Chairman, Senate Armed Services (SASC) Subcommittee on Seapower

Senator Rick Scott, R-Florida

Responsibilities

The Subcommittee on Seapower has jurisdiction over Navy planning and operations policy, as well as programs, including space, cyber, nuclear weapons, and special operations. It also oversees Marine Corps planning and operations policy and programs, including cyber, space, and special operations.

Quote

“In the last five years, 41 ships were delivered to the Navy. Of those 41 ships, only four were delivered on time and on budget. That’s 9.7 percent. I’m a business guy. I’ve built businesses. No one would consider less than 10 percent success acceptable. In the private sector, something would have changed,” said Scott during a Seapower Subcommittee hearing in April (2025).

Committees

• Member of the Senate Committee on Armed Services; Senate Foreign Relations Committee; and Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, among others.
• Serves on the following subcommittees: Seapower; Personnel; Readiness and Management Support; Emerging Threats and Spending Oversight; and Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, among others.

• Chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging. Following Scott’s appointment to the position, the committee’s office released a statement saying that Scott would “continue his fight to ensure the long-term survival of important programs like Medicare and Social Security. Reckless government spending has put these, and other, important programs at risk and he (Scott) will continue to work with his colleagues to find solutions that will protect and preserve these programs for generations to come.” 

Military Career

Served in the Navy for more than two years as a radar technician aboard the U.S.S. Glover frigate. 

Political/Professional Career

• Elected to the US Senate in 2018.
• Became the 45th governor of Florida in 2010. Served two terms.
• Founded the Solantic Corporation in 2001, a chain of walk-in urgent centers that he sold in 2011 following his election as governor. 
• Started Richard L. Scott Investments in 1997. Based in Naples, Fla., the investment company focused largely on healthcare, fitness and wellness, and transaction processing payments sectors.
• CEO of Columbia/HCA, a nationwide network of hospitals, surgery centers and health care units, which by 1997, had become the largest healthcare provider in America. 
• Made partner at Johnson & Swanson, a Dallas-based law firm in 1987.

Education

Southern Methodist University, JD degree in 1978. 

Personal 

• Son of Gordon Myers and Esther (née Fry) Myers, Scott was born Richard Lynn Myers on Dec. 1,1952. Following his parents divorce, his mother married Orba Scott, Jr., moving to Kansas, MO. By the time Scott graduated from North Kansas City High School in 1970, he had changed his last name to that of his adoptive father.

• Scott and his wife, Ann, make their home in Naples. Married for 52 years, they have two daughters and several grandchildren.