Senen Ubiña ’15 spoke to Upper Schoolers about his journey to the U.S. Naval Academy and his five years of service as a U.S. Marine — including the lessons he learned after taking on his first leadership role at the young age of 23.

Ubiña, brother of Alberto ’28 and Julio ’27, told students that he first took command of an infantry platoon at Camp LeJeune, North Carolina, in June 2020.

“I was responsible for training, discipline, and combat readiness,” he said. “For the first time, leadership stopped being abstract.

“So I had that unique responsibility for the first 18 months of my career,” he continued.

“My sole focus was to lead, train, and execute with 40 guys. I was then promoted, and I was second in command of a unit of 200 infantrymen.”

Ubiña said the unit deployed to Sweden to help prepare that country to join NATO and train the Swedish military to defend itself in the event of a Russian invasion.

“At the center of all this is something I didn’t fully understand when I was sitting in your shoes,” Ubiña said. “Leadership is not sustained by talent, ambition, or even motivation. It’s sustained by knowing why you are willing to carry responsibility, especially when things get hard.”   

Ubiña said his path to the military and his own willingness to take on responsibility started as a middle and high school athlete.

Back then, he said, he was not the fastest or the strongest, but he had the time and willingness to “do the work.” 

“And when the work paid off, the confidence that came with it was different,” he said.

“No one can take it away from me, because I had earned it. That was my first lesson in leadership. Before you can lead anyone else, you have to learn how to hold yourself to a standard.”

During his senior year at The Academy, Ubiña was honored to be selected to become a U.S. Marine.

“When disaster strikes and the stakes are high, Marines run toward danger,” he said.

“They prioritize hard things, embrace discomfort, and emphasize courage above all else.”

Ubiña concluded with a quote from Holocaust survivor and author Viktor Frankl: “A man who is conscious of the responsibility he bears towards a human being or to unfinished work will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the why for his existence, and he will be able to bear any how.”

Ubiña returned to civilian life in 2024 and now works as an investment banking analyst at JPMorganChase.