Rear Admiral Richard A. Appelbaum, USCG (ret)

Previous Experience

• Commander, Eleventh Coast Guard District headquartered in Long Beach, California
• Commander, Ninth Coast Guard District, headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio
• Chief of the Office of Navigation Safety and Waterway Services
• Chief of the Office of Law Enforcement and Defense Operations (now titled Deputy Assistant Commandant for Operations), with responsibility for every major operational program of the Coast Guard

Spectrum Experience

• Coast Guard
• Logistics
• Bio-Science and Health

Biography

Rear Admiral Richard A. Appelbaum served thirty-five years of active duty in the U.S. Coast Guard in shipboard and shore-based operational and administrative assignments, including command at sea and four positions within the field of law. At the time of his retirement from the Coast Guard, he was the sixth highest-ranking officer in that organization of nearly 90,000 active, civilian, reservist and volunteer members.

Since retirement, Admiral Appelbaum concurrently: (1) has been of counsel to a West Coast maritime and securities law firm; (2) has been the Vice President for Maritime Programs for a domestic and international defense and security contractor; (3) has been an Associate at a firm providing general consultative services to a broad spectrum of clients; (4) has provided business development services for several start-up companies; and (5) has consulted privately for individuals and corporations. 

He developed service-wide organizational redesign and process improvement. Examples include institutionalization of doctrine to capture benefits of experience and experimentation; restructuring of the service defense operations niche; incorporation of mission analysis for capital resource design; and development of an Incident Command System for a broad spectrum of interservice, interagency, and industry partnering activities and operations.

Admiral Appelbaum created the National Pollution Funds Center. He was responsible for designing the governing organization and managing the billion-dollar Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which was established by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. Admiral Appelbaum promulgated the regulations to initiate the Center's handling of liability and compensation issues involved in marine pollution. He implemented a unique case management process to provide optimal customer service in this new, challenging field.

Education

Admiral Appelbaum has a B.S. in Engineering with honors from the U. S. Coast Guard Academy and a Juris Doctor degree with honors from George Washington University (National Law Center).