Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz Leadership Award

Commander Eugene N Tulich, USCG (Ret)

Receives the Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz Leadership Award

The Texas Commandery of the Naval Order of the United States honored Commander Eugene “Gene” Tulich with its 2021 Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz Leadership award.  The award was presented at the 2022 Annual Banquet, held in Houston on February 19.

The Fleet Admiral Nimitz Leadership award is awarded to a person who has served in the sea services and who has demonstrated outstanding qualities of leadership such as those of Admiral Nimitz.  The first recipient of the 36 annual awards was the Honorable John F. Lehman, former Secretary of the Navy. 

Commander Tulich is the Chairman of the Houston Military Affairs Committee where he advocates for and supports the military and veterans in the Houston area.  He is Vice Chairman of the Ellington Field Task Force and was involved in the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Commission which resulted in the formation of Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base to include four DoD services along with Coast Guard Air Station Houston and Sector Houston-Galveston.  He is a former Commissioner of the Texas Military Preparedness Commission which advises the Governor on military matters.  He represents the Houston area with the Association of Defense Communities, as well as representing the military at the Greater Houston Partnership. Commander Tulich serves on Senator John Cornyn’s Academy Selection Committee.

Commander Tulich’s Coast Guard career included two tours of duty in Vietnam serving in the Cutters CAMPBELL and MORGENTHAU.  He led several projects while assigned to Headquarters. He was the project officer to establish Reserve and Auxiliary Stations on the Great Lakes that continues 50 years later as the largest Reserve training program.  He was assigned to start the national Drug Interdiction program which is now the largest budget item in the Coast Guard.  While doing the drug interdiction program he took it upon himself to create the Maritime Law Enforcement School which is now a an internationally renowned Academy of 211 personnel.  While assigned to Coast Guard Pacific Area he organized Pacific Area Intelligence and an intelligence center which now has 110 personnel with Hawaii and Japan subunits.  He was also the N2 for US Maritime Defense Zone Pacific. Other assignments were Rescue Coordination Center New York, 11th Coast Guard District in Long Beach, and Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force in Houston.

Commander Tulich wrote the first Coast Guard Historical Monograph “The Coast Guard in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam Conflict.” 

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