San Diego Padres promote Terezka Zabka to general counsel

The San Diego Padres have a new top lawyer. The Padres have elevated associate general counsel Terezka Zabka to their top legal role after promoting former general counsel Caroline Perry to chief operating officer in January.

Dodgers deputy general counsel Daniel Martens has also been promoted to replace Santiago “Sam” Fernandez, who initially joined the team in 1983 and stepped down earlier this year as general counsel.

Zabka, 33, joined the Padres as an associate general counsel in 2021 after spending six years at Viasat.

“I believe in making your own luck—but it’s important to be open to opportunities that come your way and see everything as a learning opportunity,” Zabka said. “You don’t know where it will take you, and all the experience you get only makes you a more well-rounded attorney that can add value in more ways.”

Her predecessor, Perry, has worked for the Padres since 2011 after spending time as an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore and Davis Polk & Wardwell. Perry’s promotion to COO makes her one of the highest-ranking women in Major League Baseball.

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Rear Adm. Bruce Gillingham, the Navy’s 39th Surgeon General, celebrated the culmination of 40 years of active-duty service at a retirement ceremony at the Uniformed Services University late last month.

During his tenure as Surgeon General, Gillingham, a San Diego native, led approximately 44,000 Navy medical personnel through the U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery’s (BUMED) most comprehensive transformation since World War II.

Gillingham oversaw a shift in mission from oversight of military treatment facility-based care to expeditionary, operational support, and directed BUMED’s 2023 Campaign Order which prioritizes support of distributed maritime operations, expeditionary advanced basing operations and logistics operations in contested environments. The order realigned Navy Medicine commands to ensure the enterprise is postured to better deliver agile, scalable and fully certified medical units.

Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Gilday, who presided over the ceremony, thanked Gillingham for his leadership. “He has optimized Navy Medicine to project medical power in support of naval superiority,” Gilday said. “He’s done so by unifying Navy Medicine, bringing the hospital side and the operational side together to make “One Navy Medicine.” Thanks to his leadership, this unified medical team has fully shifted its focus to supporting our operational and expeditionary mission.”

Gillingham also led Navy Medicine’s COVID-19 response operations which included nearly 190 operational missions

“Unsung heroes, like our preventive and public health medical experts, medical researchers, laboratorians, infectious disease doctors, respiratory technicians and critical care teams stepped into the breach, not only for the Navy, but for our Nation, said Gillingham. “They were the engine that projected medical power for naval superiority, and I will be forever grateful for their expertise and dedication.”