Rear Admiral Roger Spreen was born in Indiana and grew up in Sidney, Ohio. He graduated from Sidney High School in 1938. Spreen attended and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1942. He received a degree in mechanical engineering from the Naval Post Graduate School and a master’s degree in metallurgical engineering from the Carnegie Institute of Technology. He also received a master’s degree in business administration from George Washington University and was a graduate of both the Industrial College of the Armed Forces and the British Joint Services Staff College.
During World War II, he served in the Pacific with Adm. Arleigh Burke’s famed “Little Beaver” destroyer squadron. He commanded a destroyer escort in Korean waters during the war there, and a destroyer squadron in Vietnamese waters from 1967 to 1968.
Adm. Spreen also had taken part in the 1958 Navy-Marine expedition to Lebanon, commanded a destroyer off Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis, and commanded a carrier task group in the Mediterranean. He had commissioned the Farragut, an early guided-missile destroyer, held staff posts in Europe, and had been director of Navy Management Information Systems. He retired from active duty in 1974 as commander of the Naval Ordnance Command.
His Navy decorations included the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star Medal with combat V, the Meritorious Service Medal and the Navy Commendation Medal with combat V.
From 1974 until his death, he was a consultant with the Applied Physics Laboratory, where he was a theoretician in the development and successful deployment of the Aegis combat system. Many of his Navy posts had concerned technical weaponry research and development.
He had served on the board of the Navy Relief Society and was a member of the Army Navy Country Club and several engineering societies.