Deputy Chief of the Romanian Naval Forces

Rear Admiral
Marcel NECULAE

RDML Marcel NECULAE was born in 1972 in Vacareni, Tulcea County, Romania. He graduated from the “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” Naval High School in 1990, and the ”Mircea cel Batran” Romanian Naval Academy in 1995, with a diploma of Engineering in Navigation, Bridge Equipment and Hydrography.

After graduation, he began his military career as executive officer on board of a river minesweeper and later, in 1996, he was appointed as commanding officer, then CO of a riverine patrol boat. From 2001 to 2008 he was successively assigned as the executive officer, then as commanding officer of a river patrol boat and later as head of operations office of the Riverine Patrol Boats Squadron. From 2008 to 2010, he attended the Command College of the National Defence University “Carol I” in Bucharest. After graduation he was appointed as head of Operations and Training of the Riverine Artillery Ships Squadron. In the period of 2012-2014, he took the position of Head of Operations Office of the (Maritime) Fleet. Between 2014 – 2017 he was subsequently assigned as Head of Combat Capabilities Office and Section in the Navy Headquarters. Back to Fleet duties, in 2017 he was appointed as Commanding Officer of 67th Artillery Ships Squadron.

Since 2020, RDML Neculae took Navy decision positions, first as Deputy Commander of Naval Operational Command, then Commander of the Riverine Flotilla, receiving the rank of Rear Admiral in December 2022, and recently he has been appointed in his current position, as Deputy Chief of the Navy, since 1 September 2023.

Rear Admiral Neculae took the Artillery and Missile Specialization Course in 2002, then he graduated from Joint Maritime Operations Course and Rule of low and Disciplined Military Operations for Maritime Officers (SUA, 2007). He has also graduated Common Security and Defence Policy Course (Romania, 2016), Conflict Management and Negotiation Course (Romania, 2016), Law of Armed Conflict Course (Romania, 2017), Naval Command College (SUA, 2017), Communication and Public Relations for Commanding Officers Course (Romania, 2018), Strategic Communication in the Context of Security and Defence (Romania, 2021) and, lastly, the “Combined Force Maritime Component Commander(CFMCC) Flag Course-22-5C” (Napoli/Italia, 2022).

He is married to Gabriela, with one daughter, Alexandria.