Lt Cdr R Dougie Bell RN

Lieutenant Commander Dougie Bell Royal Navy joined UKMTO (Dubai) in January 2022 as a senior maritime operations manager with circa 34-years of RN service as well as a few years managing projects in industry.

A seaman officer and principal warfare officer by trade who has served in several surface warships; Dougie qualified in naval mine-warfare and clearance-diving in 1988, before commanding three of the RN’s bomb-disposal units around the UK in the 90s and noughties. He has served with standing NATO maritime groups in the Baltic, North Sea, Atlantic and Mediterranean on three occasions, working alongside numerous maritime nations.

Dougie first deployed to the Arabian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman in the late 1980s to clear post-conflict, naval mines under an international construct. Between 2008 and 2013, he managed Middle East operations within the RN’s FLEET Operations Head-Quarters, and, he was the Principal Joint Head-Quarter’s (PJHQ UK) maritime desk-officer for the Middle East. Both roles had working relationships with UKMTO as it was then. Dougie has also served as the desk officer for the Principal Joint Operating Bases (PJOBs) in Gibraltar as well as Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, whilst attached to the then Commander Joint Operations (CJO) HQ.

More recently, Dougie was Chief of Staff of the UK’s Mine Counter-Measures Force, at sea, undergoing two tours working for the US CTF 52 and UK Maritime Component Commander (UKMCC) in Bahrain. He has participated in Gulf and Indian Ocean focussed operations and exercises with numerous coalition partners. In 2015, Dougie oversaw multi-national security operations within the Red Sea, Bab-Al-Mandeb (BAM) and Gulf of Aden (GoA) following the Houthis activity in Aden.

After an interlude managing projects and procurement programme requirements; Dougie is delighted to have returned to the United Arab Emirates to take up the role of leading UKMTO (Dubai) and working closely with the Maritime Trade. 

He has been joined in Dubai by his wife Sandy and their two German Shepherd Dogs (GSDs), who have welcomed the warmth of Dubai over the cold and wet winters of Scotland, UK.  Dougie is an all-round motor vehicle enthusiast who enjoys rugby, diving, model-engineering, a hint of squash and a recent rennaisance in dinghy sailing.