How Operating a U.S. Navy Submarine is Like Being a Farmer

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Meet Brent Rendel

Brent Rendel grew up on his family’s Oklahoma farm but didn’t think he would become a career farmer. After earning a mechanical engineering degree from Oklahoma State University, he joined the Navy as a nuclear engineer. Serving aboard a submarine, Rendel served his country and saw the world.

When his service was complete, Rendel returned to Oklahoma, went to work for the family metal fabrication business, and eventually joined the family farm. We discuss his time in the military, lessons learned on the farm that helped him in the Navy (and vice-versa), and what brought him back to agriculture.

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Transcript

Please note: This transcript has not been edited.

Lisa Foust Prater: Welcome to a special Veterans Day edition of the 15 Minutes With a Farmer podcast from Successful Farming. I’m your host, Lisa Foust Prater. Today, my guest is Navy veteran Brent Rendel. His family has been farming in Oklahoma since before it was a state. We talk about what led Brent to join the military, how his farm background helped his Navy career, and what made him decide to return to the farm. In each episode, I have a quick 15 minute conversation with a farmer to hear their story. and share their experience, expertise, and life lessons.

Brent Rendel: We’ve been in northeast Oklahoma since before it was Oklahoma. In the late 1890s, we moved to this area, my family did and so my great-grandfather and grandfather and father, you know, grew up on the farm. My dad worked for John Deere. He actually, when he graduated college, went into the Air Force for a few years and then joined John Deere to work with them for a few years. And then the opportunity came for him due to an older gentleman in this area retiring to move back and start farming with my grandfather. So he did when I was about three years old. 

So for me, this is home. This is where I grew up. I really don’t know anywhere else. Grew up on the farm and worked and spent a normal 1970s childhood growing up on the farm. And then graduated high school in ‘82. And still I went to a local junior college, worked on the farm in the summers and weekends and during the year, helping out with harvest then went to Oklahoma State University and got a degree in mechanical engineering. Whenever I was down there would would still spend the summers on the farm and then you know, but you know, in college, my path wasn’t to agriculture, I really didn’t see myself being a farmer, I was much more attracted to engineering and technical type stuff.

Lisa Foust Prater: Mm-hmm. So what makes a kid from Oklahoma, especially a kid who’s already going through college, decide to join the Navy?

Brent Rendel: There are no oceans in Oklahoma. So if I joined the Navy, the odds were really, really good that I would not be in Oklahoma. There was a lot of attraction to me to travel. I wanted to see the world. You know, the advertisements in that day and age.], I know a lot of younger people won’t remember it, but it was ”Join the Navy, see the world.”

Lisa Foust Prater: You know, that’s a very similar reason why my father joined the Navy, a kid from Iowa in the 1960s, and he too got to see the world. So it was definitely a great experience for him as well. So you had already gone to college, and so I assume you were able to enter into the Navy in an advanced role.

Brent Rendel: Yeah, there was a program that was attracting engineers and math and science majors. It was their nuclear engineering program. And when you say nuclear engineering, in most worlds, you’re thinking, you know, building and designing nuclear reactors, but in the Navy world, it’s operating a nuclear power plant to operate the ships. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the weaponry and everything to do with how the ships and submarines in my case, operate. 

And so straight out of college, I had my orders to report to officer candidate school and about four months later, I was an ensign in the US Navy.

Lisa Foust Prater: Fantastic. That is so exciting. So what was your role like in the Navy? Were you on board a ship and what was that like?

Brent Rendel: I could have gone surface ship which would have sent me to a carrier or submarine. The submarine force was more attractive to me. So following graduation from submarine school I reported to the USS Tautog which was a 637 class fast attack submarine. All that means is it’s the kind of submarine that goes out with torpedoes and looks for things, but doesn’t have the missiles that shoot up in the air. 

The Tautog was an older ship built in the 60s, late 60s, but was just coming out of overhaul and was really good ship, rode her around for a few years. I started out as the electrical division officer and then I became the communications officer and for about two years I was the communications officer on board. But on a submarine you’ve got multiple roles. You’ve got a role where you’ve got your the people you’re in charge of and the department you’re in charge of. 

But you also have to work on the submarine. And so I had a job on the submarine, which was typically either the engineering officer or the officer of the deck. So either the officer in charge of the engine room while it’s running for my shift, or the officer in charge of driving around the submarine and actually in charge of the entire submarine, where it goes and what it does. So when one of those two roles were where I would fulfill and that would be a six hour shift.

And then I would get off of that shift and then I would be the communications officer. So then I’m just in charge of communications officer as a department head, kind of like any manager is in any business. But then when it’s time to go to work, I have a specific job to do. 

It’s not unlike farming where you’re trying to manage a farm and you’re trying to manage your employees and you’re trying to buy crops and you’re trying to market your grain, and now I’ve got to get on this tractor and drive for eight or ten or twelve hours. And so you’re in, you’ve got a foot in both worlds. And yes, they’re both farming, but they’re entirely different. And on the submarine, it’s not different. I was the electrical division officer or the communications officer. And I was also the engineering officer to watch or the officer of the deck.

Lisa Foust Prater: That is so fascinating. Your experience in farming maybe helped you in your role in the submarine there. And I’m curious if there were other lessons that you learned growing up on the farm that maybe helped you in the Navy.

Brent Rendel: You know, I learned on the farm to, you know, to plan, but be ready for plans to change, you know, you know, growing up on the farm, I really wasn’t doing a lot of the planning. I was doing a lot of work, the hands on and that occasionally would, or at least on one occasion, got me slightly chastised in the Navy. I was doing a job, we were actually coming into port and when you come into port, you’ve got to get up on the submarine, you have people who are handling the ropes and the lines getting tied everything off and then you’ve got people who are observing and keeping track of what’s going on and making sure everybody’s doing the right thing.

I was in the supervisory role where I’m watching everybody. As well, I’m not alone. There are other people there. And my commanding officer is also up there.and we’re getting very close to the pier and the guys are working and they’re handling ropes and one of the ropes is laying there and it needs to get tossed over just just moved so I start walking over and my hand no sooner touches that rope when my my commanding officer Captain Talbot says RENDAL DROP THAT ROPE! What yeah yes sir okay so I do and and he says Ensign Rendal you’re supervising. If you’re handling that rope, no one is supervising. And it really taught me, know, on the farm you just want to just jump in and do it. And so there was a case where, you know, that just jump in and do it. A job needs done, let’s do it.

Well, that was a case where I was learning, you know, early on in my in my career as a Navy officer. Sometimes you don’t want to do what you’ve always done. And, you know, I’ve also carried that forward as best I could and remember, try to remember, if I’m in charge of supervising what’s going on, try not to do very much of it. And there’s a time to do both. But but, you know, keep those roles distinct.

Lisa Foust Prater: So when you were serving and when you were onboard the submarine and moving around the world, tell us about some of your ports of call or some of the more interesting or exotic places that you were able to see.

Brent Rendel: When I was on active duty on the submarine, we went to Japan and Singapore and Hong Kong, I was a west coast sailor, we were stationed out of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. So starting was Hawaii. You know, and, you know, I spent three years on active duty in Hawaii. And then I was still on active duty and then went to Idaho to be an instructor at that same school where I spent time as a student. 

Then got out but I stayed active in the reserves.and in the reserves I also spent a lot of time in Hawaii and after the events of 9-11 I got recalled to active duty in the reserves and spent a year on active duty in Hawaii again. 

So while a lot of people like to go to Hawaii on vacation it has it’s just a place I’ve been and yes it’s a really big city with nice weather is what I always tell people. It’s okay but you know I did get to see a lot of the Pacific theater in the reserves. I went to Thailand as well as back to Japan. Japan is one of my favorite places I’ve ever been. It’s like I say, it’s very receptive. It’s very inviting. It’s very different from the world that I’ve been in. But yeah, I did enjoy that part of being in the Navy, the travel and seeing people.

Lisa Foust Prater: So after you left the military, you did come back home to farm full time, even though that was not your original plan. I’m curious about that transition and also sort of the the lessons, we talked some about some of the lessons that you learned in the Navy that you’re still using today on the farm, but tell us about that transition going back to farm full time after the Navy.

Brent Rendel: Well, after I got off active duty, came, you know, step back a sec, you know, whenever I went, got out of college, the last thing I wanted to do was live in Oklahoma in small Northeast Oklahoma town. And whenever I got off active duty, the only thing I wanted to do was come back home to Oklahoma. But I didn’t farm. 

Whenever I came back, we had at that time a small family business that was involved in steel fabrication and designing machinery just for the local area for a few local businesses, because in a lot of small towns, you know, they, the businesses can’t afford to hire, you know, engineering firms or do their own steel fabrication work. And my father was also a mechanical engineer by by education, and myself. So we would just design and build things, you know, a local business would have a problem. We need something that can do this, whether it just be a cart to carry their their we have a mushroom farm in in our town. And they needed these carts to load their their where they picked the mushrooms and put them in baskets, they needed to load the baskets onto these carts and wheel these carts from the room where they pick the baskets to the room where they where they separate them and grade them and weigh them out.

And so my dad designed and built these racks that were custom made to fit these carts to fit their picking baskets. And so it just took off from there. So when I got out of the Navy, I came and basically took over that business. And we did it for a few years. 

But then an opportunity came up where I was going to be able to to buy into the family farm. And our family farm is somewhat different than a lot of other farms. We own our own farm and our own equipment and our own stuff and we farm our own land. So I wasn’t taking over buying my dad’s farm or my dad’s land or my grandfather’s because my grandfather was farming at that time as was my brother. My brother-in-law was getting out of the farm so I bought his tractor and I took over farming the land that he had. So that let me farm alongside. 

Now we don’t buy three planters and six tractors and multiple combines. We have on the major pieces of equipment, one piece of equipment that we share amongst them. But while one of us may own the combine, another one may buy the tractor and another one may buy the planter and we all share it and use it. But financially we’re separate farms. So in 1996, I was able to join the family farm and start my own money on the line and raise my own crops and have been doing it ever since.

Lisa Foust Prater: It’s interesting how our perspectives change as we live life a little. You know, so many people when they graduate from college or leave the farm think, I’m never coming back here. And then after you get out in the world a little and you live your life, then home doesn’t look so bad.

Brent Rendel: Yeah, in fact, it’s, it’s coming a little bit full circle and it has, you know, my dad, whenever he got out of college, he immediately joined the it was in the Air Force, he was in ROTC. And so he was an Air Force officer. Then after he got out of being an Air Force officer, he went to work for John Deere and worked as a as an engineer for John Deere not on their product line but actually in their their manufacturing plant engineering side but after a few years of that he came back to the farm in Oklahoma. He had sowed his wild oats and came back and you know and I kind of followed the same path.

Well my oldest son when he got out of college joined the Navy. He has been in the Navy for now the past six years and in about two weeks will be home to join the farm.

Lisa Foust Prater: Oh that’s excellent. I love that. Well, your whole family has just been given in service and that’s fantastic. I love that.

Brent Rendel: Yeah, my youngest son is currently a cadet at the United States Air Force Academy and he’s a second year right now. So he’s gonna have a career as an Air Force officer.

Lisa Foust Prater: That is so wonderful. Brent, congratulations on all of your success and thank you so much for your service and to your father and to your sons. It is wonderful to see the legacy in your family, not only in farming, but also in serving in the military and on Veterans Day and every day. We thank you for your service.

Brent Rendel : You are welcome. It is my honor to be able to live and serve in a country that we have.

Lisa Foust Prater: Thank you for listening. Open the latest issue of Successful Farming or visit us online at agriculture.com for more interesting features and news for your farm. Join me next week for another episode of 15 Minutes With a Farmer.