Vice Admiral (Ret) William "Dean" Lee
U.S. Coast Guard
Vice Admiral William “Dean” Lee entered the U.S. Coast Guard in 1981 and retired in 2016 after serving nearly 36 years as a commissioned officer in various assignments along the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf Coasts. He concluded his career as Commander, Atlantic Area, serving as the operational commander for a force of 21,000 active personnel conducting all U.S. Coast Guard missions from the Rocky
Mountains to the Arabian Gulf, spanning across five Coast Guard Districts and 40 states.
VADM Lee concurrently served as Commander, Defense Force East, and also as Director, Joint Task Force East, responsible for the Department of Homeland Security’s joint interagency maritime Counter Narcotics and Alien Migration missions. In total, Admiral Lee served fourteen tours of duty, commanding seven of them.
Vice Admiral Lee is currently a senior fellow at the Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk VA. He has lectured around the nation in multiple Corporate, Educational, and Government venues including organizations such as the U.S. Air Force Air University, Defense Intelligence Agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, University of South Alabama, University of Maryland, and George Washington University, among many others.
As a private consultant who specializes in Corporate Leadership Development, he routinely speaks at seminars on the topics of leadership, ethics, and character development. He is on the Board of Directors for SAFEBOAT International, and was recently selected by the Heritage Foundation as a member of their Military Advisory Panel.
Vice Admiral Lee’s most passionate and self-satisfying work is as a board member with HARP, a non-profit program designed to help victims recover from the ravages of drug addiction brought on by the current OPIOD/Fentanyl epidemic. He generally spends one day per week in jail working with incarcerated addicts.
Vice Admiral Lee is a native of Richmond, Virginia. He holds a Master’s Degree from George Washington University, and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of South Alabama. He and his wife Mary have 2 grown children, and 5 grandchildren.