About Curtis Wray, Creator of
The Consummate Transitioner

Curtis Wray Biographical Information

Born: Shelby, North Carolina

Resides: Norfolk, Virginia

General Education: Douglas High School Grades 1-4; Lattimore Elementary Grades 5-6; West Cleveland Elementary Grades 7-8; and, Crest High School Graded 9-12; graduated May 1975

Professional Education:

Wingate College (now University) AA, 1977; University of Kansas, BA, 1983; Old Dominion University, MS,1989; Marine Corps Command and Staff College, MMS,1996

Professional Military Work Life: Enlisted United

States Naval Reserve Delayed Entry Program, November 1976 – May 1977; Active Duty Enlisted 1977-1983 (E-3 – E-5); Commissioned Officer, October 1983, designation Unrestricted Line, Surface Warfare Officer, 1983-1998 (Rank 01 – 04E)

Completed Navy Boot Camp and Ship’s Serviceman A School, 1977; Supply Department Branch Commissary Store, Great Lakes, Illinois, 1977-79; Pre-commissioning training and Supply Department Ships Barber 6 months, 1979; Approved lateral transfer to Ship’s Navigation Department – Enlisted Navigator (Navy Quartermaster) USS Nassau (LHA-4), 1980-81); Selected in the Enlisted Commissioning Program (ECP) and attended the University of Kansas, 1981-83; Completed Navy Officer’s Candidate School and Navy Surface Warfare Division Officer’s Course 1983-84; First Division and Ship’s Navigator/Administrative Officer, USS Spiegel Grove (LSD-32),1984-86; Ship’s Navigator/Administrative Officer, and Auxiliaries/Electrical Officer, USS Coontz (DDG-40), 1986-88; Attended Old Dominion University, for Masters – Education and Training Management Subspecialty (ETMS)1988-89; Aide and Flag Lieutenant to the Chief of Staff, Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic, 1989-91; Attended Navy Surface Warfare Department Head School and Navy Diesel Engineer School,1991-92; Chief Engineer, USS Tortuga (LSD-46), (successfully passed major Operational Propulsion Plant Engineering Examination and received Battle Efficiency award 1992-93; Logistics and Engineering Material Maintenance Officer, Commander, Amphibious Squadron Eight,1993-95, Selected for Ship’s Executive Officer (second-in-command) USS Whitney Island (LSD-41),1995; Attended US Marine Corps Command and Staff College,1995-96; Declined orders to USS Whitney Island and accepted sub-specialty final shore tour, Commander,Training Atlantic; sufficient time to retire, 1996-98; Retired,1998.

Highest Clearance: Top Secret

Personal Awards; Defense Meritorious Service Medal; Four (4) Navy Commendation Medals; the Navy Achievement Medal; and, the Good Conduct Medal; numerous campaign medals

Number of Deployments – 5; (4 Mediterranean 1981,1992,1993,1995, and one Persian Gulf,1987, the North Atlantic 1980, and Caribbean Haitian Migration Operations,1993 and 1994; Guantanamo Bay Cuba,1979 USS Nassau LHA-4; USS Pensacola (LSD-38),1985, and USS Tortuga (LSD-46),1993

Best Jobs in the Navy: Navy Quartermaster (Enlisted Navigator); Ship’s Navigator and Auxiliaries and Electrical Officer, Aide and Flag Lieutenant, and Chief Engineer

Places Lived: North Carolina, Illinois, Kansas, California, Rhode Island, Virginia

Favorite American Cities: Washington D.C. and Chicago, Illinois

Favorite Places Visited: Holland, the Netherlands; Malmo, Sweden, Paris and Breast, France; Oslo, Norway and the Fjords; Italy (Rome, Venice, Milan, and Pompeii); French Martinique; Bridgetown Barbados; Alicante and Rota, Spain; Thessaloniki and Corfu, Greece; Katie’s Cove, the Newfoundland; and London, England

Professional Civilian Work Life: Attended Old Dominion University School of Global Business Human Resources Professional Course and worked part time seasonal at Lillian Vernon, October-December 1998; Danka Business Systems Jan- Feb 1999/company closure; wage/hourly Workforce Services Representative, the Virginia Employment Commission,1999-2001; Classified Workforce Services Representative 2001-2002; Workforce Services Supervisor, 2002-2006; Regional State Rapid Response Coordinator 2006-7; position migration Regional Rapid Response Coordinator, under Senior Advisor to the Governor’s Office for Workforce Development, 2007-8; created term/phrase and applied for trademark for online business, The Consummate Transitioner, 2008-9; position migration to the Virginia Community College System Office, 2008-10; position migration to Thomas Nelson Community College, 2010-17, position migration back to the Virginia Employment Commission – present this date.

Pet Peeves: Tardiness and inattention to detail. Hate being late to any scheduled event.

Hobbies: Reading, Walking, Writing Poetry, Vintage/Antique Cars, Carpentry, and Fishing

Cruises: 10 day Alaskan Inner Passage 7/2017

Various Likable Quotes

Vision – “Being a visionary is a lonely place to be.”  Tammy Williams

Marriage Advice – “Don’t marry an ugly woman. Always consider your offspring” – Massie Vinson Williams – Grandmother

Trust – “Every shut eye is not always sleep; every smiling face is not always your friend; and, every good-bye is not always gone.” – Laura Earnestine Spearmon – Mother-In-law

Truth and Proof – Those things that are true cannot always be proven. Those things that can be proven are not always true -The movie…A Time To Kill

Time – “Time is an enemy of the truth.” – Unknown

On Winning – “Winners never quit. Quitters never win.” – Vince Lombardi

Reality and Trust – “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.” – Maya Angelou

Bloodless Battles – “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” Sun Tzu

Know Your Enemy – “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. “ Sun Tzu

Imperfection – If I follow you for 5 miles, I probably won’t give you a ticket. If I follow you for 1000 miles, I probably will. – Unknown

Motivation – “I can be fueled or frozen by adversity.” Neva Griffin

Trust – “Keep your friends close. Keep your enemies closer.” – Sun Tzu

Trust – “ I can’t change you until I change who you trust.” – Mike Murdoch

Achievement – “You are nobody until somebody hates you.” – Mike Murdoch

Power – “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.” – Frederick Douglass

Your Gift – “Do not ignore your gift. Your gift is the thing you do the absolute best with the lease amount of effort.” –  Steve Harvey

Your Gift – “Your mission, your purpose and your destiny will all be tied to one thing – your gift.” – Steve Harvey

Your Gift – “Find what comes easy to you and that is your gift.” – Early Jackson

Your Passion – “Find what you like to do and that is your passion.” – Early Jackson

Humility and Destiny – “This is all about destiny. Sometimes even our biggest mistakes turn out to be the catalyst for our greatest moments!” – Early Jackson

Shun the Easy and Choose the Hard – “We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.” –  John F. Kennedy”

 

Notable Quoted Ambrous Wray (Father) and Lillie Williams Wray (Mother)

Don’t Give Up – “Find a way or make one” – Hannibal, used often by my father, Ambrous Wray to-never give up,

Moving Forward – “Keep looking up and don’t look back” You cannot change the past. You can only learn from it. – Father

Life’s Race – “The race in life is not given or guaranteed to the swift or the strong, but to those who endure to the very end.” – Father (A version of Ecclesiasticates 9:11)

Experience – “Experience is the best teacher; for it gives you the test first, and you learn the lesson afterwards” – Father

Friendship – “if you believe in friendship, then your life’s mission is to find that one person that you can call a true friend.” – Father

Friendship – “When you find one good friend, then hold on to that person for life, because they are as rare as the finest diamonds. Most friends will disappoint you and let you down.” – Father

Leader or Follower? “You can never see and have vision to see where you are going when you are in the crowd. You have to get out of the crowd and step back and see what the crowd is doing and then you can decide the direction that you would like to take.” – Father

Charity – “Starts at home and spreads abroad.” – Lillie Williams Wray – Mother (A variation of the original quote from Thomas Browne in1642).

Effort – “Always do your best. Lillie Williams Wray.” Mother

 

Curtis Wray Notable Quotes

Life’s Transition – Live your life the best kind of way. One day, you will become “the they.”

Success – In its purest form is perception…the perception of those who have success and those who see and want your success.

Success defined – Success is not the end state of what you see and touch or the tangible, but the journey and the struggles to accomplish your endeavors.

Success – You determine what is your success.

Humility and Vision – If you want to find vision; then embrace your humiliation. And from the ashes of humiliation, you will value humility; and, with humility, you will discover vision and see your gift.

Your Gift – Your gift is what you ought to be and need to be and not what you want to be.

Trust – With any element of trust, there is vulnerability; with vulnerability there is potential for compromise; with compromise there will be eventual humiliation and humility; from humility will come wisdom; with wisdom there is vision; from vision, you will discover your gift and passion. – Curtis Wray

Life’s Race – Life is a race and the only way to win it is to keep running and stay in it.

Your Story Always tell your story…no matter what. If you don’t, your story will become their story.

Dishonesty – Change is a friend of deception.

Forgiveness – Always leave space and capacity in your heart for forgiveness. The art of forgiveness is the highest form of unconditional love. Always forgive people….no matter what; not for them, but for you, so that bitterness will not invade your soul and replace your lively spirit, and enrage you and leave you with a depleted sense of self-worth.

Forget/Forgiveness – Forgiveness does not mean to forget. To remember is what we call our experiences, which are our best teacher, to ensure that if we do not forget, we will learn a valuable lesson and not make that mistake again.

Pieces To the Puzzle of Life – The puzzle of life becomes a puzzle-in-life and pieces of our past. Life in its purest form is an intricate and complicated puzzle. There is no real truth to it; and, there is no real sense of it, until we have all of the pieces of the puzzle of our past. The ambivalence and ambiguity in attempting to understand the puzzle of life is when you don’t have the correct pieces of the puzzle; or, when you think that you do…when you really don’t;  or, perhaps… the sinking and sobering realization that you never will.

Humility A Vision for Destiny –  Perhaps in life…you are where you need to be. To experience, feel, and see what you need to see. To understand the importance of the virtue of humility. To help shape and prepare you for your destiny. Because you have so much more to give to and for the betterment of humanity.

The Indelible Transitioner – Life is filled with many transitions; and, do we consummate those transitions in our lives when the positive impact of what we have accomplished leaves imprints of footprints on the sandy beaches of our lives so deep and indelible that mere summer breezes, misty winds, and gentle waves hasten to dare not  wear and wash them away? And, long after we are gone, our work and memory stands for the ages.

Unexpainable Randomness of Life – God controls the unexplainable…the randomness of life; those things that happen that we do not understand, cannot fathom, comprehend, or explain; and, mere words cannot find a place, peace, or comfort in our hearts, souls, and minds.

Redemption – Redemption has no place, chance, or opportunity without forgiveness. The nature and character of redemption is implied imperfection. We strive for perfection from the correction of learning from our mistakes.

Perfection has no end state –  Perfection can never be accomplished, but we can continuously raise the bar, by trying to get to the finIsh line of perfection. It is expected that you will make, learn, conquer, and hopefully, transcend your mistakes. Your life is a continuous work in progress to always choose right and to fight the good fight for the betterment of humanity.

 

Favorite/Impactful and Influential Movies

The Bridge Over The River Kwai

On Golden Pond

Cool Hand Luke

Terms of Endearment

The Deliverance

The Verdict

An Officer and a Gentlemen

Few Good Men

Time To Kill

The Shawshank Redemption

Crash

Glory

The Equalizer I and II

 

Favorite Actors/Actresses

Clint Eastwood

Steve McQueen

Paul Newman

Denzel Washington

Lou Gossett, Jr

Matthew Damien

Tom Cruise

Deborah Winger

Jane Fonda

 

Favorite Books

Gods and Generals

The Old Man and the Sea

The Content of Thy Character

On War

The Art of War

 

Favorite Musicians

The Isley Brothers 3+3 and forward

The Ojays

The Whispers

Bob James

B. King – (Midnight Believer Album)

Esther Phillips

Ella Mai

Alicia Keyes

Al Jarreau

Luther Vandross

Anita Baker

Steely Dan

Jeff Lorber

Angela Bofill

Carole King

America

Robin Thicke

 

Best Funniest Musical Impactful Video

I Saw You (and him) Walking In the Rain, Oran (Juice) Jones, 1985

 

Influential and impactful Teachers/Leader

Lillian Pullens – Douglas Elementary School

Cheryl Anita Daves – West Cleveland Junior High

Portia Morrow – Crest High School

Sylvia Little – Wingate College (now Wingate University)

Jim Jackson, Lieutenant Commander, United  States Navy, Navigator, USS Nassau LHA-4

John F. Shaw, Rear Admiral, United States Navy

 

Favorite Old Spirituals

Keep on Running; Don’t Change Your Pace

Where the Chilly Winds Don’t Blow

Every Now and Then I Feel the Fire

Be Accepted In Thy Sight

Whisper A Little Prayer

 

Favorite Scriptures

Psalms 23, 25, 27, & 37, Ecclesiastes 1, Ephesians 6, 2nd Timothy 2 v 8, 2nd Corinthians 13, James 3:1-12, James 4:13-15 and 17

 

First Publications

Poems – The Departure…For This Who Deploy and The Arrival…Hurry Up and Wait, (1987)

Is The Navy on The Right Course and Speed for the 21st Century? (1996)