Captain Dianna Wolfson will become the first female commander of a Navy shipyard when she takes the helm of Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility June 12 at 10 a.m.

Wolfson relieves Capt. Howard Markle, who has commanded PSNS & IMF and its 15,000-plus employees and Sailors since Aug. 7, 2015. Hundreds of shipyard employees and invited guests from the community are expected to attend the event, held in the shipyard’s historic building 460 at the east end of the shipyard, near the Bremerton ferry terminal.

Wolfson was commissioned in 1996 and has served in a wide variety of ship and shore assignments, including aboard the USS George Washington and the USS Carl Vinson.

Wolfson’s shore assignments included Portsmouth Naval Shipyard; Commander, Naval Forces Atlantic; Norfolk Naval Shipyard; and the Navy’s Supervisor of Shipbuilding office in Newport News, Virginia. She comes to PSNS & IMF from Norfolk Naval Shipyard, where she served as the command’s operations officer.

Markle has presided over a period of significant expansion at the shipyard, with the addition of more than 2,000 employees during his command, the release states. In December 2018, the shipyard received the Robert T. Mason Award for Depot Maintenance Excellence during his tenure, which is the Department of Defense’s highest honor for depot-level maintenance.

His next assignment will be on the executive staff of the Commander, Naval Sea Systems Command, in Washington D.C. Vice Adm. Thomas Moore will preside over the ceremony.