New London, Conn. — Dr. Rich Morales was recognized as a newly appointed civilian aide to Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth during a ceremony at the Pentagon recently. Morales serves as the Leader in Residence at the Admiral James M. Loy Institute for Leadership (Loy IFL) supporting leader development at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.
Civilian Aides to the Secretary of the Army (CASA) are business and community leaders appointed by the Secretary to advise and support Army leaders across the country. Civilian aides are sworn in with a 3-star protocol status and agree to serve as representatives of the Secretary of the Army without salary. Each state, the District of Columbia and the five U.S. territories have one or more CASAs. “Our CASAs are instrumental in building and maintaining relationships between the Army and communities across the country said Secretary Wormuth. “The work they do is critically important, especially in our efforts to spread the Army story and recruit the next generation of soldiers.”
Morales, who served in the U.S. Army for three decades, represents the state of Rhode Island where he and his family reside. A retired brigadier general and Purple Heart recipient, Morales led a Gulf War tank platoon, UN peacekeepers, a task force in Baghdad, and an ROTC brigade supporting 97 universities. He chaired the Department of Systems Engineering at the U.S. Military Academy, was aide to the head of NASA, and served on two White House staffs. Morales studied aerospace engineering at West Point, systems dynamics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, security studies at the Naval War College, and strategy at the National Defense University. He also earned an MBA from Yale, a PhD from Cambridge University, and is a Harvard Kennedy School senior executive fellow.
The Leader in Residence at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy works to supplement the leadership experience for cadets. They accomplish this by conducting leader assessment initiatives, providing leadership program development and evaluation, teaching leadership theory, managing and conducting research, and publishing scholarly articles on leadership.
Morales said the CASA position is, “very much aligned with Loy Institute for Leadership's goals and is yet another opportunity to continue to share our story and the development that happens in New London with other services across government, industry, and academia. I am honored to connect our community, state and national initiatives, research expertise, and technology needs to support people, institutions, and innovation here at our nation's Coast Guard Academy,” he said.
“My goal is to engage institutional and external stakeholders to shine a light on this great institution and its graduates. Recently, the Coast Guard Academy was recognized by the Carnegie Classification for Public Purpose, which has allowed us to join a handful of nationally recognized institutions for enhancing their institution's learning, teaching, and research mission,” Morales said. “Echoing the Carnegie vision, I plan to continue to foster public scholarly understanding of leadership as a public good, develop and improve leader development systems, reinforce best practices, and support my teammates by preparing students for lives of in public leadership for public purpose.”
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