Born to serve

Less than two years after she was born in Columbus, Ohio, Nadia Tepper’s parents moved the family to Libya. Her father was born in Libya before moving to the United States on a student visa for college, but after returning to his home country, he quickly realized it wasn’t the same as when he left.

Libya was under the rule of dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was suppressing many human rights and created many issues throughout the country. Even basic needs like finding diapers at the store were difficult. Tepper’s parents moved the family again to Germany before ultimately returning to the United States.

Even though she was only two years old for the short time they lived in Libya, Tepper has a strong appreciation for the freedoms in the United States – so strong that it actually turned into a career of service.

“I love living in the United States and was very aware of the freedoms we have here, so I wanted to serve,” Tepper said.

Today, Tepper (DBA ’25) is the Executive Director for Southeast Regional Maintenance Center in Mayport, leading a team of 1,200 military members, civilians and contractors to ensure that every Navy ship is functioning at peak performance.

Her passion for service started to set in during college, but without the advice of her mother, it might have looked different.

Tepper grew up playing soccer and planned to play on scholarship and study engineering at Purdue University. Even with that decision made, she continued receiving recruitment mail from the United States Naval Academy. Her mother encouraged her to at least visit the campus before deciding.

“That visit opened my eyes to a whole different world of driven people with lives dedicated to service and living for something bigger than themselves,” Tepper said. “It sold me that it was what I wanted to do.”

She graduated with a bachelor’s in systems engineering in 1999 while also the captain of the women’s soccer team. Tepper married her husband and they both began their five-year service commitments that all Naval Academy students accept, with the first year of their marriage spent deployed in different places.

When the commitment expired, Tepper decided to stay in the Navy but shifted to an engineering duty officer, a shore-based role with no deployment responsibilities. She also began pursuing her master’s at MIT, earning two separate degrees in engineering and management to jumpstart her career growth.

Tepper left the Navy in 2013 after more than 10 years of service and entered into government civil service. She was still employed by the Navy but on the civilian side and still able to use her engineering degrees. She worked her way up to the Executive Director role she serves in today.

“I’m running the business, meeting with department heads and working through our weekly mission execution meetings,” Tepper said. “We are experts on the surface ships. If engineers have issues and try everything they can to fix them, they call us. That’s a big function of our roles. There’s a lot we have to do to be ready for the fight. We have to make sure the ships are functional, maintained and everything is working the way it should.”

While working with people in her role, Tepper is always pushing people to continue growing and not be stagnant. One day, she started thinking about ways she was doing that in her career. She had been in a leadership role for a few years but knew there was still much to learn.

That’s when she started researching doctorate programs. It would help refine her leadership skills in the executive director role while also opening future doors in academia or consulting.

“The best part was the other people in my cohort and the experiences they brought to discussions,” Tepper said. “I’ve been in a government organization for a long time and we don’t always hear diversity in viewpoints. In the DBA program, I learned from people in my cohort who were on Wall Street, entrepreneurs and many other roles. It was a direct benefit to my career.”

When Tepper would read through research, her mind would immediately turn to implementing it in her career. Many policies within her team have shifted because of what she learned in the DBA program.

When she read a study highlighting how exercise helped employee wellbeing and engagement, Tepper took the study to her commanding officer and they came up with a new program. Every employee now has three paid hours every week to work out. Whether they’re walking on the beach or working out in the gym, it’s providing noticeable benefits.

“There’s a sense of dogma between academia and practitioners,” Tepper said. “The DBA program helped bridge that gap between research and how to tangibly use it.”

Outside of her job, Tepper is on multiple mentoring committees. When she’s not working, running, playing soccer or spending time with her family, Tepper has a passion to mentor young women. Women weren’t allowed in combat or on submarines or some ships when she started in the Navy. She has seen significant progress for women but still wants to work with younger women to encourage them during their careers.

“I’m thankful for the women who came before me, and I want to pay that forward to the women who come after me,” Tepper said. “I want to make sure they have support in a male dominated industry.”