In honor of Veterans Day, Middle School students interviewed Lt. Cmdr. Tim Lloyd ’05 on Nov. 16 about his path from Riverdale to a career in the U.S. Navy.
A graduate of the University of Southern California, Lloyd joined the Navy as a commissioned officer and attended flight school where he learned to fly the E-2 Hawkeye, an early warning command and control aircraft. He is currently stationed in Japan with his wife and son and expects to move to Washington, D.C., in 2021.
Milton Sipp, Assistant Head of School and Head of the Middle School, noted that he was Lloyd’s dean in high school.
Lloyd “is like a son to me,” Sipp told the students. “I am so proud of him. Tim embodies all of the great RCS spirit. He has a heart of gold and he is one of the most outstanding young people you will ever meet.”
Lloyd said he first had an inkling of pursuing some kind of career in public service at Riverdale. “My second day of high school was Sept. 11,” he said. “All the way back then, I knew I wanted to do something in public service.”
The decision to join the Navy was not so clear-cut, though, and Sipp and Lloyd each recalled a conversation they had when Lloyd was considering going for the commission.
Lloyd said he that growing up in New York and attending Riverdale, he didn’t know many people who had pursued military careers. Friends and family encouraged him to pursue a career in the private sector. “I knew if I didn’t join, I would probably regret it,” he said, adding that his friends and family are supportive of his decision.
Lloyd said that his athletics experiences at Riverdale gave hime a chance to learn team building and leadership, and that his academics taught him a work ethic that continues to be invaluable. Perhaps the most important skill he has developed in the military is decision-making in high stress situations.
“For me in my line of work in aviation that has been the most critical is decision making – how to be able to take in a lot of information and data all at once and then be able to come up with a plan that is executable, hopefully it is good, and if it is not, to continue to monitor the situation and see if the decisions that I’ve made have been the right ones.
“It doesn’t have to be just aviation,” he continued, “all the high stress stuff, and being able to quickly and competently come up with a good solution for a complex problem.”