Distinguished Alumnus 2010

CAPT Lawson W. Brigham, USCG (Ret), '70

Captain Brigham graduated from the Academy in 1970 with the highest academic standing in the marine science program. He reported to the Coast Guard Cutter Rockaway and this was followed by his assignment to the Coast Guard Cutter Point Steele as the Commanding Officer. He received a Master of Science degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute before reporting to the Academy in 1974 to teach courses in chemistry and oceanography. During this assignment, he was the Academy Head Sailing Coach as a volunteer collateral duty.

Following his academy tour, then LCDR Brigham was selected as the commissioning commanding officer for the Coast Guard Cutter Mobile Bay, an Ice Breaking Tug home ported in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin from 1978-1981. He then spent one year at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island where he graduated with honors in Naval and Strategic Studies. This helped prepare him for a four year tour in Coast Guard Headquarters first as the Assistant Ice Operations Division and later as the Coast Guard Liaison Officer to the Chief of Naval Operations. During this time, he sailed aboard Russian, Finnish and Swedish icebreakers, provided polar operations briefings to the highest levels of US maritime agencies, led the installation of the world’s first real time satellite imagery receiver aboard a polar ice breaker and was selected for early promotion to Commander.

He then received orders to his third afloat command, commissioning commanding officer of the Coast Guard Cutter Escanaba home ported in Boston, Massachusetts. Following this assignment, Commander Brigham was a Research Fellow at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution where he worked with federal and academic specialists in analyzing emerging developments in the Soviet/Russian Arctic. He was the first US military officer to speak at USSR research institutions in nearly four decades in both Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Commander Brigham also conducted Arctic sea ice and transportation research aboard a Canadian icebreaker in the Northwest Passage.

His final active duty assignment was as Commanding Officer of the Coast Guard Icebreaker Polar Sea from 1993-1995. During that time, Polar Sea was called upon to conduct interdisciplinary science expeditions during two Arctic and two Antarctic deployments. In 1994, Polar Sea was the first US surface ship in history to reach the North Pole. That same year, the ship navigated further south in Antarctica than any ship in known history to that time. For having commanded Polar Sea to the limits of the global ocean, Captain Brigham became one of only 76 individuals to sign the American Geographical Society’s Fliers’ & Explorers Globe joining his personal signature to that of Sir Edmund Hillary, Neal Armstrong, Amelia Earhart and others.

During the mid to late 90’s, Captain Brigham was a Research Associate and Student at the Scott Polar Institute, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom where he earned his doctorate in Polar Oceanography. During this time he also held the Office of Naval Research Arctic Chair at the Naval Postgraduate School Monterey, California. He taught graduate courses in satellite remote sensing and Arctic/Antarctic oceanography while focusing research on climate change and Arctic sea ice studies in the Eurasian Arctic.

From 2001 to 2009, Dr. Brigham was appointed Deputy Director and Alaska office director of the US Arctic Research Commission, a body of the US government providing scientific information and advice to the Executive and Legislative Branches. For several years during this time, he served on invitation on the Arctic Council, a high level intergovernmental forum which provides a means for promoting cooperation, coordination and interaction among the Arctic states. Dr Brigham recently chaired a research team of Council members that published a shipping assessment document of nearly 200 pages that was published in April 2009. Shortly thereafter, he accepted a full professorship at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks where he presently serves as the Distinguished Professor of Geography and the Arctic.