Biography

 

Captain(N) Craig Baines, a native of Comox, British Columbia, enrolled in the Canadian Forces Regular Officer Training Program in 1987. He graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1988 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. After completing initial naval training in Victoria BC, he served as a bridge watch-keeping officer in HMCS SAGUENAY, transferring back to the West Coast in 1990 to serve as Deck Officer in HMCS THUNDER.

Captain(N) Baines specialized in navigation over the next several years, completing the Navy’s Destroyer Navigation Officer course in 1991, which led to navigation tours in HMCS CHIGNECTO and HMCS ANNAPOLIS. He graduated from the Maritime Advanced Navigation Officer Course in 1992, and following a shore tour in Saskatoon, as Staff Officer Administration and Training at HMCS UNICORN, he served as Navigation Officer of HMCS PROVIDER from 1996-97. Following the year-long Operations Officer Course in 1998, he served as operations officer in HMCS REGINA and combat officer in HMCS WINNIPEG.

Following these warfare tours he completed an exchange tour in Norfolk, Virginia with the US Navy’s Second Fleet as a Maritime Operations Officer. While on exchange he completed the US Naval War College program and a graduate certificate program in the history of strategy and policy at Old Dominion University. Upon returning to Canada in 2003, he attended the Canadian Forces Staff College in Toronto where he completed his Master of Defence Studies.

Returning to sea in 2004, he served as Executive Officer of HMCS CALGARY. In December 2005, he was transferred to National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa where he worked in both the Directorate of Maritime Training and Education and as the Maritime Staff Director of Strategic Communications.

He returned to sea in the summer of 2007 when he was appointed Commanding Officer of HMCS WINNIPEG. In June 2009, after a busy period working with the Standing NATO Maritime Group One on a counter-piracy mission off the Horn of Africa, he relinquished command to proceed on language training. He recently received the Meritorious Service Cross for his leadership as Commanding Officer of HMCS WINNIPEG during WINNIPEG’s counter – piracy mission.

Captain(N) Baines took over as the Base Commander of Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt on 06 July 2010.