Commanding Officer
Hopper Global Communications Center
Captain James Pendergast assumed command of the Hopper Global Communications Center in June 2021. He was previously assigned to Commander, Naval Forces Japan as the assistant chief of staff for intelligence and information operations.
Pendergast graduated with a Bachelor of Science in criminal justice from Saint Thomas Aquinas College in 1992 and was commissioned as an intelligence officer through Navy Officer Candidate School in 1997.
His operational assignments include duty with Fleet Air Reconnaissance Two (VQ-2) in Rota, Spain; assistant intelligence officer, Commander, Task Force Seventy (CTF-70) aboard USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63) and USS George Washington (CVN 73), forward-deployed to Yokosuka, Japan; and assistant chief of staff for intelligence, Commander, Naval Forces Korea.
Pendergast’s staff assignments include duty as a watch officer and briefer in the Office of Naval Intelligence's Chief of Naval Operations Intelligence Plot; special assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations; director of operations at the Southern Region Joint Operational Intelligence Center in Naples, Italy; and operations officer and plans chief for the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Operations Center. He served as the crisis response branch chief and vice deputy director for analysis and warning, intelligence directorate of the Joint Staff.
Pendergast is a graduate of the U.S. Naval War College and the U.S. National War College.