Member Spotlight: Celebrating Retired Sailor’s Work to Advance World Peace

By Allison Stevens

One path-breaking career is more than most achieve in a lifetime.

But John E. Booker—a highly decorated retired member of the US Navy and longstanding member of Navy Federal Credit Union—claims two.

In the first half of his professional life, Booker broke racial barriers in the US military, becoming the Navy’s first Black master chief cryptologist (analytical branch)—a rank earned by 1 percent of enlisted personnel.

Then, after 3 decades of service, he pursued a second career in denuclearization, an endeavor celebrated around the world this month during International Peace Day (Sept. 21) and International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons (Sept. 26).

Booker’s second chapter began amid the dissolution of the former Soviet Union, which left former Soviet republics in possession of defunct nuclear testing sites and weapons stockpiles. In 1991, word spread of a secret Russian nuclear test site in the remote steppe of Kazakhstan, sparking international outrage. In response, Congress authorized a joint US-Russia program to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.

Then a senior program officer at the US Department of Defense, Booker carried out the multimillion-dollar mission to dismantle the site. In coordination with his Russian counterpart, he oversaw the dismantling of weapons equipment, buildings and waste pits, often traveling to Kazakhstan in dangerous conditions to certify completion.

All told, he oversaw the destruction of more than 2,000 nuclear warheads, 300 ballistic missiles and 140 nuclear test tunnels, work that won him international acclaim.

“It was my biggest accomplishment,” says Booker, 83. “It wasn’t easy, but it was worth it. Making the world a safer place is not a small thing.”

Others agreed. In 2012, Booker was awarded the Medal of Freedom by the Government of Kazakhstan for his work to destroy nuclear infrastructure. He also received the Pentagon's Meritorious Service Medal for outstanding service, as well as a postdoctorate degree in nuclear material management from the Belarus Academy of Science and Ecology.

Breaking racial barriers

Those accomplishments came on top of an already distinguished career in the US Navy, which Booker joined after growing up on a farm in rural Virginia. After high school, his friends worked in fields, farms and forests, but Booker took a different path. “It was a cycle,” he said. “Working for low pay in those conditions was not for me.’”

Instead, he enlisted in the Navy, where he would remain for the next 30 years. There, too, he was steered toward menial labor, but he said no to that as well. Fortunately, an opportunity in cryptology—the study of secure communications—opened up, and he jumped at the chance for better pay and safer work.

Booker encountered institutional racism as he climbed his way to the top of the predominantly white and male field. Eventually, he became master chief analytical cryptologist, the first Black person to serve in that grade. Along the way, he says his champions “walked beside me, in front of me and behind me. I would not be where I am today without their support.” He paid their support forward by spending years mentoring women and racial and ethnic minorities, which he calls a “tinder box” topic at the time.

Navy Federal has supported him and his family (he and his wife, Agnes, have 2 daughters) ever since he first joined decades ago. “Any time I needed money for a car, a house, or just needed money in my pocket, Navy Federal was there,” he says. “And any Navy Federal that I walk into, I feel right at home. Navy Federal is huge, but no matter where I’ve been, they were always there for me.”

The feeling is mutual, said Debbie Hunter, a retired Navy Federal team member who served Booker at his home branch in Richmond. Booker has an “amazing story” and has been a joy to support with products and services, whether that be a certificate of deposit or a savings account. “He loves face-to-face interaction,” she said. “He’ll come in and wave because he knows we’ll take care of him.”

Earlier this year, Booker, a 50+-year member of the credit union, welcomed another member to the family. "We signed him up when he was less than a month old,” Booker beamed, adding that he now heads a four-generation family of Navy Federal members. “When it comes to the credit union, we don’t play.”

Learn more about the benefits of membership with Navy Federal.