John Fitzgerald is the former Assistant Commandant and Commandant of Cadets at the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut. He retired in the Summer of 2012 after serving as the Coast Guard Academy's Chief of Personnel and Support Services. Fitzgerald holds the rank of captain. After graduating from Chaminade High School in Mineola, New York, he attended the Coast Guard Academy in 1987 where he earned a bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering. Upon graduation, Fitzgerald served as a Deck Watch Officer on board the USCGC Midgett homeported in Alameda, California. Following his service on board Midgett, he was assigned as Commanding Officer of Coast Guard LORAN Station on Kure Atoll, Hawaii. He then served as a controller at the USCG District 9 Command Center. He then returned to sea as the Weapons Officer on board USCGC Hamilton. In 1994, he was selected by the Coast Guard to attend Boston University where he earned a master's degree in Mass Communications and then reported to Juneau, Alaska to serve as the Seventeenth Coast Guard District Public Affairs Officer. From 1997-2000 He served concurrently as the Atlantic Area and Fifth Coast Guard District Public Affairs Officer in Portsmouth, Virginia. As PAO, he supervised nine public affairs specialists and the office generated over 750 press releases and developed a prototype web site that served as the Coast Guard standard. Under his guidance, he and his staff earned two consecutive Commander Jim Simpson Awards for overall excellence as the highest performing Public Affairs unit in the Coast Guard. It was during this tour that he served as on-scene communications director under Admiral Larrabee for the multi-agency search and recovery efforts after the tragic plane crash of John F. Kennedy Jr. Fitzgerald was personally recognized as a recipient of the Coast Guard's Alex Haley Award for authorship. He has been published in Proceedings, Science Technology, Sailing and Alaska Fisherman's Journal and Coast Guard Foundation’s book, Coast Guard. From 2008-2010, Fitzgerald served as Press Secretary for the Principal Federal Official reporting to the White House and Secretary of Homeland Security for all hurricane and disaster relief efforts in FEMA Region VI. In August 2010, Fitzgerald served as Chief of External Affairs for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill response. He led over 100 public affairs personnel from over 25 federal, state and local agencies conducting media relations, community relations, governmental affairs, social media and VIP escorts. In 2000, he returned to sea again to serve as the Executive Officer of the USCGC Legare. While on Legare, the ship completed numerous operational missions including a three-month deployment to the Mediterranean and Black Seas where the Legare conducted exercises with the Navy's Sixth Fleet as well as fostering relations and training with maritime services in the region. He also supervised five search and rescue cases including the highly publicized rescue and repatriation of 350 migrants to Port-au-Prince, Haiti; the largest Coast Guard migrant case in 2001. He then reported to Washington, D.C. to serve as the Press Secretary for the Commandant of the Coast Guard. Following this, Fitzgerald returned to sea again as the Commanding Officer of the USCGC Confidence. On board Confidence, Fitzgerald played an integral part in the Hurricane Katrina disaster relief effort. He safely navigated Confidence through Hurricane Katrina after rescuing 20 migrants. Confidence was the second major vessel to reach the Gulf Coast after Katrina made landfall restoring operational capability to Coast Guard Station Pascagoula, Mississippi. The ship distributed two tons of relief supplies and served as the command and control platform for all state and federal response assets at the mouth of the Mississippi River which was instrumental in re-establishing commerce flow in the central United States. During his tour as Commanding Officer, Confidence played a key role in a multi-unit, joint inter-agency counter-drug effort resulting in the seizure of 2,000 pounds of cocaine. In two years on board Confidence, the ship safely interdicted, rescued and/or processed over 1,200 illegal migrants from Haiti, Cuba and the Dominican Republic.
