Commanding Officer
Cmdr. Jae Y. Kim

Cmdr. Jae Kim, a native of Seoul, Korea, immigrated to the United States with his family. He spent time in Tenafly, New Jersey and graduated from Rutgers University in 2001 with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering. He also holds a Master of Science in Systems Engineering from Johns Hopkins University.
 
Kim enlisted in 2001 and served as an aviation structural mechanic in Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron Light (HSL) 37. In 2005, he completed Officer Candidate School and earned his “Wings of Gold” as a naval flight officer in Randolph Air Force Base, Texas in 2007. Kim then completed P-3 flight training at Patrol Squadron (VP) 30 in Jacksonville, Florida.  His first operational tour was with VP-4 in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii where he deployed to the 5th Fleet, 6th Fleet and 7th Fleet areas of responsibility.
 
In 2012, Kim graduated from Naval Test Pilot School, Class 141, and joined Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 20 in Patuxent River as a MQ-4C Triton project officer. While there, he was qualified as the first naval flight officer (NFO) air vehicle operator and also became the first NFO to fly MQ-4C Triton. In 2015, He joined VP-30 as an MQ-4C Triton instructor and served as Triton training and naval air training and operating procedures standardization (NATOPS) officer at Triton Fleet Integration Team.
 
He was selected as department head and joined the ranks of the “Big Red” of Unmanned Patrol Squadron (VUP) 19 where he served as the tactics, training/NATOPS, operations officer and maintenance officer. He also served as officer in charge of Point Mugu Detachment.
 
Subsequent to his time at the command, Kim served as battle watch captain, 7th fleet scheduler, and MQ-4C Triton subject matter expert at Commander, U.S. 7th Fleet in Yokosuka, Japan. In June of 2022, Kim will assume duties as executive officer, VUP-19.
 
His awards include Meritorious Service Medal, Air Medal, Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal, and various other unit and campaign awards.