Fort Schuyler Maritime Alumni Association News

RADM Michael Alfultis announced he will retire in 2024 after nearly a decade as president of SUNY Maritime College and more than 30 years in higher education.When RADM Alfultis was appointed Maritime College president in 2014, he immediately focused on two priorities for the college: the replacement of the training ship Empire State and the formal reconciliation with the Fort Schuyler Maritime Alumni Association. Within three years, a formal SUNY-approved Memorandum of Agreement was signed between Maritime College and the Maritime College Alumni Association.

On December 21, Rear Admiral Michael Alfultis, president of SUNY Maritime, signed two agreements setting SUNY Maritime College on a new course for success. The College and the Fort Schuyler Maritime Alumni Association are now partners for the benefit of the College, its students and its alumni. On the same day, the SUNY Maritime Foundation was launched publicly to support the College’s strategic initiatives, to expand its reach and to support its goal of developing additional resources.

State University of New York Maritime College (SUNY Maritime) announced several scholarship availabilities. The Fort Schuyler Maritime Alumni Association, Inc. (FSMAA) is offering $3,000 scholarships to First Class Cadets making both cruises and $1,500 scholarships for Second Class Cadets making one cruise during 2014 Summer Sea Term (SST). Two additional scholarships will be awarded for the full amount of the Summer Sea Term (approximately $8,200 each) to one engine and one deck cadet making First Class Summer Sea Term. The two full 1/c scholarships are given in the name of Prof. Edward F.

In 1912, following several financially difficult years for the New York Nautical School, America’s first Maritime Academy, founded 1874, the New York City Board of Education, the school's steward since its inception, had had enough and decided to throw in the towel. The Board of Education moved to petition the New York State Government for permission to abandon its unusual school and return the training ship, the auxiliary sailing gunboat, USS Newport, to the Navy. Consequently, at the beginning of 1913, the school’s Alumni Association, which had been in existence for ten years, stepped in. A coalition of interests supporting the school was assembled by the Alumni Association.

The Fort Schuyler Maritime Alumni Association is proud to announce it will honor John M. Ringelberg PE as Distinguished Alumnus of the year at its bi-annual Awards Dinner on Thursday, Janaury 26, 2012 at Bridgewaters in NYC. Captain Jack Ringelberg is currently CEO of JMS Naval Architects & Salvage Engineers, Mystic CT, which is the parent company of Divers Institute of Technology (DIT), a commercial diving school in Seattle, Washington. He is also President and CEO of the Ocean Technology Foundation a non-profit undersea research and exploration organization…