Saluting Watco’s Dale Murray for Military Promotion

Fewer than 1% of U.S. Army officers are selected to be a general. Watco’s Dale Murray has attained this rare achievement, and at a July ceremony in Montgomery, Alabama, he was promoted to the rank of brigadier general.

Murray works out of Alabama as a director of asset management. His role is to help develop processes to ensure the company is making smart long-term decisions about its most critical assets.

His area of focus is with Watco terminals and ports, an area that’s long been familiar to him. He joined Watco in 2016, working with terminals on the Mississippi, Ohio, and Tennessee rivers as an operations assistant vice president. Prior to that, he spent 10 years in a similar operations role with Kinder Morgan.

Murray’s military career began when he commissioned into the Active Army through Auburn University’s Reserve Officer Training Corps program. He commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant out of Auburn, went into the active Army for 9½ years, and then entered the National Guard in 2006. That’s also when he started in the river transportation industry, with Kinder Morgan. Along the way, he earned a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Memphis and graduated from the U.S. Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama.

In addition to his promotion to brigadier general, Murray has assumed a new National Guard role. He will serve as assistant division commander for support for the 29th Infantry Division. In this role, he will lead efforts “to organize units, people, and processes to ensure that the division has the protection, supplies, and posture to execute largescale combat operations.” There are close to 25,000 soldiers in the division.

Murray has found that his military and Watco roles complement each other. “One of the things I think I learned at Watco that’s applicable to the Army is how to work with the team that you have and find ways to succeed. You have to work really hard t o build consensus across people who don’t necessarily work for you. That skill from Kinder Morgan and Watco has really helped me in the military. Skills from the military that help me in my Watco career: organization, being able to focus groups on important goals, and synthesizing a lot of information to get to the most important, critical parts.”

Murray expresses his gratitude for the support received from Watco. “Forty percent of the combat forces in the United States Army are in the Army National Guard. The guard can’t defend the nation unless companies around the country enable and support their soldiers to do that service. I’m incredibly grateful to Watco for their support of my military career and for the flexibility they give me to serve our nation.”

Learn more about Watco’s program for transitioning service members.