For decades Kings Pointers considered Richard R. McNulty the “Father of the United States Merchant Marine Academy” – a designation made official in 1976 by the Department of Commerce. Upon his death in 1980, he concurrently held the rank of Rear Admiral in the United States Naval Reserve and Vice Admiral in the United States Maritime Service; his official portrait found in Wiley Hall at the United States Merchant Marine Academy has him wearing the uniform of Commodore, United States Navy – a rank he attained in 1945, the year before his assumption of the rôle of Superintendent of the Academy on April 1, 1946, and from which he stepped down from on April 1, 1948.
Retired Navy Rear Adm. Richard Robert McNulty, 81, a former superintendent of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy who later taught at Georgetown University, died Saturday in a retirement home in Gloucester, Mass. He had arteriosclerosis.
Obit: “R. R. McNulty, Founder of Academy, Dies.” Washington Post, November 11, 1980.
A Navy historical publication states that Adm. McNulty generally is accepted as the founder of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. It says that when he retired in 1953 he was the only officer to hold the rank of rear admiral in both the U.S. Maritime Service and the U.S. Naval Reserve.
He was a native of Gloucester and joined the Naval Reserve after graduating from the Massachusetts Nautical School in 1919. He came to Washington in the early 1920s and graduated from the Foreign Service School at Georgetown University. He worked for the Navy’s Hydrographic Office and with the U.S. Shipping Board’s Bureau of Research. He also worked for a New York shipping line before being called to active duty in the Navy during World War II.
In the war, he earned the Legion of Merit as supervisor of the U.S. Merchant Marine Cadet Corps. He was superintendent of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, N.Y., from 1946 to [1948].
He then joined the staff of Georgetown University as director of the international transportation program in the Foreign Service School. He held this post for nine years before retiring.
He lived in Bethesda before returning to New England in 1973. His wife, the former Sue Alice Collins, died in 1969. Adm. McNulty’s survivors include a brother and two sisters, all of Gloucester.
Third Superintendent of the United States Merchant Marine Academy
1946-48
“Father of the Academy”
Col.: AMMM (Wiley Hall)
mcnulty ephemera
Tucked away in an archival box on a section of the campus that bears his name are pieces of ephemera that throw some color on the life of a man who eschewed the spotlight; all were undoubtedly once found in frames in his office. Sadly, someone defaced many of the documents with a red ballpoint pen.
Col.: AMMM
