Rear Admiral Samuel P. DeBow Jr. was born in Philadelphia in 1953.  He earned his B.S. degree in Commerce and Engineering from Drexel University.  When RADM DeBow graduated in 1976, he became a commissioned officer in the NOAA Corps.  Sam earned his M.S. in Hydrographic Sciences from the Naval Postgraduate School, and was also a Senior Executive Fellow at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.  RADM DeBow served almost 30 years as an active-duty officer and is the prior Director of the NOAA Commissioned Corps and the NOAA Office of Marine and Aviation Operations. He served aboard several NOAA hydrographic survey and mapping ships and mobile units that acquired data to update US nautical charts. His last sea tour was commanding officer of the NOAA Ship RUDE; under his direction, RUDE located the wreckage of TWA Flight 800 within 24 hours after the jet’s disastrous crash in 1996. RADM DeBow retired from the NOAA Corps in 2007 and, in 2008, became the Director of the Center of Excellence for Research on Offshore Renewable Energy at the University of Rhode Island, Graduate School of Oceanography (URI-GSO). This work effort has enabled Rhode Island to become the first state to install the first operational offshore turbines producing wind power in U.S. waters in 2016.  He currently serves as Vice President of Lynker Technologies, LLC.