Rear Admiral David R. Callahan
Acting Director of Reserve & Leadership
United States Coast Guard
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Rear Admiral David R. Callahan currently serves as Director of Reserve and Leadership. He is responsible for developing policies to recruit, train and support approximately 8,100 Coast Guard Reservists. He also serves as a member of the Coast Guard Academy Board of Trustees and chairs the Commandant's Leadership Advisory Council. Rear Admiral Callahan is a Coast Guard aviator with 25 years of military flying experience and over 5,000 hours of military and civil fixed and rotary wing flight time. He commanded two Coast Guard Air Stations, to include Air Station New Orleans, the Coast Guard's busiest all-helicopter Air Station, and the Coast Guard Aviation Training Center. Over the span of his career he served in the Atlantic, Pacific, Great Lakes, and Gulf Coast theaters of operation including Alaska. He led Coast Guardsmen in executing all eleven of the Coast Guard's statutory missions, to include search and rescue and drug and alien migrant interdiction.
As Commanding Officer of the Coast Guard Aviation Training Center in Mobile, AL, his unit served as the aviation operations and maintenance hub for the entire Hurricane Katrina response. His command became the largest operational air station in U.S. Coast Guard history, and played a key role in the Coast Guard's rescue of over 30,000 people in Mississippi and Louisiana.
In addition to his operational tours of duty, Rear Admiral Callahan served as Coast Guard Liaison to NATO staff, Allied Forces Southern Europe, Naples, Italy, during the Bosnian conflict. He also served as Chief of Staff for the Ninth Coast Guard District, overseeing all Coast Guard activities in the eight state Great Lakes region, and most recently served as Executive Assistant to the Commandant in Coast Guard Headquarters, Washington D.C.
A native of Littleton, Colorado, Rear Admiral Callahan graduated from the United States Coast Guard Academy in 1982 and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Management, a Masters degree in National Security Studies, and is a 2005 graduate of the Air War College. Rear Admiral Callahan's personal awards include three Legion of Merit Medals, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, two Meritorious Service Medals, and four Coast Guard Commendation Medals.
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