Major General
William E. Potts

Major General William E. PottsWilliam Estel Potts was born in Nashville, Tennessee, on 9 December 1925. Among his several brothers, one has been an Air Force officer and another is a retired Army Sergeant Major. He played halfback on his high school football team in Columbus, Tennessee, and it won the state championship. He studied at Vanderbilt University on a football scholarship, concentrating in the areas of marketing and business management. In 1955, his Vanderbilt team went to the Gator Bowl, where they defeated Auburn. General Potts has since maintained a strong and active interest in sports activities. While at Vanderbilt, General Potts entered the ROTC and graduated with a reserve commission in the Transportation Corps in 1958.

Following completion of the basic transportation course at Fort Eustis, he was sent to Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, for the thirteen-week technical course in the Service (now Metalworking) Section. He then remained at the Ordnance School as commander of the 7th Enlisted Training Company, School Troops. He attended Airborne School at Fort Benning, Georgia, from 1961 to 1962. Integrated into the Regular Army in 1961, he rose to captain while serving with the lOlst Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. At Fort Campbell, he was successively shop officer for the 801st Maintenance Battalion, company commander of Company B and then Company A of the 801st, and finally adjutant and company commander for Headquarters, Division Support Command of the 101st Airborne. Captain Potts then went to Vietnam in 1964 as a maintenance and supply advisor attached to I Corps.

Potts returned to Aberdeen for his third tour there, this time as instructor and then as Chief of the Mobility Training Department for the Ordnance School. In 1967, by then a major, he was detailed to Monterey, California, to attend the Defense Language Institute as a student of Turkish in preparation for an assignment as Assistant Military Attache in that country. This course was followed by a six month course in intelligence in Washington, and in July 1968 Major Potts began a highly productive three­and-a-half year tour in Ankara. Promotion to lieutenant colonel came in July 1970, and in the fall of 1971, he was sent to Fort Leavenworth to attend the Command and General Staff course. Upon completion of his studies in 1972, he went to Korea for service as commander of the 702nd Maintenance Battalion of the 2d Infantry Division.

In 1974, he completed a master's degree in Public Administration at Middle Tennessee State University. He then went to Washington, where for several years he served as Chief of the Ordnance/Chemical Assignment Branch, Officer Personnel Directorate, Military Personnel Center at the Pentagon, and later as the Chief of the Ordnance Branch there. He completed the course at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces in 1977, in which year he was also promoted to full colonel. In the next three years, he was successively Logistics Staff Officer in the Readiness Directorate, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics at the Pentagon; Commander, Division Support Command, 82d Airborne Division; and Executive Officer in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Logistics.

Promoted to brigadier general in April 1981, General Potts was then named Deputy Commanding General for Readiness and then Deputy Commanding General for Research and Development at the US Army Missile Command, Huntsville, Alabama. Following a one year tour as Director of Readiness at the U.S. Army Materiel Development and Readiness Command in Alexandria, Virginia, General Potts received his second star, and in November, 1983, was named commanding general of the Army's Ordnance Center and School at Aberdeen Proving Ground. He was formally appointed to the reconstituted office of Chief of Ordnance on 28 October 1985, the first to hold that proud and historic position in over twenty-three years.

General Potts' tenure as Chief of Ordnance was marked by improvements in unit and individual training, improved methods of identifying and securing the best qualified men and women to serve as Ordnance Officers (including improvements in ROTC training and officer procurement), and the stimulation of in terest among warrant officer candidates in technical career fields. He also oversaw the development of a full-scale training program for warrant officers and the revision of the Ordnance Officer Advanced Course to more accurately reflect the demands being placed upon ordnance leadership in the modern Army.

In the area of combat developments, ongoing studies of unit readiness, recovery capabilities, maintenance productivity, support, and readiness, and of support operations plans and concepts posed new challenges to the Ordnance Corps in the school room and in the field. The concept of a master diagnostician who was to provide improved battlefield maintenance support, was developed and implemented. The U.S. Army Ordnance Center and School systematically evaluated the performance of its graduates, and incorporated its findings in to the ongoing instructional program. That program was also enhanced by the expansion and upgrading of the School's physical plant during General Potts' tenure.

The Ordnance Corps was the first of the combat support and service branches of the Army to secure approval of its plans for integration into the Army's new Regimental System in October 1985. General Potts also succeeded in getting a single Ordnance Enlisted Assignment Branch established at the Military Personnel Center at the Pentagon. The Ordnance Center and School also produced increasing quantities of doctrinal literature. Considerable emphasis was placed on standardization, both within Ordnance, in cooperation with other branches of the Army and other servies, and to some extent in conjunction with other NATO forces, notably those of Great Britain and West Germany. Finally, mention must be made of the advent of automation, which greatly facilitated and expedited the work of the Ordnance Center and School faculty and staff. Thus the Ordnance Center and School was contributing to the continual modernization of the Ordnance Corps as it entered its 175th year of seruinp the line with excellence. General Potts was transferred to Ankara, Turkey, as Chief, Joint United States Military Mission for Aid to Turkey in June, 1986. He retired from the Army on 29 July 1986 and entered private business.