Captain Amilynn E. Adams, NOAA
Director, NOAA Commissioned Personnel Center
Captain Adams serves as the Director of NOAA's Commissioned Personnel Center. As Director, she is responsible for maintaining discipline, readiness, good order and morale of the NOAA Corps by administering the entire spectrum of uniformed service workforce management functions, from recruitment and accession to separation and retirement, and everything in between. She previously served as the NOAA Liaison Officer to the United States Coast Guard.
Captain Adams earned her undergraduate education at Millersville University of Pennsylvania and graduated in 1993 with a Bachelor of Science in oceanography and biology. She was honored as the inaugural recipient of the Paul H. Nichols Scholarship award for motivation and academic excellence. Shortly after graduation she applied for and received a commission as an ensign in the NOAA Corps.
Captain Adams has proudly served NOAA and the Nation for over 22 years while accumulating nearly 13 years of NOAA sea time, with many more years of maritime experience gained prior to NOAA in the small boat livery, marine salvage, and assistance towing industries operating from the port of Barnegat Light, New Jersey. Her previous commands include the NOAA Fisheries Research Vessel Gloria Michelle and NOAA Ships Oregon II and Pisces. A hawse pipe sailor, she has sailed the waters of the North Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, Northern and Tropical Pacific and the frozen Chukchi and Beaufort Seas.
She has received numerous awards for superlative performance of duty throughout her career. Notable citations include: a NOAA Corps Commendation Medal and a NOAA Unit Citation awarded for outstanding leadership and service to the community, respectively, in the aftermath and recovery from the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina; a NOAA Corps Commendation Medal for superlative performance of duty in support of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill response while serving as Commanding Officer of NOAA Ship Pisces; a Coast Guard Meritorious Team Award for her endeavors to develop and negotiate the terms of an interagency agreement which established the NOAA Corps Officer Training Center at the Coast Guard's Officer Candidate School; a NOAA Corps Meritorious Service Medal for superlative performance of duty while assigned as NOAA Liaison to the USCG; and a NOAA Administrator's Award Medal for successfully leading the initiative to award posthumous Purple Heart Medals to four U.S. Weather Bureau personnel killed in action aboard the USCG Cutter MUSKEGET in the Battle of the Atlantic during World War II.
