Alan West, Baron West of Spithead
Admiral Alan William John West, Baron West of Spithead GCB, DSC, PC is a retired senior officer of the Royal Navy and formerly, from June 2007 to May 2010, a Parliamentary UnderSecretary of State at the British Home Office with responsibility for security and a security advisor to Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Prior to his ministerial appointment, he was First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff from 2002 to 2006. He is the current Chancellor of Southampton Solent University.
West was born onApril 1948 in Lambeth, London, and was educated at Windsor Grammar School and Clydebank High School. He joined Britannia Royal Naval College in 1965 and served in HMS Albion during her standby duty for the Nigerian Civil War and circumnavigated the globe in HMS Whitby, taking part in the Beira Patrol. He was confirmed as a sublieutenant onSeptember 1969, and promoted to lieutenant onMay 1970. After his command of the Tonclass minesweeper HMS Yarnton in Hong Kong in 1973, he qualified as a principal warfare officer in 1975 and then served as operations officer in the frigate HMS Juno in 1976 and then the frigate HMS Ambuscade in 1977. Promoted to lieutenant commander onApril 1978, he attended the Royal Navy Staff College that year and then qualified as an advanced warfare officer before being posted to the destroyer HMS Norfolk in 1979.
Source: Wikipedia