News

The Washington Post ran a timely op-ed by Stephen Flynn calling for a national shipbuilding revival. The USMMA Alumni Association & Foundation, Inc. President/CEO Capt. James F. Tobin followed up with a letter to the editor to make sure two critical points didn’t get lost: we can’t activate a rebuilt fleet without enough Merchant Marine Officers to command them and we can’t execute a military sealift without enough service-obligated Merchant Marine Officers to sail into contested waters. He also pointed out the vast majority of  this cohort are USMMA graduates, who’ve received their training on a campus largely unchanged since its founding in 1943.

In Washington, there’s growing recognition that the nation is woefully unprepared for a major conflict and that our military sealift is not where it should be. Congress is getting serious through bipartisan legislation like the SHIPS for America Act, and the White House has put maritime dominance back on the national security agenda through executive action.

The Department of Transportation––which oversees USMMA––is advancing a comprehensive Campus Modernization Plan that will bring Kings Point’s 1940s-era infrastructure into the 21st century. This is the kind of alignment needed: Congress, the Administration, and DOT all pulling in the same direction to strengthen the maritime industrial base and the human base––especially the licensed, militarily-obligated Merchant Marine Officers USMMA produces who will carry the load when it matters most.