Admiral Ben Moreell (September 14, 1892 – July 30, 1978) was the chief of the U.S. Navy's Bureau of Yards and Docks and of the Civil Engineer Corps. Best known to the American public as the Father of the Navy's Seabees, Moreell's life spanned eight decades, two world wars, a great depression and the evolution of the United States as a superpower. He was a distinguished Naval Officer, a brilliant engineer, an industrial giant and articulate national spokesman. As a young civil engineer with a Bachelor of Science degree from Washington University, St. Louis (1913), he chose to defend his country by joining the ranks of the Navy during World War I. He was commissioned in June 1917 as a Lieutenant (junior grade) in the Navy's Civil Engineer Corps and spent the next 30 years in the service of h