Commissioners
Vice Admiral Paul Gaffney II, U.S. Navy, (Retired) is the president of Monmouth University in West Long Branch, NJ. He is the current chair of the Ocean Research and Resources Advisory Panel, an advisory committee under the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) mandated by the Bush Administration’s Ocean Action Plan. He served as the tenth president of the National Defense University from 2000 to 2003 and before that as chief of naval research. He also was the senior uniformed oceanography specialist in the Navy, having served as commander of the Navy Meteorology and Oceanography Command from 1994 to 1997. Admiral Gaffney has been awarded a number of military decorations, as well as the Naval War College’s J. William Middendorf Prize for Strategic Research, the Outstanding Public Service Award from the Virginia Research and Technology Consortium, and the Potomac Institute’s Navigator Award. He has served on several boards of higher education, was a member of the Ocean Studies Board of the National Research Council, and has been selected to be a Public Trustee of the New Jersey Marine Sciences Consortium. Admiral Gaffney graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1968 and holds a master’s degree in mechanical engineering (ocean) from Catholic University and a master’s of business administration from Jacksonville University. He has received honorary doctorates from the University of South Carolina, Catholic University, and Jacksonville University. Before serving on the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative Admiral Gaffney was a commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy.
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