More About JAMES MICHAEL FORDICE:
Fact 1: July 28, 1960, Adopted by James Edward Fordice
Fact 2: May 1973, Graduated St. Pius High School, Albuquerque, NM
Fact 3: May 1978, Graaduated NM Technical Institute, Soccorro, NM
Fact 4: November 30, 1994, Command of USS Santa Fe
Fact 5: May 13, 1962, First Communion, Sacred Heart
Fact 6: April 27, 1966, Confirmation, MCAS, Beaufort, SC (Joseph)

Taken from THE ALBUQUERQUE TRIBUNE - WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1994 VOLUME 73, NUMBER 127
“Duke City man to skipper USS Santa Fe” - By Shonda Novak - Tribune Reporter
From the halls of St. Pius X High School to the hull of the USS Santa Fe, Navy Cmdr. Jim Michael Fordice of Albuquerque paved a path of excellence.
Today, the former straight-A student from St. Pius takes command of the USS Santa Fe, a $1.1 billion, 6900-ton nuclear-powered attack submarine and the second Navy vessel to bear the name of New Mexico’s capital city. The “Santa Fe” name hasn’t been used by the Navy since a World War II cruiser called USS Santa Fe was scrapped after the war. For Fordice, 39, the command of the new USS Santa Fe is another milestone in a celebrated naval career that includes previous tours of duty on various ships and numerous awards and decorations. “It’s exciting. I’m looking forward to it,” Fordice said Tuesday from the USS Santa Fe at the Naval Submarine Base in New London, Conn., where he’s now stationed.
“You work for a long time to do anything, especially in the Navy. There’s a pretty set career path you go through to become a commissioned officer and finally a commanding officer, and you have to do well in all those jobs. I’ve been fortunate enough to fool them all, to make them tink I’m good,” he said with a laugh.
Fordice will command the ship for the next 2 1/2 years, relieving its first commander, Rodger Krull. The command changes every 2 1/2 to three years.
“It’s a big deal for him,” said Fordice’s mother, Mary Catherine Fordice. “That’s a big responsibility. He’s in charge of the whole ship. he’s the top dog.”
Fordice’s father, Jim E. Fordice, was equally proud.
“He’s an excellent officer, very intelligent and right for the job,” said the elder Fordice, 59. James E Fordice is a retired lieutenant commander in the Navy and former naval aviator. His last duty station was Albuquerque before he retired in 1977. He and his wife and some of their six children still live in Albuquerque.
“It’s a major occasion in his career,” Jim E. Fordice said of his sin’s new role. “Any command of anything is a big occasion in an officer’s career in the Navy. It means he has an excellent chance of getting promoted and moving on to better jobs.”
As commanding officer of the USS Santa Fe, Jim Michael Fordice will command the ship from its home port of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, starting in March 1995. The ship is one of about 80 nuclear submarines in U.S. ports.
The ship’s weaponry includes MK-48 torpedoes, Harpoon cruise missles and Tomahawk missiles to attack land-based targets.
The USS Santa Fe’s missions range from training and intelligence gathering to preparing for war and laying mines.
During war, one of the ship’s roles would be to find and sink enemy submarines and fire Tomahawk missiles at land-based targets, like during Desert Storm.
All are weighty responsibilities for a kid from Albuquerque whose only job in high school was working as a bag boy at the Globe Supermarket at Lomas and Louisiana Northeast.
“I am completely responsible for everything that happens on the ship, whether I know about it in advance or not,” Fordice says. “The authority is also absolute: What I say goes.”
Fordice said his biggest challenge on the ship will be training.
“Thers’s a large turnover of the crew on a pretty constant basis,” he said. “We have to have people stand watch on the ship, and you have to keep them familiar with what they need to do to run a ship.
The USS Santa Fe has a 142-person crew: 128 enlisted sailors and 14 officers.
Fordice said he’ll be a good master of both the human and mechanical dynamics of running the ship, which he said is “probably the most complex piece of equipment ever built anywhere.”
“I’m a technically sound individule,” Fordice said. “And I understand how to work with people, how to lead them, how to plan.”
Only Fordice, the commanding officer, and the executive officer have their own staterooms. Fordice says his room has about 50 square feet of floor space -- and that’s considered big for a submarine.
For entertainment, the ship is stocked with about 400 videotaped movies (in space-saving 8-millimeter cassette-size versions), from old John Wayne flicks to new releases.
Eighteen Fordice family members and relatives were to be on hand for today’s change-of-command ceremonies in New London.
Besides Fordice’s parents, his family includes his wife, the former Elaine Marie Sanchez of Albuquerque, and the couple’s daughter, Michelle, 7: his paternal grandmother, Pauline Fordice: sisters, Maripat Glover and Sharon Fordice: and brother, Paul Fordice of San Francisco. Cmdr. Fordice’s two other brothers, Matthew and Mark, work in Albuquerque and were unable to attend.

Also from the Paper:

CMDR. JIM FORDICE
- Born April 13 1955, in Pensacola, Fla.
- Moved with his family to Albuquerque in 1971.
- Graduated from St. Pius High School in 1973 as salutatorian.
- Graduated from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro in 1978. Earned bachelor of science in mathematics and physics.
- Entered the Navy in 1978 through the Nuclear Propulsion Candidate program and was commissioned at Officer Candidate School at Newport, R.I.: graduated forth in his class.
- Assignments: USS Sunfish, USS Henry Clay, USS L. Mendel Rivers, USS Narwhal, USS Santa Fe.
- Recent assignment: Officer Affairs Assistant for the deputy director of Naval Reactors in Washington, D.C.
- Awards and decorations: the Meritorious Service Medal, the Navy Commendation Medal (three awards); the Navy Achievement Medal (two awards), the Navy Expeditionary Medal and others.