USS Illinois Change of Command 24 November 2025

On January 16, 2026, Captain John Smith, the outgoing Commanding Officer of the USS ILLINOIS, is heading to COMSUBPAC in Pearl Harbor to be the Future Operations Director, which usually also fills the role of assistant Maritime Operations Center Director.  He will be responsible for the planning of all submarine operations within the COMSUBPAC AOR (Area of Responsibility), to include our maritime homeland defense mission in the undersea domain and the protection of our SSBN fleet in the Pacific area.
 
The incoming Commanding Officer’s bio follows: CDR Jeff Vandenengel, a native of Grafton, Massachusetts, is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, where he majored in Chemistry as a Trident Scholar. He holds Master’s Degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Rochester and in Business Administration from Boston College.