David Russell "“ Submariner

David John Russell was born in Leeds in 1952 and attended Leeds Central High School. He joined the Royal Navy in 1970 and commanded three submarines and one surface warship during a career in which he reached the rank of commodore.^{[citation needed]} He was the first Commanding Officer of HMS Vanguard,^[1] the United Kingdom's first Trident missile submarine.

Following the attacks on 11 September 2001, he directed the UK submarine response in the campaign against terrorism when UK submarines engaged terrorist targets in Afghanistan with Tomahawk cruise missiles. He also developed the strategic goals and produced operational deployment, corporate recource and output plans for the UK fleet.^{[citation needed]} He led the UK effort to rescue survivors from the sunken Russian submarine Kursk in the Barents Sea in 2001.^[2]

Graduate of the Royal College of Defence Studies in 1995 and the Joint Service Staff College in 1998, he completed the Financial Seminar for Senior Managers at London Business School in May 2002 and joined the Bedford Charity (Harpur Trust) as Chief Executive in June 2002. In 2004 he gained a first class honours degree in law with the Open University.

He lives in Bedford with the youngest of his three daughters.

Vote of Thanks

David is the Chief Executive of the Harpur Trust. This was his second guest speaker appearance in 8 months. In February he spoke about the Trust and yesterday he spoke about his career as a submariner. He told of joining the Navy in 1970 at Dartford College. His career progressed, he had command of three submarines including HMS Vanguard the UK’s lead Trident submarine. David’s talk/presentation included photographs of many of his vessels. He outlined his involvement with the attempted rescue of survivors of the sunken Russian submarine Kursk and also following 11^th September 2001 he directed the UK submarine response with Tomahawk cruise missiles. In all an exceptional speaker.

 Martin Stonecliffe