurricane Sally.

"The ball is set in motion, and now it's going to be up to Village to implement them," Kinsella said, referring to Shashaty's call sign. "And he is going to be able to have a massive impact on what the base is going to look like, and what the surrounding community is going to look like, for the next 50 to 100 years."

Shashaty didn't shy away from Kinsella's comment, saying he knows there's a lot of work to do, but he'll start by grinding away at it one day at a time.

"There's a path right now that he's laid out, and I don't want to say it's going to be easy on my part, because the wheels are rolling," Shashaty said. "I've just got to make sure that it doesn't slow down."

Jim Little can be reached at [email protected] and 850-208-9827.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: NAS Pensacola commander: Tim Kinsella hands reins to Terrence Shashaty