Converse Alumna Named Commanding Officer at U.S. Coast Guard Marine Safety Office
The United States Coast Guard has appointed Captain Jane E. Hartley, a Converse College alumna, to the position of Commanding Officer of the Coast Guard Marine Safety Office in Wilmington, N.C.
Captain Hartley, a native of Mt. Dora, Fla., graduated from Converse in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree in biology. She went on to earn her master’s degree in environmental sciences and engineering from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
As she begins her new post, Captain Hartley says that her Converse experience enabled her to develop the tools needed for a career marked with success. “Converse gave me a broad yet solid education,” she says. “Because of the small class sizes, many of the laboratory experiments were ‘hands-on.’ It was during this time that I really began to understand the proper way to assess information and be flexible in many areas.”
In 1978, Captain Hartley was commissioned into the Coast Guard Reserve and assigned to the Coast Guard Reserve Unit Elizabeth City, N. C. In 1980 she was appointed the unit’s Commanding Officer, the first woman to have a command in the Fifth Coast Guard District. In 1984 Captain Hartley began her active duty career at the Marine Safety Office in Wilmington, followed by her assignment to the Office of Health and Human Services at Coast Guard Headquarters, Washington, D.C. In 1985, she was assigned to Marine Safety Office Puget Sound in Seattle, Washington and served as both the Chief of Environmental Response and Chief of Port Safety and Security. In 1988 she was transferred to the Thirteenth Coast Guard District Office in Seattle, Washington to serve as Chief of Reserve Training.
Following her tours in Seattle, Captain Hartley was assigned to the Second Coast Guard District to head one of the newly formed District Response Assist Teams. There she coordinated pollution response training for all units in a 22-state region and assisted in response efforts to the Mid-west floods of 1993 and 1995. She next served as Executive Officer at Marine Safety Office Duluth, Minn. until her reassignment to Coast Guard Headquarters in 1997 where she worked in the Reserve Policy Development Division.
Captain Hartley’s personal awards include: Coast Guard Commendation Medal (two awards), Coast Guard Achievement Medal, Commandant’s Letter of Commendation, and the Armed Forces Reserve Medal (two awards).