<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There are five United States Federal Academies – the United States Military Academy at West Point, The United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, The United States Coast Guard Academy at New London, The United States Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, and The United States Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point (USMMA). Of the five, four typically have one of their own graduates serving as academy superintendent. Only USMMA sends its midshipmen into war zones – on ships laden with beans, bullets and bunker oil for our military – yet it most often has someone other than one of its own grads as superintendent.<\/p>\n
142 of our cadets were lost at sea during World War Two. We are the only one of the academies authorized to have a battle standard replete with pennants from the battles in which we participated. We are the only academy whose graduates are licensed to serve as officers and who graduate with reserve officer commissions in the USNR, USMCR, USAR, USAFR or USCGR.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, we are also the one academy whose superintendent is most often not chosen from among its own graduates. This is unfair to the brave men and women who will serve as cadets or as officers aboard our ships in the next war's battle zone.<\/p>\n
We, the undersigned, ask that you please take an active part in promoting a Kings Point graduate to be our next USMMA Superintendent. Our midshipmen deserve a leader who has sailed on his\/her license, who knows our traditions and understands the future needs of our nation.<\/p>\n
Respectfully,<\/em><\/p>\n Kings Point Class of 1975, co-signatories, family and friends<\/em><\/p>\n Kevin Coulson<\/em><\/p>\n Mike Morris<\/em><\/p>\n Mark G. Baranello<\/em><\/p>\n Larry Kelly<\/em><\/p>\n Russ Bauer<\/em><\/p>\n Neal McCraw<\/em><\/p>\n Steve Ackley<\/em><\/p>\n Robert C. Baldwin<\/em><\/p>\n Larry Cosgriff<\/em><\/p>\n Thomas Heffernan<\/em><\/p>\n Joseph Dixon<\/em><\/p>\n Nick Weltmann <\/em><\/p>\n Peter DeChadenedes<\/em><\/p>\n Warren Heidt<\/em><\/p>\n Michael Masciale<\/em><\/p>\n John ReShore<\/em><\/p>\n Don Fogel<\/em><\/p>\n Bill Vallaster<\/em><\/p>\n Richard Bense<\/em><\/p>\n Mark Brannigan<\/em><\/p>\n Jeffrey Hakala<\/em><\/p>\n Frederick Leo Ebers<\/em><\/p>\n Skip Dubrin<\/em><\/p>\n Donald Pastor<\/em><\/p>\n Eddie G. Maxwell<\/em><\/p>\n Robert Baldwin<\/em><\/p>\n Keene Little<\/em><\/p>\n Clifford Jagoe<\/em><\/p>\n Frank Atcheson<\/em><\/p>\n Kenneth Nelson<\/em><\/p>\n Chris Nelson<\/em><\/p>\n Mike Corney<\/em><\/p>\n Robert Herman<\/em><\/p>\n Jim Knoepffler<\/em><\/p>\n Donal L. Staples Jr.<\/em><\/p>\n Stuart Pitts<\/em><\/p>\n Charlie Cheatom<\/em><\/p>\n Thomas A. Fedoration<\/em><\/p>\n Frederick C. Berg III<\/em><\/p>\n Thomas A. King<\/em><\/p>\n James Brodt<\/em><\/p>\n Peter Wishart<\/em><\/p>\n Eric Schiller<\/em><\/p>\n Steve Meyers<\/em><\/p>\n Kathleen Tanton<\/em><\/p>\n Mark Brannigan<\/em><\/p>\n Francis X. (Biff) Broderick<\/em><\/p>\n Alan Pelletier<\/em><\/p>\n Gregg Runkel<\/em><\/p>\n Kennett Backus<\/em><\/p>\n Jim Shettig<\/em><\/p>\n Dave Petty<\/em><\/p>\n William Leigh<\/em><\/p>\n Charles Anthony Nunez<\/em><\/p>\n Alexander Barry Williams<\/em><\/p>\n Ken and Debbie Halsall<\/em><\/p>\n maritime-executive<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are five United States Federal Academies – the United States Military Academy at West Point, The United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, The United States Coast Guard Academy at New London, The United States Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs, and The United States Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point (USMMA). Of the five, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":64157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[27657,27656,3785,4655,1449,6692],"class_list":["post-64156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-maritime-news","tag-alum","tag-appoint","tag-oped","tag-run","tag-time","tag-usmma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/64157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}