Directory

Professor Tom Lennon is a member of the Emergency Management and Homeland Security Department at Mass Maritime. He joined the faculty in 2010 after serving on active duty with the U. S. Navy and Coast Guard for 25 years. His areas of emphasis include international relief and maritime security. Professor Lennon has developed several international education programs and exchanges for Mass Maritime including programs in Haiti, Guatemala, and Denmark.  Professor Lennon’s military assignments included positions supporting Coast Guard and Department of Defense operations and missions worldwide including two deployments to the Middle East. Professor Lennon also held faculty positions and/or senior leadership positions at the United States Coast Guard Academy, at the Naval Justice School, and with the Defense Institute of International Legal Studies. He also served as adjunct faculty at the Naval War College, and has lectured at institutions and at conferences throughout the world including South America, Asia, Africa and Europe.

Rear Admiral Francis X. McDonald, USMS, is the President of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, one of six state maritime academies in the country.  Founded in 1891, the Academy has been training business leaders, ship captains, engineers, and professional officers in the 19^th, 20^th, and now the 21^st century.  Offering seven undergraduate and three graduate majors, the Academy is one of two “special mission” public universities in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.                                                          

Upon graduation from the Academy in 1985, McDonald pursued an engineering career and earned a Master of Science in Management from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.  He returned to his alma mater in 1995 to serve as Director of Cooperative Education, a role in which he developed and implemented the cooperative education program and dramatically increased placement rates for undergraduate interns and graduating seniors.  Appointed as Dean of Enrollment Management in 1999, he led the rebranding of the Academy which resulted in a dramatic increase in numbers and diversity of incoming freshmen.  He has since served as Vice President for Operations, heading up a major campus building expansion, and as Executive Vice President.  President McDonald holds a Doctor of Law and Policy from Northeastern University and has served as an adjunct professor in the Academy’s emergency management graduate program.  He assumed the role of President in August 2015 following unanimous votes of the MMA Board of Trustees and the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education, with the rank of Rear Admiral conferred by the U.S. Maritime Administrator. President McDonald is active in or has served on several community and professional organizations including the Governor’s STEM Advisory Council, Cape Cod Canal Region Chamber of Commerce, Barnstable School Committee,  Sturgis Charter School, Cape Cod Collaborative, and the Marine Society at Salem. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, President McDonald now resides in Marstons Mills with his wife Beth and their two children Kathryn and Harrison.

• Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Loyola University, New Orleans
• Master of Science and Ph.D. in Emergency Management from North Dakota State University
• Dr. Samantha Montano is currently an assistant professor of Emergency Management at the Academy. Montano does research on a variety of topics related to emergency management including disaster volunteerism, the role of the nonprofit sector in disaster, the relationship between emergency management and climate change, and the intersection of gender and disasters. In addition to research, she does science communication work and emergency management policy advocacy. 
• Current courses: Introduction to Emergency Management and Consequence Management