George Zambellas
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Rear Admiral George Zambellas is the current Commander United Kingdom Maritime Forces, and was appointed to this role in June 2007.
[edit] Life
His early years were spent in Rhodesia, before coming to England to attend Stowe School and to study Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering at Southampton University, before working in the aerospace industry for a time. Joining Royal Navy in 1980, he qualified as a helicopter pilot in 1982, clocking up 1500 deck landings and 2000 flying hours on three tours.
He was trained for the general staff at Greenwich in 1990, and then spent a short time as a corporate planner for the Royal Navy’s manpower and training division within the Ministry of Defence before two years in command of HMS Cattistock in the Baltic and Mediterranean. His next appointment was ashore, as an aviation operations officer in the Fleet Headquarters at Northwood, before being promoted to command HMS Argyll, a command which included a notable counter-narcotics operation in the Caribbean.
Returning to London in 1997 to serve in the Directorate of Defence Programmes during the 1997/98 Strategic Defence Review, he returned to an operational command in 1999 as captain of HMS Chatham, with operations in the Mediterranean and as part of Operation Palliser off Sierra Leone (receiving the Distinguished Service Cross in 2001 for the latter[1]). Also in 2001, he took the Higher Command and Staff Course at Shrivenham before becoming Deputy Flag Officer Sea Training.
A Commodore by 2002, that year he was appointed to be Principal Staff Officer to the Chief of the Defence Staff and served Admiral Boyce and General Walker during the invasion of Iraq and the early days of its fallout. His next command was the Royal Navy’s Amphibious Task Group, from January 2005 until August 2006, which involved overseeing the introduction of the new Ocean and Albion classes and the Bowman radio and data system, as well as aiding the evacuation of civilians from the Lebanon in July 2006.
Promoted to Rear Admiral in August 2006 and appointed Chief of Staff (Transformation), Zambellas was in this role entrusted with, as the Royal Navy website puts it, "designing and delivering the Fleet’s new approach to the generation of maritime capability and support to operations." He then left this role for his present one as COMUKMARFOR.
