Captain Kurt A. Zegowitz
Performing the duties of the Deputy Assistant Administrator for Programs and Administration NOAA Marine and Aviation Operations
Capt. Kurt Zegowitz is currently performing the duties of the Deputy Assistant Administrator for Programs and Administration for NOAA Marine and Aviation Operations. In this position, he is responsible for resource management, strategic planning, organizational performance management and platform and infrastructure acquisitions.
Prior to this role, Capt. Zegowitz served for two years as Executive Officer for NOAA Fisheries, supporting the Deputy Assistant Administrator for Operations and the Director of Scientific Programs and Chief Science Advisor with the management of the agency and its missions. Before his NOAA Fisheries assignment, he was the Director of the NOAA Marine and Aviation Operations Training Division where he developed, managed and maintained workforce training initiatives and requirements across the workforce including civilian employees, professional mariners and NOAA Corps officers.
Capt. Zegowitz previously served as NOAA Liaison to the U.S. Coast Guard, assigned to Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington D.C. from 2018-2020 where he supported NOAA and Coast Guard leadership, facilitating partnership between the two agencies. Prior to that, he was the Commanding Officer of the NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown, NOAA’s largest ship and only global oceanographic research vessel, homeported in Charleston, South Carolina. Capt. Zegowitz led the Brown on projects in the Pacific on the west coast of South America, the Gulf of America and Atlantic, and into the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea; including port calls in Chile, Panama, South Africa, the Seychelles and India.
Additional operational tours include Commanding Officer of the NOAA Ship Henry B. Bigelow, a NOAA Fisheries research vessel out of Newport, Rhode Island; Executive Officer of the Albatross IV in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.; Executive Officer of the John N. Cobb in Seattle, Washington and Navigation Officer of the Townsend Cromwell in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Shoreside tours have included Chief of the Officer Career Management Division at the NOAA Corps Commissioned Personnel Center in Silver Spring, Maryland and NOAA Liaison to the Oceanographer of the Navy at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.
Capt. Zegowitz is a native of Silver Spring, Maryland and a 1994 graduate of Texas A&M University-Galveston with a Bachelor of Science degree in Marine Science and a U.S. Coast Guard Third Mate license, Unlimited Tonnage. He was commissioned as an officer in the NOAA Corps in October 1994.
Capt. Zegowitz is married to Jacy (Bailey) Zegowitz of Southlake, Texas. They reside in Crofton, Maryland with their four children.
United States