NoVA CEO to be nominated for U.S. Navy secretary

Carlos Del Toro, president and CEO of Alexandria-based defense contractor SBG Technology Solutions, will be nominated to become secretary of the U.S. Navy, President Joe Biden announced Friday.

If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Del Toro will be the second Latino man to serve as head of the U.S. Department of the Navy, after Edward Hidalgo held the position in the Carter administration. He has led SBG Technology Solutions for 17 years and served in the Navy for 22 years. Del Toro was senior executive assistant to the director for program analysis and evaluation in the Department of Defense secretary’s office as a civilian, and he concluded his military career as the first commanding officer of the guided missile destroyer USS Bulkeley.

A Havana native, Del Toro immigrated from Cuba to the U.S. with his family as refugees in 1962 and grew up in New York City. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis and was the first Hispanic president of the White House Fellows Foundation and Alumni Association. Del Toro was recently appointed to the Naval Academy Alumni Association’s Special Commission on Culture, Diversity and Inclusion. He also holds master’s degrees from the Naval War College and George Washington University and lives in the Mount Vernon area with his wife, Betty.

“My friend Carlos Del Toro will make an excellent U.S. Navy secretary,” U.S. Sen. Mark Warner said in a statement. “There’s no one better qualified or better equipped, and I know he’ll do our country proud.”